Avaya's roadmap announcement for the newly-acquired Nortel's product set gives customers some vision into the future of their infrstructure, and you may have some time to make the transition. But the time to begin your transition planning is now.

The migration will take many years, possibly a decade or more to accomplish. There will be many problems that will tax the ILECs and cause financial distress.

Cisco has taken a positive step to make their voice and UC licensing simpler and easier to understand.

The pieces are coming together, the technology is real as is the value. Interoperable desktop video is the next UC game changer.

In a growing number of companies, IT is failing to market these cool, new IT applications and capabilities to their internal customers--the employees of the company.

What are desk phone makers to do? Change it up! The basic value proposition of the standard desktop phone must evolve.

SIP Trunk services are essential bridges in Unified Communications architectures, but provider offers vary widely. Offerings will continue to improve, but it's critical to make sure you understand what's on offer, and what you're getting.

Wireless is becoming critical to our business and personal lives and the protective barriers around the service do need to be questioned.

A little-known Nortel product may move to the fore in the SMB strategy; and Avaya buys time for the larger systems.

Business leaders have embraced IT as a vital part of the organization--one that must be involved in setting business strategy and determining how technology helps make the business run more efficiently.

Nortel's Meridian 1 successor, the CS 1000, will stay in the portfolio; the MCS 5100 UC offering will not.

The consultants gave thumbs up to Avaya and other leading vendors, thumbs down to CaaS, cloud and open source.

A look back at our most-read blogs and features of the year.

And that is: Competitive procurement processes where there is a real and tangible threat that your incumbent supplier will lose business.

Selecting the optimal enterprise communications system can have a far reaching effect on satisfying organizational goals and objectives.

TEM processes, services and software provide significant value, but the solutions are still far from perfect.

IP telephony offers new potential for benefits (and pitfalls) when you implement 911 service for your end users. Here are some tips to help you get it right.

Telecommunications consultants still play an important role in the market dynamic and will continue to do so for the near future.

Google is in the UC business today, and Google has a proven tendency to change the rules of a given sector with new capabilities and new pricing models.

Is Google a player in Unified Communications today? Yes. Will it be an even bigger player tomorrow? Very likely.

Not all these events seemed momentous when they occurred, but they all proved to be critical in shaping the first decade of the new century.

Fiber is delivering 100 Mbps to consumer, but most business professionals get a lot less. In most cases, that's OK. But the business case for fiber to corporate desks is built on OPEX savings.

The Smartphone Market in the Android Age:
If user-owned handsets are the future of enterprise use, that won't bode well for the future of the Blackberry.

It isn't "if" enterprise voice will use the cloud, but more appropriately "when" or "how." The result will be more innovation.

Few companies have the strategic vision or resources (human and financial) to execute a product/service launch on the scale Cisco has just executed.

Ongoing coverage of VoiceCon San Francisco 2009
WEDNESDAY HIGHLIGHTS
* Siemens' Straton on Nortel
* Polycom co-founder on "chameleon" devices (and Polycom's latest offering)
* VoiceCon TV: Watch live-streamed sessions and archived interviews and sessions
INFORMATION WEEK COVERAGE:
* Siemens Brings Twitter To OpenScape
* DAY TWO COVERAGE: Click here
* DAY ONE COVERAGE: Click here

Now that the fate of Nortel Enterprise is known, it's up to you to drive the fate of your Nortel-based infrastructure, as well as you communications future. A detailed, 13-step process can keep you in the driver's seat.

Eastern Management Group asked open source PBX customers about their decision-making. In Part 1 of a two-part article, we learn that most open source customers do consider multiple proprietary systems as alternative choices.

As the Session Initiation Protocol evolves, will it escape excessive complexity and live up to its promise?

RELATED CONTENT:

BLOGS:
Alan Percy: SIP Trunking: How Do You Get the Savings Without the Risk?
Sorell Slaymaker: VOIP/SIP Trunk Savings
Sorell Slaymaker: A SIP Gateway for Digital Handsets
Sorell Slaymaker: Evolution vs. Revolution in VoIP/SIP
Matt Brunk: SIP Trunking: Diverse Routing

VOICE CON WEBINARS:
Taking Advantage of SIP Trunking (October 14): On-demand replay
Ensuring High-Quality SIP Trunking: On-demand replay
Overcoming Technical Obstacles to SIP Trunking: On-demand replay
Lessons Learned: Real-World SIP Trunking Deployment: On-demand replay

VOICECON SF PREVIEW:
Fundamentals of SIP (David Bryan, Cogent Force): View SlideCast

Cabling infrastructures must change, and we must consider how we use cabling more effectively.

Will we see an Apple IP-PBX CPE or hosted, connected to the Apple cloud and then interacting with what we need to unify our communications?

A number of planning steps are essential for getting the full impact of an 802.11n implementation.

COMPLETE COVERAGE:
* Marty Parker: A UC Perspective on Cisco Acquisition of Tandberg
* Melanie Turek: Another Take on Cisco/Tandberg: It's Good for Polycom
* Eric Krapf: Wainhouse's Andrew Davis on Cisco-Tandberg
* Zeus Kerravala: Cisco Sees an Opportunity in Video, Acquires Tandberg
* John Bartlett: What Does Cisco's Acquisition of Tandberg Mean for Video Conferencing Standards?
* Irwin Lazar: Cisco Acquisition of Tandberg Signals Further Consolidation Ahead!
* Allan Sulkin: Cisco Acquires Tandberg, Changes Video Playing Field

Telecom savings aren't just about rates. Billing and payment terms matter.

Nortel Enterprise Solutions goes to Avaya for $900 million after weekend auction
Complete Coverage:
* Irwin Lazar Avaya and Nortel: Prelude to Further Consolidation?
* Allan Sulkin Avaya/Nortel Follow-up (With a Little Gloating)
* Eric Krapf The Nortel Auction Blow by Blow
* Reuters Court Rejects Verizon Challenge to Avaya Nortel Buy
* Sorell Slaymaker Avaya/Nortel Success Criteria for the Enterprise
* Ottawa Citizen Ottawa Citizen Reports on Avaya-Nortel
* Michael Finneran A Mobility Take on the Avaya-Nortel Combination
* Eric Krapf Avaya + Nortel: The Payback
* Allan Sulkin Questions re the Future of Nortel ES
* Sheila McGee-Smith Nortel's Post-Auction Briefing
* Eric Krapf Nortel Auction: Winners & Losers
* Press Release Nortel Announcement
* Eric Krapf Nortel: What I'm Watching For
* Eric Krapf Verizon Files Objection to Avaya-Nortel; Avaya Responds to Verizon Motion
* Allan Sulkin The Fate of the Nortel CLP
* Allan Sulkin Avaya/Nortel Combination Makes for Highly Concentrated Competitive Market Segment

Demand in North America rebounded during the second quarter, but total line station shipments for the first half of this year were still down about 25% year-over-year.

This offering potentially changes the rules of how services are charged, delivered, and bundled.

In the conclusion of a 2-part feature, we present factors #6-10 impacting the Unified Communications market.

In this article, the first 5 of 10 factors impacting the Unified Communications market

Repeat customers install open source PBX systems averaging 62 lines.

How will the new era be defined, what communications product/technology trends are reshaping the market, and who will be the market leaders (and market losers)?

The handwriting is on the wall, and rather than mourn the IP Phone, we should celebrate its short life.

One Finnish company is taking advantage of mobile Unified Communications systems for business.

Usually, "safe" means going with either the predominant incumbent vendor or the market share leader. In voice, Microsoft is neither; they're just the biggest software maker ever.

And next quarter's results may be even worse; we could see an unprecedented annual decline of line station shipments.

Technology upgrades, such as unified communication applications, need to be evaluated for their environmental impact as well as their productivity gains.

Without application assurance, enterprises have minimal or even zero visibility on the real-time performance of the applications that are running over the wide area network.

There are creative ways of cutting costs, and you can start using them now. Here are a few examples.