Users and vendors who depend on networking need to take some steps to establish the network as the framework of the "virtual data center" of the future.

The "mobile worker" that will drive communications isn't jaunting across the country and living out of a suitcase. It's somebody who left their desk to get a drink of water.

At a time when we need the very best project justifications and the best project management, we're apparently getting a lot less.

Of those C-level executives who thought UC was strategic, every one was involved in a UC project that totally bypassed current voice systems, vendors, and technology.

As applications and data become more hosted, it changes the nature of collaboration and even communication.

Risk-based justification is the only cloud computing value proposition that drives the enterprise into large-scale IT outsourcing eventually.

Service-sourcing uses a customizable or programmable platform on which applications can be quickly built.

UC vendors will need to adapt to the new model as fast as new wireless services roll out worldwide, or their role will be marginalized by 4G, smartphone, and netbook trends.

Only 21% said UC/UCC funding would be restored to full levels as a result of their spring review, and 12% said they were actually rethinking their whole UC/UCC strategy.

If you look deeper into what the developer program built around Wave is already starting to do, you find something truly different.

Current forces seem to create a world where hosted, cloud-based, or private service features could all be composed into a common structure

Any general cloud computing strategy could become a cloud UC strategy.

Cisco wants its "total addressable market" to be measured in the trillions of dollars, to create an ever-expanding set of new markets to enter and dominate.

If you try to pry out a real difference between UC and UCC, what you end up with is the obvious mission of collaboration.

Tech in general is underperforming, and has since the bursting of the bubble. The reason may be the biggest surprise of all.

Daidalos II is a project of the EU Framework Programme 6, and it's directed at creating advanced network interfaces for delivery and control of personal communications services across device and location boundaries.

The best approach overall might be to plan a transition to UC/UCC by starting with a hosted/managed approach on a limited scale, and as overall economic conditions improve, consider bringing elements of the solution in house.

There are opportunities here, a chance for a social network to step up and possibly, just possibly, become the framework of the next-generation public network. Or maybe Cisco will turn their social network assets into such a foundation?

You don’t have to be an economist to know that these are very troubling times, perhaps presenting the greatest economic risk since the age of the Great Depression. IT planners aren’t CFOs or policy-makers and so there’s relatively little they...

We’re in one of those times when the questions occupying the minds of executives undergo a radical change. Gone are questions like who will win what sporting event or maybe the next management golf tournament. In their place is “What’s...

There’s a lot of undefined and multiply-defined things in our industry, so picking on unified communications for lack of definitional rigor might be considered unfair. On the other hand, everyone seems to be waiting for UC to “take off” and...

Enterprise voice and unified communications planning has to consider an important reality: there are a lot more people outside the enterprise than inside, and those people include important customers and suppliers. Reaching those users demands reliance on public communications facilities,...

There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that the concepts of “software as a service” and “cloud computing” and network applications are all on a roll. There also seems to be at least some chance that the economic angst we’re...

Whenever economic issues threaten budgets, management looks at outsourcing to cover budget shortfalls. Networking in the US has long been dependent on in-house technology while in Europe, managed services have dominated. Given this, US executives are already looking harder at...

There’s something for everyone to love in today’s notion of videoconferencing, now renamed “telepresence”. You get rid of travel, which reduces energy consumption and global warming. You cut out all that time lost by key people sitting in airports. You...

When I surveyed top enterprise IT executives at the end of 2007, one of their primary complaints about the network budget process was that “my people want to buy gadgets and not support business requirements”. Overall, 88% of these senior...