Forrester predictions 2010: Effects on softphones

Forrester published the report "Predictions 2010: What's In Store For The Telecom Industry?" and some of the predictions are related or will have an effect on desktop softphones:

• Convergence will move from collision to explosion.
• Green will be back on the telco agenda in a big way.
• The boundaries between work and home will continue to blur.
• Broadband will go universal.

Frost & Sullivan: UC with proven ROI

A new study from Frost & Sullivan draws a stronger correlation between collaborative tools and monetary gains. "If we're able to measure the amount of improvement … that UC can provide versus no UC, then we can say definitely there is some measurable return on investment," said Brian Cotton, a vice president at Frost & Sullivan. A company in Italy that has implemented UC including VoIP is closing five times more deals with online conferences than with trade shows, and estimated that they have since realized a $15,000 to $18,000 per month unified communications ROI.

• New product development occurred in 68% of enterprises that used UC tools versus the 39% that developed new products without collaborative tools.
• 76% of enterprises that used UC tools saw sales growth versus the 50% that increased sales without using them.
• Profit growth was also more likely in enterprises that invested in UC -- 71% versus 45%.
• Collaborative environments such as sales and research and development yielded the highest rate of return, while employee retention and turnover seemed to benefit least.
• Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) appeared to see the lowest unified communications ROI, according to the study. Large enterprises with 1,000 or more employees yielded on average six times more value from collaborative tools than SMBs. Despite appearances, Cotton said, the finding doesn't mean SMBs don't benefit from UC. Instead, he said, they probably need to use UC for more than a limited number of employees and include suppliers, investors and key customer groups.

Frost & Sullivan white paper "Meetings Around the World II: Charting the Course of Advanced Collaboration"

Forrester with new telecommute numbers

According to the new Forrester report "Understanding Information Worker Smartphone Usage", 59% of employees' work time is at places in the office other than own desk, at home, at a client site or other places and 41% telecommute. 54% are using their smartphone for more than 1 hour daily - a huge cost reduction potential when moving some of these calls to VoIP and use integrated softphones.

Gartner's UC Magic Quadrant warns against single-vendor approach

Interoperability is the magic word for vendors in Gartner's unified communications (UC) Magic Quadrant this year, as market giants accept they have to let third-party developers play in their sandboxes.

Gartner is advising enterprises to shop around for interoperable communications products across the market.

"... the benefits are worthwhile because you will end up with more choice and more control over your direction, and more control over your costs."

Ross Daniels, director at Cisco: "Certainly, whenever possible, we'd love people to use Cisco, but the clear reality is that there is a significant installed base of other suppliers' applications across unified communications," he said. "As things have moved to an environment where communication means more than just voice, interoperability has become even more of a premium."

Microsoft has also opened the doors of its unified communications portfolio, recognizing "the customer has a choice," said Moz Hussain, the company's director of product management in unified communications.

"Unified communications doesn't have to stop with the products we deliver. A customer can take that and enrich it to their business needs," Hussain said. "If another vendor has a solution they want to plug into our client experience …. we have the APIs [application programming interfaces] to allow them to do that."

Full article on SearchUnifiedCommuniations

Forrester identifies Microsoft & IBM as collaboration leaders

Forrester published, based on its 66-criteria evaluation of collaboration platform vendors, the new report

The Forrester Wave™: Collaboration Platforms, Q3 2009

Forrester found that Microsoft and IBM Lotus led the pack based on the breadth of functionality in their offerings.

• Traditional vendors IBM, Microsoft and Novell lead on breadth of offerings.
• Challengers all demonstrate unique strengths.

New Forrester reports about UC and VoIP

Forrester published new reports based on their surveys across North America and Europe:

The State Of Enterprise Networks And Telecommunications: 2009 - Business Data Services North America And Europe

Executive Summary

Even given the current economic crisis, enterprises recognize the importance of network and telecommunications (N&T) products and services. What are the top investments and interest areas? Mobility, unified communications (UC), and managed services. A new addition to this survey includes questions about how economic conditions are affecting N&T spending, as well as where purchasing power lies within the IT organization for specific technologies such as UC, landline data, voice, and enterprise mobility.

Report highlights in terms of UC and VoIP:
- Cutting costs is biggest priority.
- Contact center IP migration continues.
- Cost savings, faster communication, and decision speed drive UC adoption.
- Desktop VoIP migration continues.


The State Of SMB Networks And Telecommunications: 2009 - Business Data Services North America And Europe

Even given the current global economic crisis, small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) recognize the importance of networks and telecommunications (N&T) products and services — although spend is not as abundant as in earlier years. What are their investment and interest areas? Wireless and mobility and unified communications (UC). A new addition to this survey includes questions about how current economic conditions are affecting SMB N&T spending and where purchasing power lies within the organization for specific technologies.

Report highlights in terms of UC and VoIP:
- SMBs follow enterprise interest in IP contact centers.
- Majority of SMBs are interested in or are already implementing a UC solution.
- Desktop VoIP adoption continues.

Enterprises Need Innovative Telecom Service Options And Flexibility

The Forrester report "Enterprises Need Innovative Telecom Service Options And Flexibility To Address Cost Pressures" explains why Telecom companies need to offer innovation especially in an economic downturn.

Executive Summary
The global economic recession is extracting a heavy toll on enterprise IT budgets. As a result, sourcing and vendor management executives at multinational firms responsible for network and telecommunications (N&T) are looking for improved flexibility and innovation in service pricing and delivery, along with concessions to help them justify their vendor and service choices. To help clients set expectations on how far they can reasonably push their service providers to be more attentive, responsive, and flexible, we interviewed 29 reference customers of nine major international telecom operators about customer satisfaction. We also used data from two recent Forrester surveys to: 1) identify global multinational enterprise (MNC) N&T service buyers' priorities over the next year; and 2) compare enterprise customers' biggest vendor relationship challenges with some of the largest North American and European network operators. Based on our analysis, Forrester recommends vendor consolidation to remove extraneous players and create a strategic N&T environment and the use of specialists and smaller or regional players for innovative, lower-cost service delivery options.

The Value Of VoIP

Forbes published an article where the SME company RAO explaining the benefits they reached after switching to VoIP. When credit is tight, being able to reinvest in a business means shaving costs elsewhere--like the phone bill.

More mobility with less budget

According to a new Aberdeen Group research report, Best-in-Class companies over the prior 24 month period

• increased the number of employees included in their mobility initiative by 44%.
• employee productivity by 36%.
• have grew the number of mobile devices in full compliance with IT mandates by 33%.

Despite the global economic downturn, or perhaps in part because of it, the enterprise demand for mobility has remained steady or even increased. However, mobility initiative budgets have not; in fact capital equipment budgets are being cut dramatically, and operating expense budgets are being scrutinized and reduced wherever possible. This study reports how Best-in-Class companies - those that are performing in the top 20% across multiple metrics - are managing to maintain or increase their level of mobility support while their budgets are being cut.

VoIP top priority for CIOs

Chief information officers (CIOs) across the United States say VoIP is among the top five areas of IT investment they will invest in over the next 12 months. The survey, conducted by Robert Half Technology, interviewed more than 1,400 CIOs with 100 or more employees.

Article on FierceVoIP

iscoord @ VoiceCon 2009 in Orlando

We had a very successful VoiceCon 2009 in Orlando and our booth was visited by a lot of people.

The time for integrated softphones has definitively arrived and our innovative OEM solutions for IBM and Microsoft UC platforms generated a lot of interest.

Forrester believes that collaboration market will stay healthy

The new Forrester report "Demand Insights: Collaboration Market Healthy Despite Slumping Economy " from March 25, 2009, explains why and how the collaboration market is still in a good shape and sales increasing, also and especially within the SMB segment.

Executive Summary
Although 2009 is shaping up to be a tough year for technology vendors, the collaboration market is proving to be vibrant. The tough economy is forcing companies to restrict travel while keeping distributed teams in touch. In addition, changes in the composition of the workforce mean enterprises must find ways to capture the knowledge of retiring Baby Boomers and provide Gen Yers with their favored tools to work efficiently. These trends have created opportunities for collaboration vendors not just at the enterprise level but also among small and medium-size businesses (SMBs). Collaboration vendors should capitalize on these smaller companies' interest by providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and flexible pricing models.

Selling applications has become the new dominant business activity of the telecom market

According to Usernews and research firms, companies are looking for technology to help them fill gaps left by smaller staffs, and to enhance productivity.

Selling applications has become the new dominant business activity for the telecom market.

It's important to offer

• real cost saving
• cost conserving
• productivity producing
• customer experience enhancing products and service.

The Big Trends

Global & North America PBX Line Shipments 2008 :

56 million lines shipped in 2008

• 12.9 mio. IP Lines (23.2%)
  
• 32.1 mio. Hybrid (57.73%
• 3.7 mio. TDM PBX (6.65%)
• 6.9 mio. TDM Key (12.41%)
  

(Source: Dell O’ro Reports)

• Broadband IP Telephony remains the most common carrier-based business VoIP solution with revenues exceeding $1.1 billion in 2008, compared to $857 million for hosted IP Centrex service within the US.
  
  
• Adoption varies significantly by size of business, with Enterprise businesses preferring a partial deployment, while SOHO businesses are more likely to go IP-only.

(Source: In-Stat)

60% more flexibility with Unified Communications

Past Aberdeen research showed that Best-in-Class companies who have implemented Unified Communications have seen a 55% increase in employee responsiveness to others - 2.7x more than all other companies, a 52% increase in an employee's ability to gain knowledge / data from others - almost 3x the Industry Average, and a 60% increase in the flexibility of the workforce - over 3x all others.

Interview with Christophe Remillet

The Competence Site has published an interview (German) with Christophe Remillet , Head of Business Development at iscoord ag.

He answers questions about his past activities and current developments, projects and challenges.

New is-phone 8 versions ready for download!

We have uploaded the new is-phone 8 versions with improvements and additional features like toolbar support (is-phone for IBM Lotus Notes 8).

By filling out the form on the following pages, you will get an email with instructions how to download the 30-days free trial and install the new is-phone stand-alone client and plug-ins:

• is-phone for IBM Lotus Notes 6/7/8 (stand-alone version)
• is-phone for IBM Lotus Notes 8 (plug-in version)
• is-phone for IBM Lotus Sametime 8 (plug-in version)

If you have any question or improvements, please email us.

iscoord interviewed by Forrester

Forrester published the report "Market Overview: Sizing Unified Communications - Stalled Market Blossoms To $14.5 Billion In 2015 As Barriers Fall". iscoord is one of the interview partners together with companies like AT&T, Avaya, BT, Cisco and others that has provided information for this report.


Executive Summary

Forrester forecasts that the market for unified communications within enterprises in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific will reach $14.5 billion in 2015. Unified communications (UC) is an important, innovative capability that IT buyers and business executives believe will deliver financial and operational advantages. But the UC market's long-awaited takeoff hinges on detailed business cases that lay out the return on investment (ROI), as well as more interoperability between UC solutions and business applications. While all firms are demanding measurable business benefits to support UC business cases and deployment plans, the voyage to UC will be unique at each firm. IT strategists will progress from trials to near ubiquitous deployment of basic UC capabilities to improve collaboration and increase the velocity of business processes. On top of that, we forecast that companies will deploy enhanced UC capabilities to about 60% of employees in functions that will benefit most from embedding communications features like mobility and video directly into their business applications.

IBM Chairman/CEO on stage with President Obama

The economic slowdown was the main topic of the speech from IBM Chairman & CEO Sam Palmisano when talking to the press on CNBC, invited by President Obama.

In the exclusive CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo, Sam Palmisano shared insights on how IBM plans to innovate in a rough economy.

New customer website live

We've just launched a new website for our customer Proceq: The Canin+ promotion website.

This new site is the forth promotion website that was supported by iscoord (advisory, project management). More information incl. screenshot can be found on our news page.

iscoord has also supported as supervisor, advisor and project manager for Proceq concerning their main website.

New is-phone datasheets

After showcasing the new is-phone version 8.0 and announcing version 8.1, we have uploaded new data sheets.

The main improvements are

• LDAP Directory Integration
• Mini Browser Tab for is-phone for IBM Lotus Notes 6/7/8
• SIP Dialog for Presence Status
• Additional Audio Codec G.721, G.723 and G.726
• Linux Support for is-phone for IBM Lotus Notes 8 Plug-In and Sametime 8 Plug-In
• Max OS X Support for is-phone for IBM Lotus Notes 8 Plug-In and Sametime 8 Plug-In (Q2/2009)

If you like to get an email alert as soon as the new version 8.0 is ready as free trial, you can use this form to contact us.

A new team member @ iscoord

Please welcome Christophe Remillet, a new team member of iscoord, responsible as Head of Business Development for promoting our solutions and services.

Christophe has already great experience in the softphone market and we are very pleased that he joined iscoord.

Press release in English (pdf)
Press release in Deutsc (pdf)

Lotusphere impressions

Markus Sieger, CEO of iscoord, and Rolf Kuster, Head of Development, were at Lotusphere in Orlando and they shared some impressions from the exhibition with us:

Video conferencing is hot and reduces CO2 pollution!

Due to the "Green" efforts of many companies, video conferencing is a hot topic.

We have invested a lot of effort at iscoord to deliver our customers video conferencing with is-phone right within the softphone.

is-phone is able to handle video conference capabilities within the softphone with up to 4 people and the best thing is that it's all mixed on the client - no need for any additional hardware!

Check out the video below where we showcase the video capabilities of is-phone or try it by yourself by downloading a free 30-days trial of our is-phone for IBM products.


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Welcome to the iscoord Blog

Hello and welcome to the iscoord Blog!

There is a lot going on in the digital world and iscoord is part of it with our integrated softphone is-phone.

Currently we are exhibiting @ Lotusphere in Orlando, the biggest IBM Lotus event in the world! Visit our CEO Markus Sieger and Head of Development Rolf Kuster @ our booth #827 and see our newest developments incl. the softphone toolbar integration into IBM Symphony and the Linux version of is-phone.

Here is a first screenshot of the is-phone toolbar within IBM Symphony:


Looking forward to see you @ Lotusphere!