Last call - tomorrow's webinar on remote working

Just a quick note about tomorrow's Focus.com webinar about getting more productivity from remote workers. I'll be presenting along with Polycom - my perspective will be about the trends and drivers around remote working, and they'll focus more on video-based applications as an enabler. It's not too late to register, and the details are here. Hope you can join us!

Getting More From Remote Workers - Focus Webinar with Polycom

Just getting the word out about my next webinar with Focus.com. I'll be presenting along with Polycom on the topic of remote workers. This is a big trend that I write about from time to time, and it's worthwhile for employers so long as remote workers have the right tools to be productive. There are many ways to do this - and we'll be examining that during the webinar, and of course, Polycom will have their spin on things as well.

The webinar takes place Wednesday, September 14 at 1pm EST, and I hope you'll join us. All the registration details and the full webinar abstract are here on the Focus.com website.

Focus.com Webinar - AT&T, Avaya and Me...

Just a shout-out for the latest Focus.com webinar. It's this Thursday, June 9, at 1pm EST - and of course, is free to take part in. Titled "The Road to Cutting Edge, Effective and Revenue-Enhancing Communications", we'll be exploring challenges and opportunities facing enterprises, especially those with legacy PBX systems.

I'll be the lead presenter, and will be discussing the trends driving the changes that enterprises need to deal with sooner or later. Of course, the sponsors - AT&T and Avaya - will have their take on things, and on the whole, it should be time well spent. I hope you can join us, and all you need to do is register here.

Focus UC Guide Published Now

As you may know, I'm a regular contributor to Focus.com, and have been involved with a few of their buyer's guides. The latest one was a joint effort with fellow indie David Michels, and the focus is on Unified Communications. It's really a follow-on to the guide we recently wrote for enterprise telephony systems, which has been generating a lot of interest on Focus.com

With that said, the Focus Experts' 2011 Unified Communications Guide has just been published, and I think it's going to be pretty popular as well. To get it, you just need to register on the Focus.com site, and you'll have it right way. It's hot off the press - they don't say that so much any more, do they? - and you can get it here. Comments as always, are welcome!

New Focus Guide - Enterprise Phone Systems

Been busy on a few fronts, and that cuts into blogging/tweeting time. Lots of writing lately, and one of those efforts is now published. I've been contributing various things to Focus.com for almost a year now, and I'm the co-author of their latest guide.

The Enterprise Phone Systems Expert's Guide was just published, and as the title implies, it's intended to help buyers make informed decisions here. It's a short guide by design, but is one of their most popular resources. To get your copy, you just need to register here, and then it's yours.

Tru - Making Mobility More Affordable

My latest Brief is running now on Focus.com. It's based on Truphone - a company I've followed for some time, and a briefing I had with them last week about how/why they recently re-branded themselves as Tru.

From the beginning, they've been disrupting the status quo in mobility, and under the Tru moniker, they're taking this to a new level. I welcome you to read this Brief to get my thoughts on why they're doing this and what Tru brings to make life easier for SMBs and international travelers.

SMB Communications Trends for 2011 - Webinar with Panasonic

I'm doing another Focus.com webinar next week. This time it's with Panasonic, and I'll be presenting on five communications trends that will impact SMBs in 2011. Just finishing that up today, and we'll be doing the webinar next week - Wednesday, January 19 at 1pm EST.

You read more about the webinar and how to register here. Hope you can join us!

Happy 2011 - Back to Work

Welcome to 2011, and I hope your year is off to a great start!

I know I'm not the only one who dialed things down over the holiday, and it's been over two weeks since my last blog post. Been doing a lot of thinking over the break and will be narrowing my focus in 2011. I'll update you as things unfold, but for now I just wanted to recap my writings/musings/2011 outlook during the past while that haven't been cited here in my posts. In case you didn't see these, here they are...

- Focus Brief: 2011 – Two Key Telecom Trends for SMBs

- Focus Brief: Virtual Queuing – the End of Music on Hold?

- UCStrategies podcast: UCStrategies Experts Make UC Predictions for 2011

- Service Provider Views column: My Cisco Collaboration Summit Takeaways - Five Business Opportunities for Service Providers

Now you're up to date. Back to work...

Cisco Takeaways: Five Ways to Rethink Communications

I've been writing a fair bit about last week's Cisco Collaboration Summit, but that's because there's a lot to talk about. This time, I've channeled some new thoughts into my latest Focus Brief. The idea here is to summarize five themes that I believe business decision-makers need think more critically about, and for you to mull over during the Thanksgiving break.

Cisco is looking to play an even bigger role than most of you can imagine for our workplace needs, and if their plans come to fruition, these themes will become core drivers for communications planning at all levels. To follow my thinking, you can read my brief on Focus.com now, and then let me know if I'm on target or not.

How to Select an IP Telephony Vendor - Focus Brief

Anyone following me regularly knows that my writing sometimes comes in spurts, and today is a great example of that. I'm posting here about my latest Brief on Focus.com, with the topic being titled "Five Things You Should Look for With an IP Telephony Vendor".

In short, making buying decisions today around telephony is more complex than before, especially once you start thinking beyond voice and getting into the broader universe of IP communications. My Focus Brief isolates five factors you need to consider, and if you're in a buying mode for telephony, you might want to give this a read!

Focus Webinar with Panasonic - When it's Time for IP Telephony

Just another shout-out for this Wednesday's webinar - "Top 5 Signs an SMB is Ready for an IP Phone System". It's being sponsored by Panasonic, and hosted by Focus.com. I'll be the first presenter, examining various scenerios that lead businesses to adopt IP telephony.

I hope you can join us - just go to this page for more details and how to register.

BroadSoft Connections - Redefining Business Communications

The schedule didn't work for me to attend this year's BroadSoft Connections, but I was able to follow parts of the conference via streaming video. What I managed to see was very good, and this is one company that doesn't stand still. Of course, now that they're public, they definitely can't do that - way too many people are watching!

Anyhow, the innovation keeps coming, and with the launch of BroadCloud, they're keeping pace with this next evolution in communications - the shift to the cloud and hosted "infrastructure". They've come a long way from being an app server vendor, and made a great choice in having Toronto-based Don Tapscott do a keynote about the value of collaboration and how digital technologies are transforming virtually every type of industry and institution. He was his usual thought-provoking self, and gave the audience a lot to think about - and by association, how BroadSoft can help them stay on the right side of the innovation and value-creation curve.

I've distilled my thoughts into my latest Focus Brief, and it's running now on Focus.com. SMBs in particular can do well by BroadSoft, and your comments on the same are welcome - I'd especially like to hear from anyone attending Connections in person!

Focus.com Webinar - When it's Time for IP Telephony

I'm presenting on another Focus.com webinar on November 3. This one is sponsored by Panasonic, and is titled "Top 5 Signs an SMB is Ready for an IP Phone System".

That's pretty self-explanatory, and I'm looking forward to sharing my perspectives on this webinar. I'm just doing a shout-out now for the webinar, and I hope you can join us. You can get all the details here, including how to register.

Interactive Intelligence - Making the Cloud Work

Followers of my blog will know that I was at the Partner Conference for Interactive Intelligence last week. I've already shared some thoughts about it there, as well as on the UCStrategies portal.

I have two updates for you - one about the IP comms market, and one for fun. On the market side, I've just published an analysis of Interactive Intelligence, with a focus on CaaS - their cloud-based offering - and why this puts them ahead of the curve. The writeup takes the form of a Focus Brief, which is my monthly research contribution as an Adviser with Focus.com. You can read it here, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

On the fun side, you may know that our ad hoc group - Dead Circuits Revival - didn't win the Battle of the Bands last week. All things considered, though, I think we came off pretty well, and we've got a plan for how to win this thing next year. I just got some photos from our performance, and the video will be coming soon. Once I have that, I'll post these items for the record, and maybe you can judge for yourself!

Metaswitch - Key Takeaways for SMBs on Focus.com

My latest Brief is running now on Focus.com. Having attended the Metaswitch Forum last week, it struck me that many of the key themes they were sharing with their service provider customers also apply to their customers as well - which are mostly SMBs. That happens to be a sweet spot for Focus.com, so it only made sense to build a Brief around that.

Hopefully you'll see things the way I do, but the only way to find out is to read the Brief, and then let me know - or even better, share your thoughts to keep the dialog going.

Skype Connect - Making Strides for the Business Market

It's been a very busy couple of days in the world of Web-based communications. Between the news about Skype Connect and Google Voice, you'd think the world has moved away from landlines, especially in the home. Yesterday, I wrote about Google Voice on my Service Provider Views column, and that has all kinds of implications for both landline carriers as well as any form of Web-based VoIP offering.

Yesterday also saw a lot of activity around Skype Connect, which I think really moves them up the value chain in their quest to penetrate the business market. These developments are each of note in their own right, but it's interesting to see them coming at the same time. Google and Skype compete in some areas, but each also has its own distinct footprints elsewhere. In my latest Focus.com Brief, I explore Skype's news a bit further. There's certainly more to discuss, but this will have to do for now. You can read it here, and I welcome your comments to keep the dialog going.

Demystifying Unified Communications - Focus Webinar - Register Now

From time to time I get invited to participate in various industry webinars, and the latest one is a half day event on UC with Focus.com. They call these Interactive Summits, and I'll be kicking this one off with a keynote presentation on the UC landscape. Following that will be a series of more specific presentations on varous aspects of UC, and all segments include an interactive component for live Q&A. The other presentations will be given by other colleagues from UCStrategies, so this will be a great showcase for the UCS view of UC, and I'm glad to be a part of that.

A half day is lot of time to devote to a virtual event, but it's free, so you have nothing to lose, even if you dip in and out of the presentations. The webinar runs Thursday, September 16, starting at 11am EST. I'm just doing my part here to get the word out, and you can get more details about the content and how to register here. Hope you can join us!

Focus Brief - More Thoughts on ShoreTel

Blogging has been streaky for me lately. Was in the U.S. on project work the past few days, so am just catching up here on some things.

My latest Brief on Focus.com provided some additional thoughts on ShoreTel. I posted about them here during their analyst/partner event a couple of weeks ago, but wanted to add a bit more wearing my Focus.com hat. The Brief is running on their site, and you can read it here. As always, comments are welcome.

Why the Desk Phone will Disappear

That should get your attention, right? For some, this is inevitable - and for others, this may seem unthinkable. Well, read on, and make up your mind. Is the desk phone on the way out, or not going anywhere?

This is my latest Brief on Focus.com, and I hope you give it a read - then give us your thoughts. Thanks!

Back to Blogging - Ringio and the Cloud

Where does the time go? Sometimes you get heads-down busy with business development, fulfilling projects and a bit of travel. Then you realize things like blogging have gone quiet - well, that's the cycle I've been caught in lately. Have just come through an intense two week stretch like that, and am heads-up now to blog a bit.

First up will be a review I just wrote about Ringio, a pretty interesting company I briefed with the other day. I've been coming across a lot of cloud-based communications services recently, and this one is a great example of bringing a valuable application to SMBs that they really cannot get otherwise. Ringio's application is best thought of as intelligent Caller ID and CRM with some desktop collaboration.

These things are always best understood with a demo, but at least my writeup will serve as a starting point for you to learn more. It's running now on Focus.com, and you can read it here.