An Interesting Week

Beware - this is a long post - so get a cup of coffee and be patient - there is a point to this at the end!

Well this week was certainly interesting: Started with a huge announcement by Cisco closely followed by the breaking of the rumour that IBM will by Sun for $6.5bn

So......it seems that the topic of the week is the data center and what that means to Cloud Computing. But...this is all a bit of a mistake to see this as the high point. There has been a gradually increasing noise level about the data center for many year in fact decades. For those of us that remember the huge changes at the end of the "mainframe" era this is actualy no surpirse at all. It is worth taking a quick look back at some of the changes that have been leading to these most recent announcements:

Mainframes to Minis

Once upon a time the ONLY computing power that was available was the "mainframe' - a big complex proprietary piece of machinery that required millions of dollars and a whole set of attendants that loved and cared for it. Anybody who remembers the power of the "operator" and the "systems programmer" will know exactly what I am talking about. In fact if a lot of old school IT guys were still in charge mainframes would still be the only computing resource available. I'll come back to this in a little while. Then as organizational structures evolved into the "business unit" with P&L responsibility, the central computing resource also came under pressure from departmental systems such as the DEC VAX systems. This threatened the mainframe, even though in many cases the mainframe had superior application performance and support, the independence of these systems was attractive to those who ran the actual P&L. It was "their departments" system

The PC

Then came the real evolution - the PC. First entering the corporate world through specific functions such as finance, the PC took the corporate world by storm. And for the longest time it was opposed by the old world dinosaur mainframe loving IT management. Having fought for recognition as a legitimate business function, IT was now under threat. However then came the network. Insteadof using the dreaded floppy disk and sneaker-net, people using these PCs wanted access to the corporate information and resources, to share files and especially printers. Networking became the new preserve of the IT organization along with its traditional preserve in the mainframe center.

LAN

Networking went through many iterations, cabling systems and topology types.   For the connection into the computing resources of the organization there was a rabid competition between ethernet and token ring.  eventually Synotics developed a version of the an ethernet card and hub that ran across structured cabling originally developed for phone distribution.   at that point and for many other reasons Ethernet won.  Then came 100BaseT and eventually 1000BaseT and that was now the only way to connect locally.

IP

I remember a day when IP wasn't actually the standard - maybe that makes me old but anyone out there remember GOSIP - the OSI stack, X400 for mail, X500 for directory services?  The UK and the US government mandated (well sort of ) OSI - and my god it was hard to do.......so everyone just implemented IP anyway.  In a way it was a victory for the developers rather than the "standards bodies" and government mandated and designed standards.  Beware IPv6!!

The Internet and then the "www"

So much has been written about the Internet and the worldwide web (which are not the same thing) that it would be even more presumptuous of me to write about it.  It has so deeply revolutionized the world we live in that it is now compared with the electricity distribution network.  What it has done is put the role of the datacenter back in a way that the corporate dinosaur mainframe brigade would have been completely staggered.  If so many people can access information and services via the Internet then it has to "live" somewhere.   Cloud computing is actually a very natural development of this as the cost of maintaining the every rising expectation of the business users pushes the traditional IT organization well past their capacity to spend/invest.

Storage and server interconnect

This topic could take weeks to explain and that is not my intention.  Needless to say unbeknownst to most people on the planet, the world of the mainframe continued to develop.   It developed specific technologies to deal with such issues as high speed storage access - going through years and years of development of FiberChannel.  There were various stumbles and misunderstandings along the way - mainly because silicon valey-ites trying to live up to the term "disruptive" insisted on taking technologies and positioning them as competitive to mess someone else up rather than really understanding what the technology was for.  SCSI over IP or iSCSI was a classic case, as was Infiniband.  However that was all a sideshow to the main event.  CEE (Converged Enhanced Ethernet)  is this a fabric enabler or what?

Virtualization

One of my favorite CIOs said that other day that all engineers or techs love to talk about how they did whatever the new thing is 10 years ago.  Virtualization has been around since mainframes got big.   The concept of virtual machines running processes as if they were individual machines has been around since, well, before even me.  VM from IBM and VME from ICL were two highly advanced virtual machine environments - unfortunately what they ran on was proprietary, unbelievably expensive and required more power than a small city per box.   But now its different.  What VMWare and the other virtualization solutions have done is turned the reasons, justification and effect of virtualization on its head.  Now we have something that allows us to use standardized architectures to run hundreds if not thousands of processes without the need to buy that many servers to run them.   It enables processes to be managed, prioritized, run in a way that gives flexibility to meet deadlines and SLAs, offer greater range of services and also reduce costs in capital investment and such variables as power consumption.

Management

This is another topic thats stunning in its breadth.   Graphical network management started to become available in the very early 90s but server and storage management had already reached a different plain of management sophistication........and has continue to be developed since then!  Management systems, combined with search technology alone revolutionizes the control and management of data....and so on and so on.

So What?

Nice history lesson.  Well kinda apart from all the bits we left out which is most of it!!

Saying that it was inevitable is a bit like saying that mankind was an inevitable result of evolution - it just depends on what you believe but what it does mean is pretty interesting.  With everyone spun up about Cloud Computing, Google openly talking about the biggest and best of examples of this genre and the whole "green" thing,  the data center has regained a place at the top of the "visibility" heap.  But the outcome of these type of visibility blips never matches what we thought at the beginning.    That's why analysts are still in business - because they always get it wrong.  IMHO this could swing the pendulum back in a completely different direction.  Actually it could become the wrecking ball of a lot of pre-conceived ideas - just like the humble PC destroyed the data center of the past.

The Opportunity

Now we have a data center play from Cisco, consolidation of the existing players and the evangelists and marketing wheenies going nuts about cloud computing, and starting to spin off all kinds of stuff - private clouds etc etc etc.   We also have the interesting spectre of a far more integrated approach to the data center.  It's simple math.  We push the data center into the cloud and consolidate.  But by leveraging the technology and consolidating we enable the data center to move downstream.   Why couldn't even the meanest mid sized enterprise have their own data center - not in the basement but in the closet.   Well lets not count our chickens until we have the pricing model......but there are 100,000 channel partners out there that would LOVE to sell that concept or to offer that service whatever that service may be!

If you got this far, thanks for reading!  Let me know if you agree, disagree or have something to add!

Adapted from No Jitter

First: The Answer

Enterprise and SMB should invest in access control technology that enables the appropriate access to, encryption of and audit of use for highly proprietary intellectual property and protected data.

Second: Westcon Security Solutions:

VoIP/SIP Security - ISS Proventia, Sipera, InGate

WLAN Security and IPS - Aruba

SOA Security - Cisco

Messaging/P2P/IM/Web 2.0 Security - IronPort/ISS/Trend/BlueCoat SG/Extreme Networks

IPS - IBM-ISS Proventia, Secure Computing Securify

Policy and Device Based Acccess Control- Cisco - ASA Series(NAC), Extreme Networks, Aruba (WLAN)

Data Encryption - RSA DLP, Cisco

THE WHY

Today:

A new employee named Fred, has just reported to work at and has been shown to his cubicle. "Here's your PC," the manager proudly tells Fred. "In just a couple of days, we will be able to set you up on company email and get your desktop applications installed. In the meantime, why don't you go around and introduce yourself to your fellow workers? Get back to me with any questions."

After sitting quietly by himself for a while with nothing to do, Fred walks around to talk to his co-workers. At each desk, he asks what their email address is and notes it in his personal smart phone directory. At the end of the day, he goes home and sets up a collaboration space on the Web, using one of the many collaboration space service providers such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo and so forth, and adds all of his new-found friends to the collaboration directory. Early next morning all of his co-workers find that they have been invited to join this new group. Many do--after all, Fred is a new employee.

When Fred gets in, he inquires if there is anything he can begin working on right away, and his boss gives him the task of assisting his work group in documenting the new project. "Just do it on paper for now," his boss informs him. "Your applications will be set up any day now."

In short order, the new project plan is completed using on-line applications in the collaboration space and Fred has socialized it with his co-workers, who find that it is easy to comment on the new plan and provide input. By the end of the week, when Fred has his access set up on his desktop machine, it is already easier for everyone to just interact in the Fred-provided collaboration site.

Actually this scenario is already taken place and is occurring much more frequently as collaboration-technology improves. However, a new aspect has entered the equation. For those who read the above scenario and thought, "Well, Fred's coworkers won't have access to his collaboration space on company machines"--Who said anything about company machines? It is likely that both Fred and his co-workers are using personal machines connected through a wireless network; one that the company has no direct control over.

In fact, as wireless enters the new era of 3G and pre-4G networks, some of which uses frequency spectra that can penetrate walls with ease, the enterprise computing environment will increasingly compete with employee-provided computing support that is every bit as good, and often better, than the technology provided by the company. And the important distinction here is that the company has no control over the data that is being exposed by employee provided computing.

Let's take a look at why this is happening:

HOW WE GOT HERE

Many people now work at home; frequently using personal computers and personal cell phones. This situation exposes some company business to intercept or leakage, and many enterprises have policies designed to impose appropriate controls on employees to ensure that information doesn't leak.

However, the difference now is that mobile devices can be every bit as capable as fixed devices, and they now have sufficient bandwidth available to access network provided applications in real time, with reasonable refresh rates. This combination of reasonable performance coupled with innovative new Web delivered applications means that a person can develop a portable Web presence where it is easy to connect with other people, share information, perform work and develop new ideas. In most cases, this environment is easier to use and more accessible than anything provided by enterprises, where just getting access to desktop productivity applications can often be challenging.

COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY AND SaaS

One of the primary drivers behind this new portability is the evolution of collaboration spaces on the Internet. Beginning with sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and virtual worlds like 2ndLife, people have begun to accept the idea of socializing on the Web. It is a small step from socializing to working on the Web.

New entrants like Atlassian, Firstclass, Google, Grovesite, HiveLive, LongJump and others have recognized this and are offering fully enabled work environments where it is possible to interact with other people, collect the interactions and integrate the collected information into new content. Many of these sites have fully functional office productivity capabilities (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, etc.) for delivering the new intellectual property to consumers.

When it becomes very easy to tap other people's intelligence and seamlessly create output, people naturally migrate to these environments and tend to stay with them as their preferred creation modality.  Many collaboration spaces are free. Many more are very inexpensive. Anyone can afford to use such capabilities and it is highly probable that your employees are using them.

Consider a new college hire that may be on many social networks and may have gotten in the habit of doing most school assignments collaboratively on the Web. Once that person is hired, it is unlikely that he or she will unplug from the social networks or the software tools that support them. It is highly probable that a good deal of interaction will continue to take place. And if existing employees are already part of those social networks, it makes it easy to establish a contact and conduct business "off line."

WIRELESS EVOLUTION

Of course, just having access to collaborative sites wouldn't matter much if the access were through company networks. It is easy for the IT department to identify and block access to sites that have been deemed to be security threats. Many companies now do exactly that and more are considering doing so. As long as the employees must use company infrastructure to access collaboration, the company can impose some control. However, wireless blows this control away.

Wireless data has evolved quickly from very slow data rates available on 2.5G networks to very acceptable data rates available in 3.5G networks. In the past, no one would have considered serious Web access over a smart phone operating at 14.4 kbps. This data rate was barely acceptable for email and IMS (instant messaging services). With 3.5G HSUPA operating at 28 Mbps and beyond, though, refresh rates are more than acceptable. All of a sudden, wireless collaboration starts to make sense.

And these devices are more or less ubiquitous. As Figure 1 shows, wireless device deployment is showing no signs of slowing down. High uptake combined with the inexorable influence of Moore's Law on performance and capability, ensures that every employee is carrying a device that can act as a gateway to collaboration spaces.

Figure 1: Worldwide Mobile Data Devices (Worldwide Web Consortium, 2007)

Many enterprise IT organizations are aware that this is possible, however many don't find it particularly threatening. WRONG!

Not only are wireless devices becoming more capable, but the collaboration sites are becoming more friendly to wireless. It is now possible to collaborate through what is effectively IMS (instant messaging service) on steroids. As instant messages are exchanged, the collaboration site collects and collates them for later analysis and evaluation. This can include collecting good ideas for later productization or merely reducing ideation to leveragable intellectual property.

Vendors such as Dell and Lenovo are building small form factor PCs (Web books) somewhere between a laptop and a palm top. Armed with wireless air cards and solid state memory, these devices literally ensure that a collaboration environment can be carried anywhere and, because they are so small, they can easily fit inside a portfolio, purse or briefcase. Such wireless enabled devices do a complete end run around perimeter and network security. People will use them because they are used to using them, because they feel at home in their own collaboration environments and because it is the way they keep in touch with their friends and professional acquaintances.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

So what can enterprises do? Stop focusing on security through infrastructure boundary control and shift to data access control.

Currently, many enterprises are moving to build their own internal collaboration environments. Software such as IBM Lotus and Microsoft Sharepoint allow enterprises to build very extensive collaboration spaces that are tied to routinely used tools such as email and calendaring. It is hoped that employees will use these in favor of anything else they might have.

Yet this approach is largely likely to fail.Employees will obviously use such systems because they have to, but will increasingly maintain a separate presence on their own devices and spaces. Especially in current economic times when employees generally feel less secure in their employment, they are likely to maintain these separate virtual existences simply because they know that if the company lets them go, they will lose access to their virtual communities and contacts if all of their virtual interaction is through company systems.

Companies have tried to threaten employees into dropping their personal networks through a variety of "condition of employment" agreements, but once again, this is likely to fail as well, as employees begin to perceive such conditions as personally threatening to their security.

The only viable response for enterprises is to embrace mobile collaboration, but only to a point. Instead of focusing on boundary control, the enterprise should invest in access control technology that enables the appropriate access to, encryption of and audit of use for highly proprietary intellectual property and protected data. For general operations, employees should be allowed to use their own collaboration technology. In order to work with encrypted data, the employee would need to log into a secured environment where such data is visible, but not transferable.

Vendors provide solutions for securing data at rest and in transit, however, integrating these solutions into a dynamic access environment that allows for positive control combined with flexible access is a chore: one that requires a lot of maintenance. Such solutions currently allow for the creation of directories of authorized users and the content to which they are allowed access. Content that rises to the level of proprietary is encrypted so that only authorized personnel with the appropriate decryption agent can actually use it. What is lacking is a cohesive environment where such access controls and encryption work together seamlessly. However, these products and others like them can be counted on to evolve quickly, with end to end protection, access management and encryption built in. Enterprises should be aware of the need and press their vendors of choice to develop viable responses to the problems.

CONCLUSIONS

Wireless evolution has brought us to a point where employees are empowered with personal technology every bit as capable and accessible as enterprise computing technology. In fact, as we have seen, personal technology has the added benefit of providing a personal workspace that transcends the enterprise workspace by making a working environment independent of the current employer. This, however, poses a challenge to the enterprise.

Enterprises must recognize that their options to control the spread of wireless collaboration are limited. What they can do, though, is focus on intellectual property protection rather than on infrastructure control. When they do, they are in the position of leveraging the productivity of employees' personal collaboration environments while protecting critical data assets.

One Market that is not in recession...There aren't too many enterprise markets generating 20-30% growth these  days.

In today's economic environment, you can't expect to succeed during tough times with a "business as usual" mindset. To excel during a downturn, customer,s priorities change and change demands leadership and solutions. That's where you come in by adding value. Responsiveness' to customers is most important in downturns like we are in now. I see the global economic meltdown finally kicking the industry into gear toward becoming more efficient, open and collaborative. As the economy starts to slow down, one of the first cut backs for many companies is business travel. While increasing fuel prices had already been slowing travel, fears of a recession have cut it back even further. However, companies still need to meet with suppliers, clients and employees and many of them are substituting conventional travel with videoconferencing and collaboration.

While many enterprises and government organizations view IT as an expense, Investing in videoconferencing and collaboration can actually save money by making it easy for employees to communicate or work collaboratively. The trick for resellers is making sure that their customers priorities align with the company’s overall business strategy. By positioning videoconferencing and collaboration as an enabler of the business strategy and in the case of an economic slowdown, you can use IT to gain a huge competitive advantage. Westcon's conferencing solutions addresses the communication needs of companies by offering a complete web conferencing solution at an affordable price. Some companies have halved travel budgets and used some of the money to install  video conferencingsolutions.

Without question, conferencing in a down economy is like a communications ‘perfect storm’  as business must go on ... it must survive.. at a lower cost. Today’s audio, Westcon's Web and video conferencing tools allow for very effective meetings when geography and the expense of travel is a challenge.

Today's economic downturn represents an opportunity for resellers and VARs to demonstrate to companies big and small, local and global, the cost benefit of conferencing on a short- and long-term basis.

Gartner: "We will see companies continue to investigate using Web conferencing tools, instant messaging and team workspaces, all of which not only cut costs but are greener because they cut down on the carbon footprint"

              "Collaboration technology is once again a top 10 CIO budget priority for the third year in a row"

Forester: "In a down economy, T&E gets cut early and often and companies turn to collaborative technologies to drive more productive interactions without the need to be face to face"

Conferencing is not only about cost savings, but productivity gains. By combining conferencing solutions with collaborartion applications,organizations can achieve greater efficiencies and savings from real-time collaboration. The new collaboration products also can mix in documents like spreadsheets and slides and dial up new participants on a moment's notice. Collaboration is not limited to big companies with extensive information technology resources. Many small to mid-sized enterprises also are finding ways to improve supply-chain operations by collaborating with their customers and suppliers. Such collaboration leads to faster data transfer and shorter lead times.

When recessions take hold and companies seek cost-effective measures for business communications, conferencing is an easy pitch. And once the sale is made, conferencing provides resellers with multiple upselling and cross-selling opportunities for new revenue streams that applicable to a variety of vertical markets. It is increasingly important for resellers and VARS to be able to educate the ultimate decision makers on the returns of this investment relative to their other investment opportunities, especially in hard economic times.  Payback on an investment in videoconferencing hardware and software can be commonly reached in three to six months.

The market is there...In 2007, shipments of videoconferencing endpoints (such as cameras and displays) were $1.1 billion, up 30% from the prior year, while sales of videoconferencing infrastructure were about $237 million, up 23%.

How to explain Videoconferencing to your customers

To make people understand what is this new technology and means of virtual  communication, you must:

Reach out to customers.

The people who buy your products are also  thinking about how best to deal with a recession. Your suggestions and proposals  for saving them money will receive more attention than usual. There is an  opportunity to build strong relationships in the 'heat of battle'. A sense of  gratitude for solutions will often endure beyond the downturn. Customer will  show greater willingness to consider radical solutions.

Explain the definition of video  conferencing.

By definition, "video conferencing" refers to a relatively  new means of communications technology that involves voice and video in  connecting users that are the different places. Here, all the parties involved  will be talking to each other face to face—as if they were all in the same room.  People who will videoconference need a personal computer, a web cam, a  microphone, and a broadband Internet connection to be able to make the virtual  communication work.

Here, the participants or users can hear and see one  another in real time, thus, allowing normal conversations like that those of  voice communications technology—only both parties can see and hear what they  people is saying or doing at the same time. A good bandwidth is required for  video conferencing to work and it's a must that the computer has high-fidelity  streaming voice and video to be able to maximize its fullest potential.

Explain the need for video conferencing.

Are you spending on things that don't make a real difference - travelling to  meetings instead of phoning or using video conferencing, using expensive  business premises when you could work from home?

To be able encourage  people to adapt and accept the new technology, it is a must to explain the need  for video conferencing after explaining what it is and its technicalities. This  will make the people—specifically the employees—realize the need for it. One of  the foremost reasons that you can point out why you should use video  conferencing is for practicality. Instead of going to meeting physically and  travel to places, people can just use video conferencing to explain that needs  explaining.

Although telephone calls or emailing would do, it is better  to video conferencing because it adds more impact to the transaction or to the  business at hand. For sales people, this is also beneficial since they can see  the person involved when doing a business, video conferencing will open the  doors to more opportunities and produce more results. And since your business  set up needs a live conversation, the employees should understand that visual  information is an integral factor of the entire conversation process.

Show how it works.

Although you have explained how it works when you  explained what is video conferencing earlier. Some people might not get the hang  of it right away. Aside from verbal explanation, it will be best to show them  how it works and by re-explaining all the parts of the process. The first that  you need to do is to explain is how people from different places can make  conversation for a meeting or conference all at the same time.

So, what  you can do is demonstrate it to them and show how it works. Set up a video  conference with another person and invite at least five or ten people to witness  it and participate in the conversation if possible. During the video conference,  show how the visual and audio transmission of messages are done.

Google wants the next killer application to be written for cell phones, not the Internet! Joining the turbulent waters of cell phone software, Google hopes to raise the bar by offering an open system allowing extensive outside development, even going as far as to make much of the system open source. As is true with most open source based solutions, if Android is to become the ubiquitous mobile phone platform that Google and the Open Handset Alliance hope it will be, it will be because operators and handset OEMs recognize the value to their own business models of using standard platforms, not because wireless subscribers clamor for feature-rich phones, much less an Android-based phone. Just to give you an idea of the market size, 1.5 million T-Moble Android phones have been pre-sold and the Gartner Group are predicting that Android based smartphones will make up 10% of the smartphone market in the year 2011.   In terms of the industry I think this speaks more about where the mobile phone market is going.

So why is Google doing this then?
Advertising revenue. There are projections of billions of dollars of advertising revenue from the mobile Internet. Google wants to hoover up as much of that as it can, just as it already does with Internet advertising accessed over fixed links.

Android is an attempt to bring some of the ways of the computing industry to the mobile phone world. The Android open source software employs some components familiar to the computing industry and some new ones. It employs Linux at its lowest levels to communicate with hardware, but applications running on the system are written in the Java programming language. Here is the rational; because much of Android is open-source software, it can be used for free, and that means those selling phones can spend their money on better hardware rather than on software license fees. Android can be used by any phone manufacturer to build any kind of mobile phone--anything from a simple, inexpensive phone for the developing world to a power user's high-end smartphone.

Android, which is built on an open-source platform, promises to offer developers an easier way to develop new applications. And this will likely be the case. But the fact that Android will be used on hundreds of different handsets might complicate application development and distribution. Android Market still looks like its going to be an extremely rich hosted distribution system that will offer a lot of value to third-party developers and ease of use to end users.

For Google, Android is a tool to spread Internet-savvy phones far and wide. People with powerful networked phones use the Internet much more, and Google wants to be the top company supplying the information they demand online.  Like Apple, Google plans a central site to distribute and sell applications. With Android, a programmer could create a program that would function immediately on every Android phone on the market, drastically increasing the market that the programmer can offer his/her software to.

Developers will be able to make their content available on an open service hosted by Google that features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube. We chose the term "market" rather than "store" because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available. Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it. We also intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings.

For those that have the time here is a great video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zIaglJNPcY&eurl=http://www.growthology.org/growthology/2008/09/googles-android.html

Well this is interesting.Wait long enough and everything comes back.

Very interesting technology.   We already have cell, wi-fi, wimax, microwave, bluetooth now they can light a bulb (Most likely LED Light Bulb) Even with that it is very cool to think about that this was done over a hundre years ago!

1890 Nikola Tesla - Yes it's true in 1899 at Colorado Springs by transmitting 100 million volts of high-frequency electric power wirelessly over a distance of 26 miles at which he lit up a bank of 200 light bulbs and ran one electric motor!

Check out the video: Tesla the Wireless King

Today -Intel 

Intel cuts electric cords with wireless power system

Intel on Thursday showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets.

Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the California firm's annual developers forum in San Francisco.

Electricity was sent wirelessly to a lamp on stage, lighting a 60 watt bulb that uses more power than a typical laptop computer.

Most importantly, the electricity was transmitted without zapping anything or anyone that got between the sending and receiving units.

"The trick with wireless power is not can you do it; it's can you do it safely and efficiently," Intel researcher Josh Smith said in an online video explaining the breakthrough.

"It turns out the human body is not affected by magnetic fields; it is affected by elective fields. So what we are doing is transmitting energy using the magnetic field not the electric field."

Examples of potential applications include airports, offices or other buildings that could be rigged to supply power to laptops, mobile telephones or other devices toted into them.

The technology could also be built into plugged in computer components, such as monitors, to enable them to broadcast power to devices left on desks or carried into rooms, according to Smith.

"Initially it eliminates chargers and eventually it eliminates batteries all together," analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group said of Intel's wireless power system.

"That is potentially a world changing event. This is the closest we've had to something being commercially available in this class."

Previous wireless power systems consisted basically of firing lightning bolts from sending to receiving units.

Smith says Intel's wireless power system is still in an early stage of development and much research remains before it can be brought to market.

Rattner spoke of technological transformations he expects by the year 2050.

"You'd like to cut the last cord," Smith said.

"It's great that we have wireless email and wireless internet and stuff like that but at the end of the day it would be nice to have wireless recharge as well."

Site: http://www.smithonvoip.com/voip-commentary/what-is-open-source-really-worth-to-nortel/

Subject: What is Open Source Really Worth to Nortel

Nortel and Fonality|Asterisk are on a collision course. Can disruption from Nortel be coming to Fonality's (and Digium's) commercial offerings? Show me the Sales Potential!

Speaking of Nortel...now that they have aquired Pingtel, and have released the SCS500 SIPFoundry based IP-PBX platform for SMB, I suspect that Fonality will need to provide some more information as to how they will compete over Nortel|Pingtel's offerings in the commercial marketplace.  It seems they want to move (and change) the discussion away from the existing open source based vendors  (the Fonality and Asterisk communities) into the tradioonal vendor market space with colltateral and support offerings aimed strait at the typical commercial customer. How will Fonality transition into the mainstream?

Also Nortel|Pingtel see the Fonality|Dell solution serving typically around 20 users, sometimes 50. user deployments and do not see Fonality as a serious contender in the 50 user up market.

Point is what is it that Nortal|Pingtel has and Fonality does not ... in terms of busines value since Nortel's and Fonality's products overlap to some extent. Also how do you ardess reviews that say "...Fonality's PBXtra. If simplicity is more important than features" ? Features is what it's all about in the commercial marketplace.

And as to the open source developer communiity in relation to the Nortel marketplace, they could wind up to be a liability as most of them are small, very small and this does not go down to well in the commercial marketplace where the big boys are playing. I really have not seen any of the developers contributing to the open source driving revenue revenue relevent to the reseller or product recognition in the commercial marketplace.

Nortel's stratagy in choosing SIPFoundry (as stated on  The Hyperconnected Enterprise) will cause a lot of confusion for our customers moving toward adopting open source based communications and  I feel that that it would be nice to have some answers from Fonality that provide a clear direction for customers wanting to buy the Digium solutions. Nortel|Pingtel is making some stong points about SIPFoundry being a better platform and are touting their  extensive developer community, with more than 60 developer partners and close to 400 active members.

How will Fonality answer this: "If your career is on the line when the phone system fails and you have nobody to call have a look at the commercial version of sipXecs, called SIPxchange, and provided by Pingtel Corp ... Nortel|Pingtel offers full commercial support as you would expect from any commercial company." That said Nortel's not been shy about their support for open source and their use of open source. As for Digium, their Asterisk technology and brand is the biggest name in open source VoIP. How will Fonality use the Asterisk branding & communicty to their benefit for their commercial offering?

Lastly  Fonality has scored another $12 million in financing from Intel Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson - and some of the money could be earmarked for acquisitions. Impressive, but what does it mean for traditional VARs and solutions providers needing to choose a solution?

So let the battle begin.

Moe Schwartz- Technical Director Westcon

Until lately, one of the biggest problems my sales people have had is a 'call to action'. "So you can save me 1,000 year, sorry can't be bothered, too busy making money." Now most firms are looking at costs in minute detail. All of a sudden saving money is a big deal. Our order rate has consequently gone through the roof. think it is. Even though our customers have always been interested in saving money, now that the economy is in downturn and gas prices are higher companies are starting to realize that and are switching to IPT and Unified Communications because they are looking to save thousands of dollars per user.

You need to remember this: Cutting costs for short-term impact without understanding what drives value or profit could threaten long-term competitiveness! When recessions take hold and companies seek cost-effective measures for business communications, Open Source based IPT and Collaboration is an really easy pitch.

Lets face it customers are just more demanding in a economic downturn. The two major issues impacting you, simply said, are customers are demanding more for less money, and customers are deferring purchase decisions. The companies most concerned about the impact of the economy on their buyers' budgets were also focused on reducing their own spending.

My feeling is that selling the same old solutions do not cut it when the economy goes south. So who is the best customer fo you to target in this market and what solution?

Companies appeared most eager to harness technologies that would help them know their customers better. The largest group-43 percent-voted for "having more accurate or complete customer data," another 39 percent chose "having a consistent view of the customer across the company," and 33 percent chose "having better tools or methods of analyzing customer data. (Accenture).

The important element in the current economy is to keep the client happy with a solution that fits their budget, and up-sell as the future becomes greener. Well, most legacy and propritary voice systems can not provide the goods, not only because of features, but due to surmounting initial hardware costs or expensive financing models that simply do not make the final cut.

That said, low cost unified communications is the best traget. Nevertheless, the SMBs and enterprises that are focused on converting to IP, plans are already in place. We don't expect them to delay that. But they want to revaluate the costs and not just any solution will work, but ones that offer the advantages of enterprise voice solutions, Microsoft OCS connectivity, Unified Communications and CRM connectivity in a very very low cost and proven package will be an easy sell.

Our resller partners can make good on the IPT and UC requirements by leveraging several new low cost solutions in the market. Both the Nortel SCS500 and Digium Switchvox fit into this solution set. These all in one solutuons are easy to justify at the CIO and CFO level as to cost vs productivity and TCO benefits. Although lower total cost of ownership and reduced equipment costs are the top two user expectations of deploying unified communications technology, in reality the top three benefits, based on a survey of 300 organisations, are enhanced employee collaboration, productivity and customer service.

Without question, open source based telephony and unified communications in a down economy is like a communications ‘perfect storm' - business must go on ... it must survive. Today's open source based IPT and unified communications allow for very effective meetings when geography and the expense of travel is a challenge.Ppositioning IPT+UC as an alternative to expensive travel is a story that's been heard before, but it's one that resonates during an economic pinch.

Westcon Managed VoIP and Security Services (EU & SA Only):

The Gartner August 2007 forecast reported ‘Hosted IP Telephony monthly extension revenues as growing by 1255% in Western Europe, 2006 - 2011,' - a new growth market full of opportunity for the converged channel. There is always pressure on companies to do more with less, but in particular there is a demand for a better return on capital invested. A key business benefit for your client is that the purchase of Hosted IP Telephony is based on a licence per user basis, thus avoiding tough decisions related to capital investment.

Westcon's 4sure Connections hosted VoIP solutions are flexible, clients paying a monthly fee for productivity enhancing features and applications. There are no up front capital costs or hidden charges. There are no up front capital costs or hidden charges. Clients can specify their exact needs at the start, adding new capabilities as business changes or finances dictate. Growing organically with the enterprise they'll find a whole new range of telephony and multi-media capabilities that they couldn't have imagined on day one. So now is the time to prepare your clients for this new advance, as it becomes the business norm to which they aspire. To do this you need partnership with a reliable IPT provider with the right resources. 4sure Connection has the specialist knowledge to guide you to success in your client pitch, plus the service and support infrastructure to ensure that you as a reseller gain maximum market share of this new business opportunity.

4Sure.IT is the name of our NOC, our Network Operations Centre. 4Sure.IT helps Westcon Security to deliver Managed Security Services through our reseller partners to over 100,000 users across Europe.

Westcon 4SureIT services include:

• Anti-virus for servers and desktops

• Firewalls

• Security appliances

• HTTP and SMTP solutions

Westcon Mail4Sure filters the traffic between the Internet and your network. Built on ModusGate^TM-technology, it enhances e-mail security with sophisticated management tools including a rock-solid perimeter defence, customizable Sieve scripts, domain and user quarantines, dedicated anti-spam and multiple anti-virus engines, e-mail failover and the most accurate filtering available.