Looking for Unified Messaging with Domino? AVST has an offering.

I had the good fortune of attending the UC Summit conference this past week in beautiful San Diego, put on by the folks from UC Strategies. (It was so nice to have a few moments between sessions to feel the sun and enjoy the gardens and the hummingbirds when my own backyard in Wisconsin was still covered in ice and snow!)

I sat in one session by a company called AVST, that sells enterprise voicemail systems.  Going into the session, I was under the assumption that most companies used the voicemail system of whatever PBX/telephony provider they selected (or Exchange since it has it natively).  Apparently not according to a Voice Report survey that showed AVST as leading the market for voicemail in their 2009 report with a 29% market share.  I have to question the validity of the study since touching base with some colleagues who deal with core telephony sales daily rarely encounter AVST.  But the point is, regardless of what PBX you use, you have options on the voicemail side.  According to AVST, they support over 400 systems (see chart).



Who cares, you ask?  Well, I have run into some companies upset because the telephony provider who they've used in the past for voicemail and unified messaging with Lotus Notes is no longer supporting unified messaging with Lotus.  (Unified Messaging = receiving voicemail as an attachment to an email message.  1 inbox to manage for the user). Some telephony vendors may say silly things at that point, like, "who knows, maybe they'll switch to Exchange soon."  Of course, since Exchange can manage voicemail on its own, it can displace the telephony vendors voicemail system as well (so be careful what you wish for).

If you're faced with a similar dilemma, you may want to check out AVST's offerings.  They claim to fully support Lotus Notes/Domino versions 7 - 8.5.  That is, if you think voicemail is still relevant.

Is Voicemail relevant?

Do you still use voicemail? Is it important for you to have it unified into your email inbox (or do you wish it was)?

Had an interesting discussion while at the UC Summit conference this week. Another attendee indicated that corporate voicemail was irrelevant because with single number reach, calls will always reach you. I don't agree, but am interested in what others thoughts on this are, so please comment.

Voicemail and UM are still relevant to me because:

1) I'm on the phone a lot, so even if calls find me, I can't always pick up
2) getting vmail in my email makes is the easiest way for me to listen to them while on the road
3) vmail in my email is a reminder of things I need to follow up on
4) vmail in my email is easily forwarded to others
5) vmail in my email makes it easy to keep my vmail storage clean

Your thoughts?

Cisco Acquires Lotus Business Unit from IBM

Cisco purchased the Lotus software business unit and all of its products from IBM corporation today for an undisclosed sum.  Ok, I'll probably see IBM advertise a Lotus product by name and show it on TV before this would happen, but really I think it would be in the interest of both Cisco and IBM to pursue this.

Ideally, the two companies would have come together long ago to form a serious partnership, and gone after the market together. And to be fair, they've tried.  Years ago they initially integrated Cisco telephony with Sametime, then Cisco acquired Meetingplace and decided to compete instead.  The partnership re-ignited a few years ago when it was clear that Microsoft was going to go after Cisco's telephony lunch, and Cisco created a great set of plug-ins to integrate with Sametime.  Heck, Cisco had been drinking the Lotus koolaid pretty heavy, internally deploying Sametime, Connections and Portal. 

But then Cisco made a series of acquisitions, including WebEx, Jabber, Postpath and Five Across.  Apparently they decided once again to go it alone.  Why?  Cisco clearly thought highly of the quality of Lotus' products--they bought and deployed them internally.  Also, Cisco clearly sees value of the overall collaboration message and has adopted much of it themselves as they speak of "collaboration" as the next big thing after unified communications (as if collaborative software just came into existence).  They also have bought into the importance of social software as they bring to market their own offerings in Quad, Show n Share and Social Miner.

For all the value Cisco saw in Lotus' software, and for all of the potential benefit to them to join with IBM and collectively put Microsoft away, and for all the shared vision the two companies possessed with the importance of collaboration and social software, something made them think they were better going it on their own. I don't have any insider information, but I have a guess.

When it comes to marketing, you can't find two more diametrically opposed companies.  Cisco markets their products relentlessly.  You see Cisco adds on TV, and you see their products in them.  You see Cisco products placed throughout TV shows and movies.  And don't say that's because they're a hardware company.  Anyone remember seeing WebEx prominently placed in the Transformers movie? 

And then there is IBM.  IBM knows how to market to businesses.  They find big transformative concepts that do a great job of capturing the attention of CEOs and CIOs, and it works well for selling middleware (see how well the WebSphere brand has done even during the recession), hardware (look at how the Power Brand has really grabbed market share) and services.

But this approach does not capture the attention of consumers.  And with the consumerization of IT, consumer desires have a huge role in driving the adoption of software "on the glass" where Lotus lives.  Without promoting Lotus software to consumers, IBM has let Microsoft negatively paint consumers' impression of Notes software.  Of course, IBM made it easy for them by focusing on the needs of IT Admins--users and usability be damned.  Lotus has corrected the usability issues, but without marketing to end users, nobody but the Lotus faithful are aware of this.

Ultimately, I don't think Cisco could stomach this.  They saw the great products, but they didn't believe IBM marketing could get it done, particularly in the US where Cisco makes its bread and butter.  Even now as Lotus throws its brand name away to try and ditch the negative image, unless IBM drives consumer awareness of its "Collaboration and Social Software" solutions, they'll be the best products that only the faithful know of.

All of that said, I think Cisco underestimated how difficult it would be to create the great software products Lotus has developed.  They bought Postpath thinking everyone would move to the cloud, and they've come to the realization that its not as easy as it looks to create a great email product, and not everyone is ready for the cloud.  Ultimately Cisco pulled the plug on their mail offering.

So now Cisco sits without the cornerstone of a unified communications suite.  One customer recently confided with a colleague, the vendor that owns email here, owns unified communications. And although Cisco is making strides with social software, their solutions really can't touch Connections (on premise or in the cloud). 

Long term, Cisco needs a complete, high quality portfolio that can compete with Microsoft at every level. With Lotus, they would have that. I suspect they believe they can integrate with Microsoft and thereby keep voicemail and call control in their stack.  Others have tried  the approach of surround and contain with their solutions, but Microsoft can leverage its monopoly to make customers an offer too good to turn down.  Once call control and voicemail is gone, handsets will follow too and Cisco voice will be displaced.

Long term, Lotus, errr, IBM Collaborative and Social Software, must get its solutions in front of consumer eyes, and not just the Lotus faithful.  Relying on the IBM brand alone to avoid the negative attitude towards Lotus will not be enough.  And if, as others have speculated, IBM merely sees Lotus as a cash cow and is waiting until the milk runs out before they grill some burgers, they won't open the purse for the marketing required. 

But maybe IBM would be willing to sell the cow.  If Cisco could afford Tandberg, maybe they could find the cash for this cow as well.  Ah well, it is late, so I guess it's OK that I'm dreaming.

Cisco kills SaaS Email Offering

"...The positive disruption represented by the cloud computing transition was what led us to introduce a Cisco hosted email product in November 2009. ...In the thirteen months since, we’ve been market testing Cisco Mail via a controlled release. The product has been well received, but we’ve since learned that customers have come to view their email as a mature and commoditized tool versus a long-term differentiated element of their collaboration strategy. ..."

http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/listening-to-our-customers/

Watson, Please Meet IBM Collaborative Software

OK, I admit, when I first heard that IBM Research had developed a computer to play Jeopardy, my initial reaction was, "there's a great use of people's time."  Then I saw some of the IBM commercials, and I was angry.  "Here goes IBM marketing again, can't spend a dime to show Lotus software, but Lord knows how much they've spent marketing this stunt. (At least the IBM hardware folks had to be happy that the Power7 logo was displayed.)"

Then I watched the Nova episode on Watson last week, and my perspective has completely changed.  If you missed the episode, I strongly encourage you to take time out and view it (I've embedded it at the bottom of this post).

What was so cool was to learn about how the Watson team used "machine learning" to "teach" Watson how to deconstruct questions to understand what is being asked, and then through many examples of what correct answers to questions are, used its vast database of raw unstructured data to piece together answers to these questions.  (Yes, its Jeopardy, so actually it's reversed. Watson deconstructs statements, researches, then constructs questions.)  The Nova folks did a fantastic job walking through the development history of Watson, showcasing the challenges the team faced, and describing the methods they used to overcome them.  My only critique is that I wished they would have gotten more technical in their description of machine learning.  The example of getting a computer to recognize the letter 'A' was great, but I'd love to understand more about the bits and bytes of how this works. 

Watching the episode made a convert out of me.  I'm completely amazed by what IBM has accomplished with Watson, and look forward to watching it compete on Jeopardy Monday - Wednesday this week (the DVR is all set to record). I guess I'd be surprised if Watson actually beats the two best Jeopardy contestants to ever play the game, but regardless of the outcome, the technology behind Watson holds amazing promise. 

I have always been a sci-fi fan, and Isaac Assimov had me hooked at an early age on the idea of artificial intelligence.  But where IBM talked about the potential real-life applications of Watson to things like medical treatment and financial analysis, my first thought was to applying this to human learning.  Wouldn't it be amazing to have a system that learned about you--not to understand what movie you might want to watch next, or what product it could up-sell you on--but learned about your learning styles and objectives.  Imagine it then dynamically assembling learning content from the vast resources of the internet in a manner that you would learn best.  Imagine linking all of these systems so that the examples of how Joe and Susy and Ryan learned, could be referenced so that your system would get better and better at this over time.

Human learning has always been a keen interest of mine, so not surprising that's where my thoughts initially went.  But then it hit me, what could possibly have more unstructure content than email and social sites like Connections? 

What if Watson were put to use to read your email and prompt you on what you may want to do next, such as:

• Create an activity
• File the email in a folder that matches where you've put similar emails in the past
• Create a new folder and file the email
• Open a composite application to pull data to answer a question asked
• Start a reply to the email based on a template you've used in the past
• Recognize that this sender is not in your contacts, and create a pre-populated entry based on the person's email signature
• Create a new calendar entry based on the request to meet next Tuesday and populate it with the invitees

I mean, I get all jazzed by live text recognition in Notes (which I think is Majorly underutilized), but talk about a better Outlook!   Or imagine being able to ask a question of your social network, and Watson jumping in an suggesting blogs, Wikis or bookmarks you should check out.

So yes, PLEASE, Watson, meet IBM Collaborative Software--I can't wait!  (Oh yeah, and good luck on Jeopardy too.)

Watch the full episode. See more NOVA.

Polycom's Solution is not just for Polycom Video

Congratulations to Polycom for winning the Enhancing Business Value through UC2™ Solutions this year!  Their solution is a great way to extend the value of videoconferencing solutions that would otherwise be siloed.  Historically, many companies invested in high-quality room-based video conferencing systems.  The down side to these systems had been their cost and the fact that they required another similar end point to function, typically put in another conference room.

Polycom's solution allows you to leverage the video streams from a variety of sources now directly from Sametime.

These can be a mix of desktop or laptop webcams, Polycom videoconferencing end points, AND any other standards-compliant video endpoints.  This is important, because if you've invested in room-based systems from other vendors (say Tandberg or Sony) who have not created their own direct integration with Samtime, you can still use Polycom's solution to integrate those systems with Sametime.

With Polycom's solution in place, you get true multicast video.  The native video in Sametime leverages voice activated switching so that I only see the video of the currently active speaker, even if there are 10 people participating in the video chat.

With Polycom's solution, the video feeds from all participants are displayed simultaneously.  This allows you to take in what is happening at the other locations, regardless of who happens to be speaking at the time.

For example, let's say you typically bring together board members into conference rooms at different offices where they then participate in the video conference.  That involves some significant travel for some, and for those that can't get to those locations and have only the conference call to listen in to, their participation is significantly reduced.  By adding Polycom's solution, board members at distant locations or those that are in the midst of other travel can still participate in the video conference by connecting in with their Sametime video from their desktops or laptops.

This is another great complimentary solution to the video capabilities in Sametime.  So if you have room-based systems, and you're finally deploying video for Sametime, it is definitely worth looking more closely at Polycom's solution.  For a small investment, you increase the utility of both the Sametime video and the room-based systems.

Plantronics Sounds for Sametime Program (and a Sneak Peak)

The push for personal video conferencing in the enterprise is clearly going to intensify in 2011. Skype has been leveraged by families globally to keep in touch with relatives, and now this level of personal communication has jumped from the desktop to mobile devices such as iPhones and Android phones as well.    As with so many other technologies, as they take off with consumers at home, the clamor to have these tools at work intensifies.

For organizations that may have leveraged Sametime only for instant messaging in the past, now is the time to get ahead of the end-user clamor and begin piloting Sametime audio and video conferencing.  With the introduction of Sametime 8.5, Sametime is now able to provide even high definition video for participants (if you have the bandwidth).  But exciting video with poor quality audio is like Kung Fu Theater without the Kung Fu, so having a quality audio end-point makes a huge difference in user satisfaction. 

That's where having quality headsets like those developed by Plantronics comes in, and your organization can try them out for free as part of a Sametime pilot by registering for their Sounds for Sametime program. 

Plantronics makes a wide variety of headsets to fit different user needs.  For those on a tight budget, you can use one of their corded headsets.  For mobile professionals, they offer the Voyager Pro.  It's a bluetooth headset that will pair with your PC as well as your mobile device, making it easy to receive calls on your mobile, or have it automatically switch to your PC when receiving a Sametime call.  This is what I use, but one of the things that has always been a slight annoyance is the bluetooth USB dongle hanging off the side of my laptop that I'm always paranoid is going to get snapped off.  In 2011, this is being enhanced to leverage a miniature dongle which is very slick.  I have a similar usb dongle for my wireless mouse, and I leave it attached even when I throw my laptop into my travel bag.

 For users who are switching between a desk phone and computer audio, their Savi offering is a great fit allowing users to easily toggle between them.  In 2011, they will be adding the ability for these users to toggle with their mobile devices as well--a great addition since many desktop users will leverage all three communication channels in the office.

For home-office workers, Plantronics offers the Calisto speakerphone.  No need to wear a headset at all when you have a speakerphone attached to your PC.  A great enhancement to this in 2011 will be the ability to pair this with a mobile device as well, and the option to use a lapel mic.

You can see more info on their 2011 product preview on Plantronics' site.  Of course these headsets all work well with the softphone in Sametime Unified Telephony as well.  What I love about these offerings, is that where we depend on Sametime to unify communications at the software level, the Plantronics headsets extend that to the hardware end points, making it that much easier to use the multiple communication devices we juggle.