The following quadrants are specifically for corporate telephony vendors in the major markets of North America, APAC and EMEA.

What I find immediately interesting is the difference between the regions and vendor placements. Cisco, Avaya and Nortel are the only vendors to be in the magic quadrant (i.e. upper right quadrant) in all three regions.

Shortel, Toshiba, Vertical Communications, Sphere Communications, 3Com and Inter-Tel appear to have strengths in North America only with no representation (at least from Gartner’s perspective) in EMEA or APAC (I have actually seen Shortel starting a key push here in Europe).

Samsung, LG Electronics, Panasonic and Ericsson appear to have strengths in EMEA only (with the exception of Ericsson who also appears in APAC).

So do reports like Gartner’s really matter? Well they can’t hurt. An International firm deploying a global IP Telephony solution should probably think twice if considering a North America only vendor for example… this doesn’t mean to use Gartner’s information as gospel but you will only benefit by understanding the Gartner placement, or lack of placement!, for any vendors you are considering.

A specific example that I have personally been involved with is the implementation of an audio visual room control system. The above screen shot shows the interface. Users within this banking client could control everything from the lights, projector content source, and change channels on an IPTV enabled set-top box by using the touch screen on the phone.

The overall solution used products from Pivod (for the XML applications), Starbak (for the IPTV content delivery) and from AMX (the room control systems which were IP enabled).

The end result was a very slick room control system that utilised existing hardware (i.e the phone) as the interface. No more lost remote controls or separate touch panels to maintain.

There were challenges in implementing this project, all were primarily related to integrating the different products (Pivod, AMX, Starbak) to form one solution.

Other examples of XML applications include; world clock, weather forecast, stock ticker, room booking systems and hotel room service menus. For a video demo of a surveillance XML application follow this link to Cisco.com.

When Boingo began setting up hotspots in the 1990s, they probably thought they would become richer, faster, than they have. Free hotspots and new competitors have dampened those hopes - and eliminated competitors - but Boingo is still the largest hotspot roaming aggregator, totalling over 100,000 locations for laptops and mobile devices. The Boingo Unlimited plan costs US$21.95 a month for North America or US$39 for global unlimited access. The Boingo AsYouGo plan costs US$7.95 per 24-hour Connect Day. Boingo Mobile, for US$7.95, allows unlimited Wi-Fi access in more than 60 countries around the world.

Trustive claims to be Europe’s largest hotspot provider. Their network covers over 30,000 hotspots, connecting more than 60 European networks, including The Cloud, SFR, KPN Hotspots and Vodafone Italia, and provising service at all major airports in the European Union. Their unlimited usage service is €33 (US$48).

iPass offers a unified, secure login that makes it possible to safely connect to the corporate network (and to the Internet) in over 90 countries, from more than 90,000 Wi-Fi hotspot locations. Resellers of the iPass’s service in the US, including Sayers, iRoam Mobile Solutions, and Central House Internet, whose Individual Global Roaming Account has a US$10 setup fee, plus a US$8.95 monthly service charge, plus US$2.40 per minute. Their unlimited monthly plan for US customers costs US$58.00 per month. In the UK, iPass’s resellers include Azzurri Communications (£24.99/month), Boxing Orange, Inclarity, and Managed Security Solutions Ltd.

T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom, provides more than 45,000 hotspots worldwide. For US subscribers, that includes 7,897 T-Mobile HotSpot locations. But T-Mobile is part of the FreeMove alliance, along with Orange, TeliaSonera and Telecom Italia Mobile, so add another 37,000 roaming locations in 25 countries. But US subscribers have to pay roaming charges to use them. In the UK, T-Mobile’s 2,000 hotspots are located at major UK airports, Starbuck coffee shops, Texaco petrol stations, and Sheraton hotels. With a 12 month contract, you can get unlimited T-Mobile access for US$29.99 per month, but the price goes up if you travel outside the US.

Click on the following links for more information on the plans of AT&T, T-Mobile, BT and The Cloud.

Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007

Interoperable means two disparate platforms communicating via a common interface using standards based protocols. This is the minimum to expect from enterprise communications technologies. Platform that do not have interoperability abilities become standalone and with time show less and less business benefit.

The objective of integration is to make disparate platforms appear as one platform. With integration the result should be a combined platform more powerful than the parts. In general, integration insures advanced features that depend on proprietary signalling are transparent across the integrated platform.

It is a fact of technical development that advanced features start life as proprietary offerings before working their way (sometimes after many years) to standards based variants. As a result platforms that are only interoperable, and based on standards based communication, often have significantly less feature rich functions when compared to their integrated peers.

Unfortunately integrated platforms usually depend on commercial agreements being reached between the platform owners. If there are no agreements in place integration will be unlikely.

For video conferencing a quick summary of the key integration/ interoperability announcements with OCS include;

• Polycom, has announced integration of their standard definition video conferencing VSX range. A Microsoft Communicator user (Communicator is the OCS desktop client - see image) can see the status of a VSX end point and vice versa. In addition, click-to-call features and a central phonebook are promised. This announcement is part of a strategic alliance between Microsoft and Polycom which has already seen Polycom announce a series of VoIP handsets for use with OCS.
• Tandberg has not gone quite so far as to announce integration with OCS, rather it has announced interoperability.

Microsoft OCS is interoperable with most PBX environments given a mediation gateway with the correct configuration. Direct integration using SIP is also available with selected vendors including;

• Nortel through its strategic alliance with Microsoft (the ICA - Innovative Communications Alliance) has announced that the Nortel CS1000 PBX range is integrated with OCS.
• Mitel has announced integration of its 3300 ICP IP Telephony platform with OCS.
• Cisco has announced integration with its Unified Communications platform.

Any enterprise considering deployment of Microsoft OCS2007 should understand the integration and interoperability considerations for their existing or planned video and voice technologies. Hopefully the above information assists getting started in the right direction.

The type of content will include product reviews, implementation tips, and interviews with vendors and suppliers of equipment.

The aim is to provide IT Managers, Telco Managers, CIOs and anyone in charge of communications technologies a source of unbiased and informed opinion.

Let’s see how we go!

Richard.