There is interest across most industries in hosted Unified Communications, but it is interesting that we at Cisco, as we work with Sprint in implementing these solutions, are seeing spikes of interest in certain vertical markets and sectors.

There is a high degree of interest in financial services and insurance, all professional services, manufacturing and packaged goods, and in every area of the public sector. Why these markets more than others? We think the answer is in a few key business and competitive pressures that seem to be more intense in these areas. Interest and activity will remain high here, while other verticals are quickly following this market transition. More...

We told you back in January it was coming, and we are pleased to report that Sprint Complete Collaboration is here and immediately available. Our hosted and fully managed Unified Communications solution is now ready to deliver the seamless collaboration that can enhance the agility and boost the productivity of large and mid-sized enterprises. More...

On November 9th, the world celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Let’s look astoundingly at how our world has changed since 1989. We are communicating in ways never before imagined. To experience this in our lifetime is remarkable. To think about bandwidth and network requirements to meet our insatiable demand for voice, data, video, and the web, is mind-boggling. Remarkably, as far as these technologies advance us, some parts of the world still face hurdles to be a part of this communication phenomenon. More...

It’s no surprise that the economy and cloud computing were key discussion points within many sessions and on the exhibit floor at last week’s Gartner IT Expo in Orlando. As usual, the event provided a great opportunity to talk with a significant number of CIOs about their challenges and successes and learn about the latest developments within the IT industry.More...

With Sprint SIP Trunking now available to a far broader range of enterprises, it’s important to understand its role as an initial step toward Mobile Integration and unified communications. More...

I just read a great commentary by Cisco’s Mike Bergelson’s about how UC and Web 2.0 are merging.  I have always admired the high degree of awareness that Cisco employees have about collaboration technologies -- and that all starts at the top. Cisco Systems’ CEO John Chambers talks about collaboration more than any other Fortune 500 CEO that I know of. He often cites Cisco’s "grueling" 45 day acquisition cycle of Scientific Atlanta versus their more-recent 8 day acquisition cycle of WebEx as a prime example of the kind of hyper-productivity that Bergelson refers to in his article. More...

To appreciate the value of unified communications, the emphasis really needs to be on “unified” versus “communications.” Any organization can communicate, with almost unlimited options for how they do it. But it takes a special mix of technologies and capabilities to make those communications truly unified. This allows the people involved to function as one tight and highly effective unit. More...

I recently read an entry from Nurul Haque, Editor at Mobile2Mobility about how mobile advertising is really starting to come of age and becoming more contextually relevant. Sprint is certainly seeing this trend. This blog is one of the many ways that we are adjusting the manner in which we communicate with the market. Customers today want more social interaction with advertising content - they want to discuss it and challenge it. Most importantly in this multitasking millennium, customers want information to be contextually relevant. More...