Countdown to NXTcomm; a look back at Nortel

My calendar this week is chock-full of pre-NXTcomm briefings while my schedule next week is going to be much more challenging between meetings, the Fierce UC event and trying to find time to go the Tuesday evening networking event Fierce is holding at the Palms.

I am pleased to announce Carl Ford will be joining us at NXTcomm, so if you see Carl running around, tell him "Thank you."  Carl will be moderating panels at the UC event on Wednesday and Thursday and my advanced thanks to him and Gary Kim and Dan O'Shea for their help.  

My head is still swimming from Nortel's press event last week. I'm not quite ready to buy into the marketing-type of hyperconnectivity, but I'm more than willing to agree with the concepts of "communication enabled applications" and "business optimized communications." The former is pretty self-evident; adding in voice and video and presence into applications while the latter is much more powerful. 

Business-optimized communications is a much more clear-cut term that appeals to the heart of every C-level position. Unified communications is a generic term most companies struggle with because they want to see a clear ROI on a unified communications investment. Nortel is seeing success by bringing businesses into their facilities, getting them to focus on a particular function, and then having customers conduct a 50- or 500-user trial that turns into a 1,000 or 5,000 or larger implementation in short order.   

In my way of thinking, Nortel is using UC as the camel's nose in the tent.  Once the nose is there, the rest of the camel is soon to follow.--Doug