Business professionals and IT see things differently. Some say they each speak their own language. Priorities are often different. 

Here’s an example. In Gartner’s CIO Survey 2012, the technology priorities of CIOs were revealed. In order, they are:
1. Analytics and Business Intelligence
2. Mobile Technologies
3. Cloud Computing
4. Collaboration
5. Virtualization More...

There may be more in common than one thinks between enterprise IT and Facebook. And it has everything and nothing to do with social media. To start, consumers upload 300 million pictures each day to Facebook, and this number is only growing. In addition, this rate is seasonal says Facebook as the company anticipates up to 2 billion photos on Halloween alone.  

Enterprise organizations, like Facebook, understand the demand for network and storage requirements. Traffic spikes, usage of network collaboration tools, and availability of critical data on the spot – all increase the need for more bandwidth and network intelligence. There may be a lesson in the way the company addresses these challenges:More...

In case you missed it – hey, you're busy people and you can't get around to reading everything – Sprint's own Mike Fitz sat down for an in-depth interview with the good folks at Business Solutions magazine. The topic was Unified Communications, and Mike, our wireline VP, had interesting things to say, as always.

You can check out the entire article, but to summarize, Mike pointed to three significant trends, all converging in such a way as to drive interest and investment in UC. More...

The Open Solutions conference is coming up in just a couple of weeks, and the full conference agenda is set, with 31 sessions and workshops, two prominent keynote presentations, and even a pre-conference hackathon for early birds.

Details are here, but we can tell you that there won't be a minute of boredom to be found in the San Jose Convention Center during the 12th annual conference, October 24 and 25.More...

There are three major trends currently shaping Unified Communications, according to our own Mike Fitz. Mike recently shared these trends with Brian Albright, editor of Business Solutions Magazine.

These trends are user demands for more mobility and portability, CIOs becoming more focused on finding ways to support line of business activities (not just tech enablement), and the expansion and improvement of UC technology. More...

If there was ever a perfect example of why it's good to consult more than one news source to get the whole story, it's a little item about the cloud and people's perceptions of it.

Recently, an item in Fierce Enterprise Communications caught my eye. With the headline "Workplace of the Future Will Be in the Cloud," I plunged into the story, which concerns a Citrix-sponsored survey of just over 1,000 U.S. adults about the cloud. More...

As the “cloud” concept arose, there was a lot of debate about whether cloud computing would really replace the client-server architectures of today’s enterprises. Now it’s clear that the answer is both “yes” and “no.”

Cloud computing isn’t an “either/or” proposition. What will happen at first is that CD and DVD-ROM drives on computers will start to disappear. “App stores” and the like are nothing more than cloud-based software management systems -- but they work really, really well. Few of the “apps” one downloads to a device or PC are actually cloud-based apps -- but as more and more applications are developed for cloud-based distribution, more and more cloud-based functionality is being written into these apps. More...

How will Unified Communications evolve? Now that we're at a point where more and more organizations are embracing UC, it's worth looking at its future. What will UC look like next year? In five years? Will we even recognize it in 10 years?

Michael Finneran, writing at Webtorials, offers an interesting point of view on the future of UC. In his view, basically it gets absorbed into the social media vortex and disappears. Its functionalities and purpose will remain, but UC won't be recognizable as a technological or operational entity. We're not fully convinced, although there's no doubt the advancements in social media will have a tremendous effect on UC.More...

CIO.com announced its annual 2012 winners  – 100 companies – all of whom are leveraging IT for big wins within their industry. Interestingly, these winners each have in common how they are leveraging technology to improve the customer experience, which is ultimately driving revenue and lowering costs. Here’s a sample: More...

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...