Eric Bear, Vice President Product Management & Global Business Development for Viola Networks joins the Lippis Report podcast where we explore "Service Level Management" to solve scaling and converged network performance issues. This is a must listen podcast if you want to avoid the problems most find when they scale up their IP telephony pilots to full deployments.  Sale issues associated with equipment configuration and converged network design have a direct correlation on the stability of a converged network.  In this podcast we discuss best practices so you can avoid the crisis most organization experience.  Nick

CEO John Combs joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss the IP telephony market and ShoreTel's chances of success.  The IP telephony market is growing rapidly.  It took 3 years for the industry to ship some 8 million IP phones; it ships that many plus in 3 months and the growth rate is increasing.  As the market starts to roar, private firms are taking the temperature of the IPO market.  John Combs comments on Mitel's IPO, ShoreTel's happy customers, innovation and the competitive IP telephony market.  There is a lot packed into this 20 minute podcast.  You'll want to make sure you listen to this episode.  Enjoy, Nick

I talk with Tony Barbagatto of GroundWork on the Open Source movement for network and system management.  The management software market as long been dominated by HP OpenView and IBM's Tivoli.  A new open source based model has emerged that promises to deliver a wider set of functions and features to IT management lowering operational cost.   The network management market is about to get interesting again.  Listen in, it is a great discussion of a new market disruption.

Zeus Kerravala, VP of Yankee Group's infrastructure research and consulting joins me as we discuss the hot new market of hosted IP services, Avaya On Demand, Cisco's Unified Communications, Mitel's IPO, the race for communication developers and more.  It is a fascinating discussion with insights into Cisco's IP communications management team and our take on its Unified Communications announcement.  Enjoy.