Davide's space: Blog

Instant Messaging = more time

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:43:28 GMT

Instant Messaging = Time

Many people have used one form of Instant Messaging (IM) or another. I believe the term does not do the act justice. It would be better termed Instant Communicating. In the 90’s the proliferation of voice mail in businesses showed how being able to leave a detailed message can provide people with Time. Later, the mass adoption of e-mail provided yet another convenient way to send a message. Instant Messaging now provides an immediate means to communicate with another person who is available, using text. Click on their name, and start chatting via the keyboard. This saves a lot of time, and the addition of Unified Communications in the IM portfolio will simplify the process further. Click on their name, and just simply start chatting. Good UC solutions will make IM part of the current application and business process an organization is using. This guarantees access and simplicity to leverage the value of immediate communications and the efficiency of a users time

Esnatech wins innovation for presence awareness

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:54:10 GMT

esna technologies receives 2008 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation

The 2008 Frost & Sullivan North American Technology Innovation Award in the field of presence management systems goes to Canada-based Esna Technologies Inc. for its presence platform Telephony Office-LinX. It is a cost-effective solution catering to a wide range of business segments. The company provides offerings for large enterprises as well as small and medium businesses by providing easy access for remote users with employees.

The 2008 Frost & Sullivan North American Technology Innovation Award further validates our leadership in the presence and unified communication space for enterprises. Telephony Office-LinX is the only platform in the industry that offers interoperability to any phone system, any mobile device, any email/groupware solution, business application and any operating system. It truly is designed to meet the needs of an actual business that has fragmented pieces of architecture, devices and application across their organization.

Esna’s technical superiority and its ability to consistently innovate to meet enterprise demands with the help of their presence platform, Office-LinX, makes them the worthy recipient of the 2008 Frost and Sullivan Technology Innovation Award.

Frost & Sullivan’s Technology Innovation Award is bestowed upon a company (or individual) that has carried out new research, which has resulted in innovation(s) that have or are expected to bring significant contributions to the industry in terms of adoption, change, and competitive posture. This award recognizes the quality and depth of a company’s research and development program as well as the vision and risk-taking that enabled it to undertake such an endeavor.

Shoud I invest in unified messaging

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:56:26 GMT

Voice mail is one of the most significant communication technologies of the past decade. It enables people to access messages from virtually any location where a telephone is present. However, this produced somewhat of a dilemma: consider the amount of time it takes to retrieve these voice mail messages, in addition to email documents, faxes, and instant messages - let alone analyzing the content and responding. There is clearly a need to unify and consolidates all of this information so that it can be managed more effectively.

Unified messaging builds on the proven functionality and value of voice mail by integrating it with other forms of messaging, this include email and fax in a single mail box that offers expanded message and contact management capabilities. By implementing a unified messaging solution, users have the ability to access, manage, and reply to all messages from a PC, touch-tone telephone (wire-line or wireless), or PDA virtually anywhere in the world.

Unified messaging has already proven to be a powerful tool in helping workers organize and manage not only voice mail but also other non-real time communications such as email and fax. Unified messaging is an outgrowth of the success of voice mail, which continues to enjoy a must-have status in today's business environment. As companies' needs change, unified messaging is becoming a critical and ubiquitous business tool, just as voice mail is today.

To remain competitive, an companies must constantly improve its communication abilities by enhancing contact tools for its workforce, customers, and partners. Efficient communication drives customer responsiveness and advances employee productivity. This results in increased satisfaction, retention, and loyalty for both customers and employees.

Choose A Solution Today: One of the key strategies for implementing a cost-effective unified communication system is interoperability. A good unified communication platform should integrate easily into one's existing infrastructure. For example, businesses that have made significant investments in their email ( GroupWare) solution and CRM platform should invest in a technology that can support these other forms of prime communication tools within their business

The right solution will provide scalable, open systems architecture capable of supporting present and future communication applications. Whether a company is using a PBX style or IP-based communications infrastructure. When evaluating different solutions, look for ones that offer a full range of options.

Unified messaging is a vital technology with lasting power that can provide a building block for future unified communication capabilities. Unified communication will help make our lives easier, more mobile and efficient, and when the right solution is implemented, it can be done with minimal risks and entry expense. In short, unified messaging will drive responsiveness, competitive advantage, and productivity.

Unified communications to meet your business needs:

http://www.esnatech.com/products.htm

Green solution that provide SaaS interoperability

http://www.esnatech.com/google/googleapps.htm

Unified Communications the industry landscape.. From where I see it..:)

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:37:51 GMT

"Unified communications" is one of the hottest buzzwords in the communication industry as vendors and distributors are looking to excite end users on how this technology will change the way business communicates and competes. It is aggressively being pushed by noted heavy weights ( Microsoft/Cisco) as MUST HAVE technology and not simply cool technology . Cisco, Microsoft, and several small players such as esnatech, AVST have all got the UC Stuff. What we see in the horizon is new vendors looking at it and seeing if they can take advantage of the hype, Apple and Google are on the side lines looking in but strategically looking how to get in BIG.

UC still seems unclear and hard to position with end users as every vendor has their own definition of what this must have technology is based on what they are trying to sell. Really UC is not a product but a process that can vary differently a based on who is using it and how a business processes workflow. it ranges from a simple definition of :Using the same network for voice, video, and data, or for mobile users it it really boils down to: Using the same device for all forms of communication, For many vendors trying to push large bandwidth and ex pensive devices it is around the amalgamation of voice, video and text for a seamless flow of communications, but in the end it really is about unifying your core business processes so you can automate simple non critical task and increase communication flow to access live resources at critical stages to enable decision making and streamline your business process. Finally there is a wealth of other definitions that are all correct as they address a specific customer or users need to unify some form of communications.

Really because of all the different type of interpretations based on vendor marketing unified communications is truly in danger of becoming a industry buzzword instead of industry changing technology just like all the other BIG marketing terms such as Web 2.0 and even "Going Green". The problem is the definition can be changed to suit your immediate purpose.

From a vendor and UC VAR perspective this is good, simply position yourself as a leader in UC and you're a leader in just about anything related to UC, voice, IM, Presence, mobility, video, collaboration, etc..

What is amazing many In my opinion, is that TRU Unifying of communication access has been around for many years from several independent vendors such as esnatech, AVST, and interactive Intelligence who truly offer UC solutions that have NO dependencies such as specific phone systems, email, or business applications. Esnatech for the last 15 years has truly been unifying business infrastructure to streamline the way a business communicates. Now the big boys enter in 2007/2008 and talk about this "NEW" technology but with a caveat...It has to be their stuff! IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, all promote open technology as long as the core of it is their stuff! Microsoft launched their UC suite which is excellent ...as long as all your core applications and devices are Microsoft, Lotus has similar functionality,but with no clear marketing direction. GroupWise is also in this space, But weak on voice communications and direction. Really outside of Microsoft it is the major voice players making the UC noise- Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, and Siemens.

The real interesting part for all the vendors solutions is the lack of a unified portfolio! While communication is starting to flow over a single channel, the user experience is still very fragmented. Many solutions with lots of overhead all linked together with middleware( you hope)

Even Apple has moved into the UC arena with Mobile Me (Apple has existing patents on the iPhone to enable video conferencing!) They promote Mobile Me as "Exchange for the rest of us". The line between enterprise and consumer is going to blur whether enterprise companies want it to or not.

As good as it is with single identity, Mobile Me is not open--like everything else from Apple it's closed and controlled and this may hurt their enterprise penetration. MS Exchange is also tightly controlled,with crazy fragmented and expensive licensing. This is opening the door for new and hungry competitors to attack their market dominance .

Google, Is a real threat if they can ever market Google applications properly. They certainly have the solid basis of a UC product line. With a Google account I can now get email, chat, instant messaging, and voice chat, and Tie it in with applications from esnatech to link my mobile phone and office PBX to the hosted UC service. Giving them opportunity to penetrate the enterprise.

UC is completely fragmented at the enterprise level (Microsoft is pushing the desktop and everyone else is pushing devices and infrastructure).

The real question, I think, is whose vision is the most ambitious and most aligns with the future. I have big doubts about Microsoft, they're stuck trying to defend the desktop which is a losing proposition in the long run. I'm just speculating about what Google is doing but it has huge potential, then you have a variety of Telecom vendors that are so voice focused they lost site of unification really is. Let us not forget the Groupware vendors trying to re-invent themselves and breath new life by re badging themselves as UC such as Lotus, Oracle and GroupWise. Reality is because UC means many things to many people the winner can not be decided for a while and this means tremendous opportunities for other vendors and application middleware such as the Esna Telephony Office-LinX that truly links infrastructure to applications and is completely agnostic to the environment.

Connecting the Dots... part 2

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:55:38 GMT

Connect the Dots.. Part 2

People don’t invest in technology to be able to say they have it…they invest in technology for what it will do for their business. There must be a functional purpose. Investments must be justified. What is the impact? Prove it! Arguably there are 6 areas, within any business for which an investment in technology is considered or justified. They are: profitability/expense control, competitive advantage, client relations, employee efficiencies, management tools and company image. Proving validity of your solution must link functionality to the impact in these areas.
A professional salesperson must take the responsibility to deliver this proof. This is not a chance we want to leave up to the end-user. Connect the dots for them. Failing to do so is a disservice to the buyer and the salesperson’s employer. Refer to the Value Wheel diagram below. This identifies six areas of a business that generally any solution will need to address in order to be justified. Our objective is to work with the buyer, building the case, in order to link our product/solution capabilities to the impact it will have for their business.
Theoretically, if a feature cannot be articulated to where and how it will address one or more of the six areas in the Value Wheel it is meaningless. You can bet that the buyer/president/owner /board of directors are concerned about:
• Delivering higher profit margins or conversely reduction of expenses? Where can your solution effect this and how?
• Their competitive advantage or ability to create additional advantages and differentiate themselves? How can your solution provide that? How much profit does the buyer’s typical client represent to them over the term of their relationship?
• Their client relations…customer base retention/erosion rates? What is the current level of client satisfaction? Are client expectations being met? What is the cost of a lost client? What is the benefit of a saved client? How can your solution assist and provide better client experience?
• Employee efficiencies? Is turnover an issue and if so what is the cost? What is the “happiness” factor of the general employee as related to stress in the workplace? How can you address work stress and efficiency issues? What is the value to the end user?
• How does the company validate their performance against service level expectations and accountabilities? How is their consistency measured? If you can improve that, what is the impact to the company?
• The image the company projects to the marketplace? More important, what image do they want to project to their marketplace and how can you help? So what if you have more features.
So what if you have more buttons. So what if your widget is prettier and smaller. What does it mean to the buyer as related to the Value Wheel? You can bet that behind closed doors the buyer’s management team is talking about elements of the Value Wheel rather than features/buttons, etc.
Connecting your solution to elements on the Value Wheel means we must understand the goals, objectives and challenges of the buyer’s business. Furthermore, it means that the buyer must b willing to share information with us in order for us to create. Connecting the dots can be particularly important in challenging economic times as vendors are otherwise likely to experience delayed decisions or hypersensitive price driven decisions. By effectively connecting the dots, a buyer will often conclude that in spite economic conditions, they can’t afford not to invest in your solution.
Don’t microwave sales! Let’s say you are having a group of friends for dinner and will be cooking some nice steaks. You return from the store, prepare and marinate the steaks for two hours. The friends arrive and of course you want to spend as much time visiting with them as possible. How long do you microwave the steaks?
Oh, you wouldn’t microwave your steaks? Why not, it’s much faster? The obvious fact is that th outcome…the taste of the final product is far better if grilled. In fact to microwave a nice steak would ruin it.
Don’t try to microwave sales! Don’t rush it. Don’t cut corners. Take the time to cross the T’s and dot the I’s. Then take more time to connect the dots, earn the business and earn a client for life.
Todd Walker
VP sales
Iwatsu voice networks

Connecting the DOTS to the value of UC

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:52:49 GMT

Connect the dots:
If it doesn’t rain, grass doesn’t grow. If grass doesn’t grow…cows don’t eat. If the cows don’t eat then the rancher either has to sell the cows or buy hay to feed the cows. If everyone sells their cows, it drives cattle prices down. If everyone is feeding hay it drives hay prices up and cuts into overall profit. Supply and demand…it’s really pretty simple yet much like a Vegas dice game.
Selling technology is much different than raising cattle. Sure we may be subject to certain elements (such as the economy) but the marketplace and conditions are everevolving. Buyers are more intelligent, technology is capable of achieving a greater impact to the user’s business and the competition is ever-more aggressive. We have to change, stay fresh in our approach and be cognizant of market expectations to ensure we have a viable and attractive offer. Staying the same is the kiss of death in a technology driven business. It means becoming stale and outdated.
A sales strategy that worked 3-5 years ago is not as effective. We should recognize that the events occurring throughout the sales cycle are necessary and each serve a specific purpose. In relation to the metaphor used earlier, these events represent crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s They do not connect the dots for a buyer. This is a critical oversight that often results in lost sales.
For instance, throughout the sales cycle several events may take place:
• Response to an RFP
• Fact finding mission/discussion
• Validation of information collected
• Provide references
• Product demonstration
• Provide product brochures/descriptions
• A nice proposal complete with pricing and itemization of equipment to be
provided
To make a point, let’s isolate the effects of a product demonstration. Is this an
important event? Absolutely. In fact, it’s assumed by most people that if a would-be
buyer will not invest the time to see a product demonstration; (red flag) your
probability of earning the business is greatly reduced.
For the customer a product demonstration establishes:
• Clarity of feature/functionality
• Confidence in the vendor’s capabilities is enhanced
• Ability to visualize what the user experience will be long-term
For a Vendor the benefits of providing a product demonstration:
• It further qualifies the buyer. As pointed out earlier, if a buyer won’t take time to go through a demo, it is most likely a red flag indicating they have already decided your potential is of little interest to them. Conversely, most vendors recognize a higher closing rate when the buyer goes through a demo
• The ability to confirm that the technology is acceptable for the buyer and identify objections
• The ability to show mastery of the product
• Bonding with buyer as they see the vendor’s ability to convey and articulate the capabilities of a product to them
• Gaining further buy-in and opportunity for benchmarking
The obscure fact is that for all the positive things which can come out of a demonstration, to achieve maximum results it must prove what the impact of a solution will be to one’s business. It must connect the dots.
Part 1 of 2
Todd Walker
Vice President Sales
Iwatsu Voice Networks

Demonstrating the value of Unified Communications

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:04:15 GMT

I reviewed the results from the voicecon webinar on the value of UC from the first comprehensive “UC End User Productivity Survey”

The effort to identify and even quantify its benefits has consistently failed to result in clearly articulated business benefits; until now they claim! Analysts researched real-life UC end users from various industries and disciplines within enterprise business organizations. They conducted detailed research and analysis interviewing a variety of end users, examining how they use UC in their daily work flow, and how UC has made an impact. Here are some highlights of those results!
“100% of those polled said UC has positively impacted the way they do business.”
“UC has reduced travel my time by 30-40%!”
“Voicemail has been reduced by 80%!”
“One problem in particular was solved in minutes, when it would have taken hours to solve before UC.”
“If UC functionality were taken away from me, I’d demand it back! Seriously, it’s one of the big changes that I’ve seen since being in business.”
Executives, operations, IT, human resources, and marketing users were all interviewed for this study. The consensus was that UC has made a critical impact on their productivity. This is good stuff and validates what we have been talking about over the past 15 years. Unifying and Simplifying business communications can have a tremendous impact on streamlining business process and improving overall corporate productivity. This play directly to an organizations top line ( revenue) and bottom line ( profits).
The value of what esnatech provides with it's UC solution is matching the value of unifying core business applications such as Sales force automation, Groupware solutions, and or CRM and matching it to an organizations strategic operational objectives. This delivers the greatest and quickest return on an organizations UC investment.

Visual voice mail- value is when it works with your office system

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:00:19 GMT

Visual voice mail- value is when it works with your office system

Visual Voice mail! Everyone is talking about it, and almost every provider claims they have it. Big Deal! Not one of them provides support for your office voice mail! It's currently a great toy, or limited to cell phone users, until now! Esnatech extends the value of visual voice mail to your business. With Esnatech's Telephony Office-LinX not only can you access and READ your voice mail from any device but now it is unified with your office e-mail platform , office voicemail, and mobile device for anywhere access to a single inbox to manage all your messages.
Law firms, medical clinics and financial firms can now search voice mail and conversation based on key words! Combine Esnatech's visual messaging feature with it's support for GoogleTM applications and now you have the greatest archiving and search technology around enterprise communications! This is not future technology this exists and is available today from Esnatechs Unified communications platform! Key value to Visual messaging with office voice mail:

View voicemail messages as text on a Blackberry, Windows mobile,Iphone, computer or cellphone
Ideal for small business owners, entrepreneurs and busy professionals Scan messages quickly to locate most urgent and take action
Text is searchable using text searching tools perfect for legal and medical industries
Sort, copy, paste, print and forward

A business executive spends an average of 45 minutes per-week checking voicemail; that's three hours per-month, per-person spent on non-revenue producing activity. Telephony Office-LinX is a business productivity tool; the Visual Voice mail service allows users to spend less time checking voicemail, and more time closing deals. The service enhances CRM because names, numbers and calls are all stored and searchable via The TOL web client and Synced to popular email platforms such as MS exchange and Google applications. Being able to respond to time sensitive voicemail as quickly as possible will increase productivity and revenue. Telephony Office-LinX is integrated with all Major phone systems and business applications such as Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce.com, etc.

Defining what Rich Presence is

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:25:47 GMT

rich presence:

Rich presence is an enhanced form of presence awareness in which participants can determine if other users are online and if so, observe to a limited extent what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Basic presence services divulge only the availability of another user. Rich presence goes further; subscribers can let others know:

their location
whether their device is mobile
its specifications
local time
personal messages
current employer or client
the level of privacy desired.
if the user is on or off the phone

Rich presence does not allow the transmission of sensitive data that could be used to harm or inconvenience the identified user.

Esnatech UC Client manager provides customers with True Rich presence delivered in a secure enterprise client that eliminates any rick of file transfer, and virus attacks. users can subscribe, and authenticate from their desktop, the web, smartphone or simply calling in using speech. for more information on the RICH PRESENCE client that is part of the ESNA UC offering visit http://www.esnatech.com/products/options/uc_manager.htm

Touch to cut helps UC resellers get started

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:43:34 GMT

Part of any Unified Communication(UC) VARS issues is getting started and becoming proficient in the technology. Not simply the functionality but the execution and deployment of the technology to ensure a successful launch to it's intended organization. The UC industry even in it's infancy is littered with horror stories of bad cut-overs and unsatisfied customers. The result of this is that organizations perceive UC to be more bother then value, the UC VAR struggles to achieve his margin and profits, and worst of never gets to achieve his ultimate goal in new ventures which is a critical reference and ongoing future projects with the customer. This typically occurs because the VAR is new to the technology and does not have enough experience in deployments to have smooth predictable cut overs.

Esnatech has come up with a very clever solution to ensure satisfied customers but at the same time provide real-life real time experience with both installations and cut overs. The new program is called the Esnatech Touch 2 Cut installation services. For a set fee, vars can purchase one of three bundles that will provide online, virtual installation services. These services provide a better and greener alternative to traditional PS work that involves travel and days of energy consumption. With proper prep work from the VAR on the environment. Esnatech can provide remote installation services that will not only deliver a smooth experienced cut over but also provide the VAR and opportunity to watch, ask questions and learn without major mistakes that could effect their margins and customer satisfaction.

As a result, the Touch 2 Cut (T2C) program has been created with the intention to provide our customers with the best possible deployment options to minimize installation time, increase productivity, reduce our carbon footprint, and result in higher overall profitability of every installed system. In our overall efforts to "Talk Green" we have looked at how we could minimize travel and unnecessary consumption to accommodate customer requirements for proper application deployment.

If you are a UC reseller and interested in learning more about the touch to cut program please feel free to contact Esnatech customer service at 905-707-9700 say" customer service"

Key to UC Adoption

Fri, 23 May 2008 15:49:15 GMT

The key to the adoption of Unified Communications is simplifying business process, without needing the users to learn something new. This is particularly true for the small business. Typically, there are no standards in the suite of applications and systems in place at a small business. In a small business price has been the driving factor in what they have purcahsed and deployed. It is therefore important to deploy a set of solutions that can inter-operate with whatever is in place. Furthermore, SMBs have a greater need to be virtual. There are fewer people to delegate their work to when out of the office. Mobile integration to the office infrastructure and applications is a must to allow people who are out of the office working to operate as if they were in the office and connected to all the information they need to make decisions and implement process. A good UC system can address all of the above issues.

Mohammad Nezarati
CEO/CTO
Esnatech

Small business want UC

Fri, 16 May 2008 18:33:20 GMT

The Adoption of Unified Communication solutions among small businesses is growing and the reports show it.

UC will save SMBs businesses significant costs,dramatically raise their productivity, and raise the bar in terms of who they can compete against in business. These are benefits every small business needs at any stage of its life, but they are particularly critical during the challenging economic times in which companies are operating today. Providing Small businesses access to affordable, business-critical solutions are an extremely valuable proposition for small businesses especially where the decisions on technology typically lie directly with the business owners and senior revenue generating managers.

The idea of if it is not broke do not fix it is a strong proposition to SMBS and the reason why Churn in infrastructure is not in high demand. Adding applications to what they have or existing infrastructure has a big appeal! It dramatically lowers the disruption caused by the introduction of the new technology and increases the learning curve so they can reach their ROI and productivity gains sooner.

Small businesses need better and greater tools for communication to compete with larger organizations, enabling them to solve problems such as improving productivity. By introducing the Small Business edition of the Esnatech Unified communications platform we are able to meet this big demand and need for small business. It delivers the complete functionality of mobility, presence, and messaging unlike other water down solutions most vendors provide SMB's. On top of that it is one of the only Application only solutions available that works with existing infrastructure. When you combine the small business edition with services such as Google applications, and SMB has a complete set of Communication services that will allow them to compete and WIN in today's competitive landscape.

Unified Communications makes it easier

Fri, 09 May 2008 16:27:12 GMT

Esna Technologies Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions make it easier for people to find, reach and collaborate with one another through a unified communications experience.

Integrating communications and collaboration in a rich, multimedia experience — one that can include unified telephony, voice,instant messaging,e-mail, voice mail, and business processes and applications — enables a whole new way for people, teams and communities to work together.

Esna technologies and other UC vendors deliver These solutions, offer a unified client experience that seamlessly integrates with multi-vendor environments, and extensibility that allow you to best manage your IT and telephony environment while reducing overall costs.

Unified communications in action

Given the sophistication of unified communications technology, its uses are many With unified communications, instant messaging and presence could be built into core business application for businesses. It enables users to know where their colleagues are physically located (say, their car or home office). They also have the ability to see which mode of communication the recipient prefers to use at any given time (perhaps their cell phone, or email, or instant messaging).

Business benefits of unified communications

Unified communications helps businesses, small and large alike, to streamline information delivery and ensure ease of use. Human delays are also minimized or eliminated, resulting in better, faster interaction and service-delivery for the customer, and cost savings for the business. Unified communications also allows for easier, more direct collaboration between co-workers and with suppliers and clients, even if they are not physically on the same site.

Who is it for?

Unified communications is very useful for knowledge workers, information workers, and service workers alike, many of whom may cross the lines between the three sectors on a daily or hourly basis, depending on the task and the client. With an increasingly mobile workforce, businesses are rarely centralized in one location. Unified communications facilitates this on-the-go, always-available style of communication.

http://ca.youtube.com/user/Ucommunicate

Esna UC , the market leader for innovation

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:57:33 GMT

Esnatech was just honored with Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) 2008 TMC Labs Innovation Award winner presented by Unified Communications magazine for our Telephony office-LinX platform that is packaged to meet any size business needs and budget

We are honored to be recognized by TMC LABS as industry leader in Unified Communications. This award goes further to validate the strength of our technology and the value Esnatech delivers to the industry and our customer!

Rich Tehrani the President of TMC had this to say about Esnatech's UC solution :"Telephony Office-LinX is clearly deserving of recognition for its out-of-box innovation helping to transform the unified communications industry. We’re proud to reward Esnatech for their hard work with a Unified Communications"

Tom Keating, CTO and TMC Labs Editorial Director at TMC went on further to say
“Esnatech has demonstrated a commitment to quality, and a commitment to the further development of the unified communications industry through the development of Telephony Office-LinX. Esnatech deserves this great honor, and I look forward to seeing other innovative solutions from them as they continue to contribute to the future of unified communications industry.

The TMC Labs Innovation Awards honor products that demonstrate raw innovation, unique features, and significant contributions toward improving communications technology. The TMC Labs Innovation Awards are not granted only to the best-selling products, but instead to those demonstrating representing a significant contribution to the industry.

system integrators are the big winners with UC technology

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:45:33 GMT

Systems Integrators are Best Positioned to Benefit from Unified Communications Growth.

Leading telecommunications research and analysis firms indicate the Future of Unified Communications is in the hands of the System integrators as they will be the ones implementing and consulting on best practises.

Key points around the acceptance of UC in the coming years are:

􀂉 UC is the killer application that the market has been searching for throughout the past 3-4 years of IP Telephony’s boom ;

􀂉 The adoption of UC solutions is currently slow. It will be 4-5 years before UC completely penetrates enterprises, as most UC installations today are still pilots;

􀂉 UC requires a high level of staff training and will challenge the way organisations have been running for the past decade; change usually causes slow transition because of Fear of the unknown

􀂉 Having conquered the enterprise desktop, Microsoft is poised to be the biggest threat to any current or potential UC player as it is approaching the market in the pursuit of gaining control of hardware to complement its software capabilities.

􀂉 Rapid growth of SaaS applications will compete head to head with Microsoft product offering. It will deliver fixed cost model with limited infrastructure investment and or change. It will be the easiest solution to deploy with greater simplicity to the enterprise

Both Enterprise Telephony Vendors and Telephony Channels need to be prepared for the coming wave of non-telephony players to the Enterprise Communications Space, such as Microsoft, Google, IBM, and even Salesforce.com. They need to recognise that their competitors are no longer confined to traditional telephony players, and explicit IT companies. The main non-telephony players playing in the Enterprise Communications space today are, Microsoft, Google, Skype, Yahoo.

We will see an onslaught of various UC announcements from all market players. "Unified Communications is a long-term strategy, and the best thing any vendor, channel or customer can do in the short term is be informed on the latest market movements around anything even slightly related to UC.

Systems Integrators ae the Only Channels Capable of Unified Communications Sales Today
They can design, implement and deploy UC properly with large complex infrastructure. existing telephony sales channels must either hire this expertise or partner/acquire a business services partner that will be able to complement their technology and industry expertise. The outlook for SI’s is a very bright one.

http://ca.youtube.com/user/Ucommunicate

Unified Communications with Google applications

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:21:06 GMT

Esnatech's Unified communications for Google Apps is changing the way businesses communicate by helping you instantly communicate in real time with customers, staff and Suppliers with no heavy investment or changes in your office infrastructure. Telephony Office-LinX for Google Apps is a simple, yet powerful combination of communication tools that work together and make it incredibly easy for users to communicate, and collaborate in real time with customers and staff using embedded mobility, messaging, and presence technology. Now users can access all their communications, voice, fax, IM, SMS, directly from Google applications from any mobile device or desktop operating system.

Unified messaging with Gmail
users can access all their voice mail, faxes and recorded conversations directly from their Gmail account. When a user is offline they can simply dial into their office voicemail ( telephony Office-LinX) and get access to listen, manage, and respond to email over the phone, using Text to speech technology.

Unified communications with Google Talk & GMAIL
leveraging the presence and poser of Google talk, know instantly when someone is online available to talk - connect to them on their desktop, desk phone or mobile device. When users leave you a Google talk voice mail have it light your desk phone and get access to it from any telephone. Users can do a live reply to all messages voice, fax, and email using Telephony Office-Linx's bridge to the office PBX. with intelligent contact resolutions users can respond with email, SMS, or live voice call.

PBX integration with Google apps.
will link your mobile phone and office Phone system right into Google applications.Click to dial from contacts, GMAIL, Google Talk or even Google docs. The Telephony Office-LinX Integrates GoogleTM Applications with both legacy and IP based phone systems such as Mitel, Iwatsu, Nortel, AASTRA, Cisco, Avaya, Toshiba, etc.

Anywhere access to your Google Calendar
integrate your Google calendar with your office status, presence and voicemail greeting. the Telephony Office-LinX will provide you access to your daily agenda over the phone using text to speech technology to read back your daily appointments.

Call logs and history integrated with Gmail
Telephony office-linx Integrates your office call logs and history right into a user GMAIL folders so when users log into Gmail they can see who called them, time and date stamp and even duration of conversations they had. Users can access these logs from any PC or mobile device that provides them access to Gmail

Unified Communications and Google applications
with one single login have access to all your offline and live communications. It will work with ANY Phone system, Any mobile phone, any email client, and any operating system.

http://www.esnatech.com/google/googleapps.htm

UC What you need to know

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:12:53 GMT

UC What you need to know

Unified communications offers the ability to improve how organizations interact with key resources such as customers employees and suppliers. UC enables multiple communication channels to be coordinated and unified. A properly designed UC architecture will consolidate and or eliminate servers to lower overall power consumption and deliver not only a unified integrated solution but better yet an environmentally friendly solution that will lower the organizations overall energy footprint at the same time dramatically improve the overall business process of communication and collaboration. UC adds value to existing communication processes and infrastructure and True UC solutions will not require core architecture changes to an organizations telephony infrastructure. Key technologies include presence, e-mail, voice mail, unified messaging and instant messaging (IM), and mobile access to live communications and remote work groups.

Another key capability of UC is that it offers a method to integrate communication functions directly with business applications;both onsite applications such as Microsoft Exchange and ERP solutions and Software as a service in which the key application is hosted such as salesforce.com and Google Applications. The Gartner Group coined this capability "communications-enabled business processes."

UC will reduce "human latency" in business processes. It not only automates process but simplifies user interactions and delivers anywhere access to core business functions. UC is currently enjoying an early mainstream adoption phase with organizations all over the world. Most UC investments are justified in personal-productivity improvements; other investments are geared toward workgroup improvements and overall cost savings in a current core business process.

Organizations must make their UC decisions by evaluating the emerging options based on current needs and how these options fit with the business's longer-term strategies. Because most companies will end up with communication solutions from multiple vendors, They should invest in technology that can provide the widest selection of interoperability such as the Esnatech UC platform ( http://www.esnatech.com/products.htm )

Unified Communications talking green!

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:06:11 GMT

What is Unified Communications?

Unified communications provides a single tool set for real time communications. Users can see if the person they need to communicate with is available and then, with a single click, choose to interact with them via IM, Voice or Video.

What does it take to drive all this Unified Communications?

With most vendors that integration of technology brings with it a whole onslaught of hardware to drive all this technology. Speech server, UM server, Computer telephony server, Mobility server, etc, etc, etc. Forget about the physical space and time it takes to manage this endless landscape of industrial grade of servers but think about the wasted power consumption to drive it. Not to mention the amount of industrial racks with fans to ensure they do not blow up.

Has anyone sat around thinking about this? one office tower 100 tenants each with min 5-10 servers in a room driving business applications? Trust me it adds up. The servers, the ventilation( many cases air conditioners), etc, etc. But their is a solution!

This to me more then ever creates the value proposition for SaaS solutions ( software as a service). Now we consolidate power consumption in hubs that have economies of scale leaving the business with simply a phone system and UC gateway that links the telephony infrastructure to both the Saas based groupware platform like Google applications as well as other core business applications such as SFA, & CRM ( Salesforce.com)Investing In Saas Solutions linked to a single UC gateway driving consolidated UC applicaitons, allows companies to not make dramatic changes in their infrastructure but dramatically reduce not only the annual management and costs of these application platforms but reduce the amount of wasted power consumption each business uses on a annual basis. To me this is Talking Green. Forget about low consumption PC and servers, simply eliminate them and subscribe to the service on demand. It's just like turning off the lights when your not in the room!

UC, Hype or Real?

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:09:43 GMT

According to IDC, the unified communications market will be worth a staggering $17 billion in revenue by 2011. That's a growth rate of 38 percent compounded annually from 2007. Sounds familiar to many of us in the space as we awaited patiently for the Unified Messaging market to bust out come center stage. That never happened but instead UM transitioned as part of Unified Communications and once again all of us in the industry eagerly await it's arrival!

Is it simply Hype again are we creating the famous hockey stick demand to drive attention to are solutions? It sounds similar but I think this time it's different as many mainstream vendors such as Microsoft recognize it's value and have put it center stage. It goes well beyond messaging and focus on the idea of live communications and interactions. We don't realize it but it has already taken over the next generation of users as they have been integrated into the necessity of text messaging and presence with their friends. the social phenomenon that has taken hold of the younger generation will yield UC as a must have in their everyday business life. It will become a fabric in their dress a must have tool to SIMPLY communicate.

This Google generation has information at their fingertips and this will be come a mainstream requirement to compete! Access to know who and how to connect will become mandatory and the Internet with online access will touch every aspect of our lives. UC will simply integrate the legacy touch points of corporate America so they can can have access to connect and communicate.It will re-shape the way we communicate around the world and in business.

Instant Messaging and other real-time tools are becoming the norm with the next workforce, bypassing e-mail. A new generation of workers has a new expectation for instant messaging as the preferred method of business interaction. UC involves the integration of communications, devices, and applications. UC bridges the gap between telephony and computing to deliver real-time communications to any environment i.e Desktop or mobile access. This includes capabilities such as voice; real-time presence data; and interactive voice response.

Unified Communications- Do we get it yet?

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:22:36 GMT

All this talk all this hype but at the end of the day do we really get it? On a recent trip to the voicecon event in Florida everyone in the industry couldn't say enough of what is and how it will change the industry (telecom) but as I watched a Large UC vendors commercial running on CNN and listen to the value statements.. Unified data, unified control, access,blah , blah , blah. I thought wow that is boring, why would any business owner care? It Donned on me that we in the industry are so out of touch with business that we forget TECHNOLOGY does not sell or even raise interest. How can we get this market the respect it deserves if we cannot even explain the value and get people to understand and listen.

I go back to the idea of explaining what we do in one sentence or less, and I can say after being at the industries biggest event, we fail to provide the power value. Nothing discussed and promoted really drives the need for the average business to change what they do today. Unified Communications is supposed to change the way we communicate. The key question is whether that change will have a dramatic effect on our productivity and improve our business or simply add complexity and costs in terms of managing technology vs people.

The good news is that there is Technology in the UC field that will change the way we communicate for the better, the industry has just failed to articulate it well. We need to put consumers and businesses in the message so they can visually see how it will improve their lives. For example, I am sitting down to draft up the weekly message when I receive an Instant Message because my partner sees I am online. he tells me a customer needs a demonstration today and I have a deadline due at the same time. I send an Instant Message blast to my sales team that pops on their computer and cell phones asking them to please let me know who can help out. Alex is in the car and replies yes and asks for the customers name. I sms the contact name,Alex then logs into the UC platform and says the customers name and send the customer a voice e-mail confirming his availability and he asks the UC system to call the customer as well so he can confirm live. once the call ends Alex is back with his UC system and he says "conference" at which time the UC system launches him into the conference bridge so he can setup the event.

This whole scenario happened and was done from start to finish in less then 30 minutes. I think about this and wonder how the hell we did this 10 years ago. It just wouldn't happen. UC Links us together so we can communicate and execute our daily tasks. It enables workers to be effective and strategic as it eliminates mundane takes that eat up valuable time we could use enjoying life. Unified Communications is freedom as it allows us to communicate, get our jobs done and free up time for our personal lives. UC should not be a technological burden on an organization but an enhanced service the enriches our daily lives. This is why enabling Messaging, calendaring, and collaboration as a service could pay bigger dividends in the long run vs investing in infrastructure and equipment that would burden your business down with infrastructure cost and management.

Unified Communications has Arrived but we need to make it real and put people in the technology to see it's real value to them. UC is about Live Communications, it is about Linking you to your customers and COnnecitng you to Co-workers and being able to express yourself the best you can!

The next Killer application -Google apps with UC

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:30:06 GMT

Google APPS integrated with your enterprise Unified communications platform...This is a killer application. All the power of communication, Mobility, Messaging and collaboration, with a quarter of the hardware, management and cost of a traditional IBM or Microsoft solution. Now small businesses 5-50 users can have all the benefits of on site email server without investing in any hardware or resources to deploy. Without changing their phone system or mobile phones everything can work seamlessly together leveraging unified communications to link infrastructure so A software as a service model. No more upgrades no more maintenance everything is live from any computer and always at the latest version!

Unlike other free webmail and web based application services, Gmail is built on the idea that users should never have to file or delete a message, or struggle to find an email they've sent or received. Key features of Gmail include Search, Storage, and Speed. The Google^TM Applications search technology, enables people to quickly search every email they've ever sent or received. Using keywords or advanced search features combined with UC, users have full index searching capabilities for voice mail, fax messages, and recorded conversations directly from their inbox.

The UC services glue the Gmail hosted services to the enterprise telephony infrastructure. Users can link their office desk phone and mobile phone into Google^TM Applications. When you receive an urgent email or voice mail, the UC system will light you office telephone message light. Users can can use the telephone to log into Gmail with speech and access, manage and respond to all their email, voice mail and fax messages. Office workers leveraging thin clients can simply use a browser with any OS and log into Gmail to gain access to their voice messages, faxes and recorded conversations.

The UC server provides organizations a compelling reason to move from enterprise Groupware solutions to a Fast, light weight hoisted service that delivers all the features and value of full UC solution from both Microsoft and or IBM.

This is like deploying a full Microsoft Exchange server, Active Directory, & Office Communication server at a fraction of the cost and with virtually no overhead. The UC integrates SasS( Software as a Service) technology to enterprise infrastructure. Now customers can deploy UC with virtually no overhead and with minimal expense in terms of time and money. The web based services of Google ^TM Applications also provides a complete cross platform solution. Combined with the cross platform of our Mobile UC client customers can integrate UC to any and all environments.

Unified Communications: The Straight Facts

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:50:03 GMT

Unified Communications: The Straight Facts

Building your business around LIVE communications

There has been a lot of talk about Unified Communication (UC), and much debate over what it really is. UC is a fully converged IP telephony environment that includes best-of-breed UC features set including mobility, messaging and presence, as well it can easily incorporate third-party capabilities.In the real world IP telephony environments are just emerging and not quite as perfect as we hoped. Companies must ignore the Utopia and accept what they have now as reality. Knowing this Users can evaluate the best UC solutions that will accommodate their existing infrastructure but still deliver the value around mobility, messaging, and presence that will dramatically enhance LIVE communications within your organization and improve the day day business processes opening up access to corporate communications from any endpoint. A UC provider must deliver key UC capabilities—presence, voicemail, and unified messaging—as an integral part of any telephony infrastructure.

The UC platform should act as a corporate gateway that provides users access not only to the telephony services but other core business applications leveraging, mobile clients and DTMF with Speech recognition. A company on Google applications with accounts for salesforce.com can leverage UC to have anywhere access to Unified messaging, Contacts and Scheduling. Office workers and support centers can click to dial right from CRM and have salesforce records pop up on their computer based on the incoming caller ID.

UC can change the way businesses communicate only if they can provide integration into an organizations current business processes and applications

Extending UC value with IVR

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:27:15 GMT

One of the most popular and cost effective uses of IVR Technology involves automating the out-dialing process. This automation can take a variety of forms and functionality.Whether it's 1) "broadcasting" a huge number of calls to deliver a pre-recorded message, 2) targeting a specific list to be called to relay individualized information, or 3) automating the dialing process as an efficiency and management tool for call center agents, automated dialing is at the core of automating core business processes. Application based Click-To-Dial
	Agent powered automated desktop dialing initiates the phone call and screen pops the call information to the Agent. A call script and/or a survey form can be integrated into the screen pop for each call placed.

Automated Power Dialer
	You can maximize output and your call center call volume by automating your dialing with the integration of a autodialer. If your agents and sales people spend too much time wading through a database to manually dial phone numbers, A Dialer that will integrated to your core business database will systematically out-dial from your contact database for them saving time and money and improving agent effectiveness and efficiency.

Emergency Notification
	Many IVR applications can incorporate Emergency Notification applications that facilitates urgent announcements to security, administration, faculty, students…whoever has the "need to know". Acknowledging the wired and wireless nature of today's personal communications, the Emergency Notification can delivers messages by land-line phone, cell, email, and PDA device.

Community Notification
	With IVR tools organizations like governments and schools can build Community Notification systems that "gets the word out" fast for emergency notification, school closings, marketing, upcoming events, campaign messages, or any other type of announcement you want to broadcast by phone, email and fax.

Appointment Reminder
	small professional offices and organizations can automate a core business process with Appointment Reminder functionality. The automated notification application is designed to deliver appointment information by phone. This virtually labor-free, cost effective application will remind patients and customers who might have forgotten a scheduled appointment, giving them the option to confirm or reschedule.

IVR is seen as a value added service to Unified Communications but in fact it is a core piece of technology that has the capability of extending UC value to core processes in your organization.

Unified Communications is the new office PBX

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:41:13 GMT

Unified Communications is forecast to achieve massive growth rates Unified Communications can be made complex but actually it is pretty simple. It takes existing infrastructure and provides Unified access to users so they can be more productive and effective in communicating in their daily lives.

According to In-Stat the worldwide compound Unified Communications annual growth rate is approximately 25%. Companies are looking at how they can effectively incorporate mobile workforces and escalating channels of communications to effectively manage and operate in the competitive landscape that exists today.

Unified Communications may be described as having the following component elements:

Presence and instant messaging (including mobile UC clients)
Telephony (PBXs—IP and TDM, IP Centrex, and broadband VoIP)
Mobility services( find me follow me, twinning and call filtering)
Audio conferencing (bridges and bridging services)
Web collaboration (premise-based and hosted solutions)
Unified messaging

These service not only help link your organization and simplify communications buy they can also enhance and replace business processes such as customer service, sales and even marketing, for example when someone calls your business, you want them to be able to easily receive relevant information and be directed to where their inquiries can be most appropriately dealt with. You can do this through unified massaging on your phone system.

When customers call in, your unified messaging system can present them with news of promotions, sales, special offers, and more! through Caller ID information UM system can reference your CRM database to know who it is and their profile, based on that you can design routing rules that will process the call automatically to the appropriate resource or even IVR to provide efficient and relevant self service. You can reduce your hang-up rate by tailoring each message in accordance to the extension that a customer dials or who the customer is.

Unified messaging systems gives your communications a profession feel and can help to improve your business overall.

UC for small business

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:29:52 GMT

Simply take your existing phone system with a UC application suite and some smart mobility features, all bundled into one with a lot of pre-integration to Microsoft Outlook—ready to go, out of the box. maybe ? but what about a gateway appliance that connects via sip to your phone service ( could be a PBX or to the telco) connects to your email and calendaring platform( could be Microsoft or more likely today Google applications) install NO software but instantly like your phone service with email and your phone devices ( desk phone mobile phone) to your business applications like Goldmine, Google apps, Excel, and powerpoint!

The focus for UC companies is on SIMPLICITY and on making it easy to install and easy to use. You just plug the gateway it into your network, and away you go. It comes with some default configuration, and works with any application by leveraging click to dial technology and open standards like SIP,XML, LDAP, and IMAP protocols. Key featurs and SMB would utilize is messaging consolidation—e-mail, voicemail, fax and instant messaging all from your email, and access all messages from or over the phone plus a number of "mobility" features, along with call recording, call logging and a personal (as well as company-wide) Auto Attendant.

an example is let's say, the clock kicks over from 9:00 to 10:00 on a business day, you go into a meeting. your UC gateway will know you've gone into a meeting, and it will automatically change your default call routing to whatever you've set up to be appropriate under the status in Meeting. Along with that, with the personal attendant, you get the option to give a caller choices to communicate live or off line e.g — Press 1 to go to an operator, 2 to go to voicemail, 3 to go to an assistant, 4 to find me and so on."

All users would get a one-number service that allows them to call-forward that number to pretty much any phone,or phones as well as filter what people they will take live calls from and what people should go to voice mail for off-line communications.

UC has a couple of ways of integrating to the mobile phone for the road warriors, Besides simple "twinning ," where an incoming call rings both a desk phone and a mobile, you can use a mobile to "dial into the system and get dialtone for toll bypass leveraging you Low cost routing rates of LD vs Mobile phone minutes. That is, you call your office, which then places the call—and receives the billing. At the very least, this relieves you of having to submit an expense request and dramatically lowers your dialing mobile LD rates

But it gets even better. Some UC solutions would let a SMB user access their phone system via dial tone, web or IP on smartphone, enter a location and a target phone number, whereupon the switch forwards all calls to that device. This lets you make outgoing calls. You use the office phone resources to establish the call. It will place a call back to you. When you pick up, it will then establish the second leg of the call, dialing out," again billing with the office LD rates.

This is great stuff that not only would deliver productivity but massive cost saving to SMB users. UC is not an expense but an investment in improving SMB communications

Unified communications provides enterprise mobility

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:05:21 GMT

At the end of the day one of the biggest assets Unified Communications delivers to an organization is the unleashing of enterprise mobility. It allows users within a company not to be tied to their desk yet still be connected to manage all their communications.

the value of enterprise mobility is if provided is about making employees more EFFECTIVE! Not efficient but effective, being more effective in your job will lead to efficiency but efficiency for efficiency sake does not mean you will be effective and may not necessarily add value to your organization. Unified Communications delivers enterprise mobility in a filtered environment where I can decide based on importance and value what tasks should be managed in real time and what tasks are better to be managed offline. this leads to more effective use of a persons time and will drive them to effective efficiency.

Large companies are finding plenty of reasons for passing out wireless devices to task-based workers such as sales teams and field service fleets, but it remains a challenge to justify distribution of handhelds to so-called knowledge workers or to convince business leaders to buy expensive management systems where productivity gains are harder to quantify.

many fee it is going to take years for enterprise applications to become mobile because these were largely designed for the PC within certain parameters, which will not port well to mobile devices. The real business value of mobility is not about delivering pc applications on you hand held its about keeping users connected to enterprise data and business process whne they are not at their desk. Unified communication provides the key element..ACCESS. Access to groupware that drives daily communication and collaboration, Access to data to streamline process and save time, Finally access to human resources. UC links employees to the office phone system so it is easy to find and access users in real time, dramatically lowering off-line communications and increasing effective interactions with staff, customers, and partners.

UC providers should existing focus on usability and building versions of their programs that can be run on multiple devices and mobile operating systems. Everybody wants mobile business applications but there's still a lot of massaging that needs to happen before more people are ready to increase investment, companies are focused on looking at a TCO and are having a hard time measuring and quantifying effectiveness delivered because of Unified Communications.

What differentiates Esnatech’s Unified Communication technology

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:44:27 GMT

What differentiates Esnatech’s UC technology

A single source solution for Enterprise Mobility, Unified messaging, CTI, and Rich Presence integrated into one platform.
Interoperability with Click to dial and screen pops in any business application such as MS Outlook, Goldmine, Saleforce.com, etc
Seamless integration into your existing data and telephony infrastructure to enable easy deployment UC and realize both Total cost of ownership and Return on investment immediately after deploying the solution
Provisionable UC technology across the workforce. Every user in your organization is different and requires different features and functionality to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their daily communications. Esnatech UC platforms enable the ability to pick and choose what features and services each user has access too based on their role and job function.