Richard Wood, Global Vice President of Portfolio Marketing, and Shayna Kaneshiro, Global Product Marketing Manager, both from Siemens Communications, join the Lippis Report Podcast to discuss Siemens’ unified communication solution for Small-to-Medium sized Businesses or SMB called HiPath OpenOffice ME. The OpenOffice ME appliance integrates messaging, mobility, presence plus voice communications and conferencing into one box, simplifying the deployment of these rich services to a market with little IT support allowing SMBs to be more productive and responsive to their customers. I was impressed with OpenOffice ME’s integration with outlook and its visual voicemail and I’m sure you will too.

Inbar Lasser-Raab Director of Marketing for Network Systems at Cisco joins me to discuss the recently announced Empowered Branch 3. The Wall Street Journal noted correctly that Cisco is providing branch offices with the same level of networking services as headquarter offices with its large Empowered Branch 3 announcement. Cisco introduced new Catalyst 2960 switches with LAN Lite IOS plus the new Cisco 1861 Integrated Services Router or ISR for small branch offices and a flurry of additions to its flagship 2800, and 3800 ISRs. With the integration of IPS/NAC security, application intelligence, unified communications, and mobility into its branch office routers; netops is simplified while design choices are expanded. Inbar and I discuss the new network design options available to network architects afforded by the latest empowered branch announcement.

Zeus Kerravala, of The Yankee Group and I discuss the Oct 16 Microsoft unified communications event in San Francisco where Office Communication Server and client as well as a host of other editions to existing products were announced. We debate the impact upon the communications and IT industry due to the event and ponder the question of what happen to the Mircosoft-Nortel ICA relationship. For sure the event was an ecosystem announcement and one that put the industry on notice that there is a new way to do communications. In short we are at the early stages of a systemic and worldwide shift in communications that promises simplicity in the use of multiple modalities of communications through software and in particular presence and identify. We define the new battle lines. You have to listen to this.

On October 16, 2007 Bill Gates will make his last product announcement with Microsoft’s Office Communications Server (OCS). This event will change the communications industry accelerating its shift toward software economics and professional services. Siemens has been a long term Microsoft partner specifically around its OpenScape software. Siemens is the largest enterprise Microsoft customer in the world too granting it a unique position with the software giant. Siemens Communications has focused its investments on open communications software and professional services to address new market needs. It has strong unified communication relationships with IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft’s OCS. Mark Straton, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Siemens Communications talks with me about OCS and the Siemens-Microsoft relationship. You’ll be just as surprised as I was to hear what Mark has to say.

Risk Management techniques to increase network availability has become an important topic as Risk Management Executives have become engaged in network design. This thoughtful analysis is available in both white paper and podcast media. The white paper, can be found here http://lippisreport.com/2007/09/24/risk-management-techniques-to-increase-network-availability. The white paper abstract follows. The white paper provides risk management techniques to increase network availability and reduce network outages. The paper explores the tools and techniques available to business and IT leaders who seek to increase network availability through management, device feature exploitation and network design. The mixed network vendor approach to diversity and redundancy is explored and brought into question. The paper takes the position that a common network based upon mixed network supplier platforms paradoxically reduces network availability by increasing complexity, which increases Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) and operational cost. The paper further identifies that a mixed network vendor environment restricts design options, increases security vulnerabilities and limits the ability to optimize application performance. A single network platform supplier is recommended for mission critical operations as this approach reduces complexity, increases design options, and simplifies trouble isolation, hastening resolution while optimizing operational resources.

Zeus Kerravala, SVP of The Yankee Group Enterprise Research joins Nick Lippis to discuss Microsofts pending Oct 16th announcement of Office Communications Server or OCS. This will be an event that will change the communications industry accelerating its shift to an industry driven by software economics and professional services. Zeus and I pontificate on the impact OCS will have on the communications industry. Our apologies that the quality of the recording is below our standards, but the content is outstanding. Enjoy