The Sunday New York Times article entitled “Living Apart for the Paycheck”  detailed how the economy is forcing more and more couples to have commuter marriages. This in turn caused me to reflect on the use of unified communications applications in the personal/home environment. I have written many blogs about unified communications, but applying unified communications to the home environment is a new. Read my take of this new development on my Blog, The User View, “Video Technology Aids the Enterprise and Families Alike“  at http://www.jamison-consulting.com/blog/ .

Tags: Mobile UC, Unified Communications Information by Nancy Jamison
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Tags: Mobile UC, Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Blair Pleasant
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What a surprise! A judge found some of the provisions in Cisco’s ICPA (indirect channel partner agreement) to be “clearly one-sided” and “unconscionable”, and found no evidence that Cisco has ever negotiated a partner contract. Now I could say I was shocked and appalled, but the truth is that I don’t recall ever seeing an indirect channel partner contract - from any major manufacturer - that wasn’t one-sided and non-negotiable. At times, the one-sided nature of partner agreements has even led me to question the use of the word “partner” to describe the relationship between some manufacturers and their reseller channel.

In this particular situation, the provisions in question revolved around termination (of the partner) and damage limitations (the vendor’s, of course). I understand the need of a business to protect its’ interests. However, what I don’t understand is protecting those interests at the expense of the “partner”. Whatever happened to the idea that a partnership is undertaken to be a win-win business relationship? The point is to create an environment where partners create and share in success - and sometimes in failure. Not to pick on Cisco - because they have some excellent elements in their partner program - but this is a great example of how one-sided the vendor-reseller relationship can be.

The data industry is a wonderful place to be. The pace is fast (make that frantic), and the changes in technology are exciting. But I believe that the industry has hurt itself with the dysfunctional relationship between manufacturers and their reseller channel. Rather than seeking ways to strengthen their resellers and help them be more successful (increasing the sales of the manufacturer’s products), many manufacturers have actually fostered the very elements that lead to the failure of many of their own channel “partners”. For example, we see partnership agreements that require a great deal of the reseller and give little in return, including “sales” training which encourages “box selling” leading to low margins, flooding geographic areas with many resellers with the same product competing against each other, onerous certification requirements for infrastructure products, and on and on. On my website, www.sierrasummitgroup.com, I discuss what is essential for resellers to be successful, and mention the importance of vendor selection in the reseller’s success. When all else is stripped away from the relationship, the degree to which vendors actually contribute to resellers’ success directly impacts the volume of products sold - i.e. the vendors’ success.

My words of advice…. vendors beware! Those one-sided channel “partnerships” may now come under some heavy scrutiny from the “other side” of the partnership.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Pam Avila
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On August 18, 2008, Cisco Systems introduced the Cisco Unified Intelligence Suite, a state-of-the-art business intelligence solution for the contact center. Built on a Web 2.0 framework, Cisco Unified Intelligence Suite can draw information from virtually any source and represents a new direction in pulling together information for contact center performance management and analytics.

This product announcement is the culmination of Cisco’s acquisition of Latigent that occurred in September of last year. Latigent was a contact center business intelligence platform that was clearly ahead of its time - so much so that the two company founders had a hard time getting their message out to a user community that was, by and large, used to looking at fairly similar performance management products. A few customers “got it” and bought the Latigent product but I think it was when Cisco took a look at it that the light bulbs went on.

Latigent provided Cisco with a way to get at data that was meaningful to their customers and offered a flexible platform upon which to build future applications in line with the companies internet protocol (IP)-based product strategy. It wasn’t a surprise to see Cisco acquire Latigent, it was a surprise to see how long it took Cisco to acquire Latigent.

The Cisco Unified Intelligence Suite is based upon the Latigent platform and characterizes Cisco’s commitment to fully embrace Web 2.0 and the business intelligence power that it brings to the customer service function. The Unified Intelligence Suite brings non-traditional information to the contact center, encompassing the personalization of the desktop workspace and enterprise collaboration through the sharing of dashboard information and reports.

As a comprehensive reporting package, Unified Intelligence Suite comes with standard Cisco report templates enhanced by the former Latigent’s report wizard that made it among the most user-friendly platforms in the business intelligence market. Users can also customize reports as desired.

Users can design dashboard information mashups that incorporate data that is most useful to them, including data from nontraditional sources. As with all performance management products, access to dashboard performance data is limited as appropriate.

Among the smart things Cisco has done with the introduction of Unified Intelligence Suite is design it so it can be used with non-Cisco products. This allows Cisco the flexibility to compete with niche vendors as well as the other major infrastructure solutions providers. Unified Intelligence Suite can be implemented as a standalone solution even if the customer has no other Cisco equipment in the contact center.

The introduction of the Unified Intelligence Suite underscores Cisco’s commitment to the contact center market, and to workforce optimization. It is tangible evidence of Cisco’s ability to understand and respond to the changing needs of the contact center environment.

Tags: Unified Communications Information, Unified Communications Information by Paul Stockford
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Cisco has a new mantra - video, video, video. Attendees at this year’s C-Scape analyst conference heard session after session discuss Cisco’s role in collaboration and Web 2.0, as well as its video and telepresence capabilities. During his keynote presentation, John Chambers mentioned that video is “the killer app of Web 2.0.” Cisco asserted several times that the company is well positioned to lead in this area, and I would not bet against them in this regard.

Cisco did more than give lip service to the recurring themes of video, collaboration, unified communications and Web 2.0 - the company demonstrated in various instances how Cisco as a company uses these technologies to help it better communicate internally as well as with customers, partners, and suppliers. The company really eats its own dog food, or as I prefer to say, drinks its own champagne. For example, when I spoke with Marthin DeBeer and asked if he was traveling a lot, he responded that no, actually, he’s not - he’s been using Cisco’s telepresence capabilities to meet with customers and potential customers, which has greatly reduced his travel schedule. The next day he expanded on this and told the audience that he will be losing his airline platinum status and that his travel dropped by over 60%. Instead of having to take of his shoes at the airline security check, he now spends about four hours a day in telepresence sessions.

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Tags: Unified Communications Information by Blair Pleasant
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