Uc Today - Out Loud

One of the biggest collaboration platforms globally is Cisco Spark and this new Out Loud podcast series will bring you regular updates on developments and updates within the platform. The first episode provides an overview and background for Cisco Spark as well examining the ideology behind Cisco's development of the platform.

Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things are all hot topics within business, but does anyone fully realise the practical applications? LogMeIn have a real understanding. Making use of these emerging technologies within organisations is key to their success so we discuss some of the practical applications now and the future possibilities. 

The last few months within UC and C have certainly been eventful. Publisher of UC Today Rob Scott joins Patrick for a review and round up of all the news. From last week's breaking story of Plantronic's Polycom acquisition to the confirmation of the Cisco BroadSoft deal's ratification we review all of the goings on and what might be to come in the next few months.

Collaboration technology and tools are often lorded as the best way for organisations to increase efficiencies for their end users, quantifying that efficiency is often more difficult. Realising those productivity gains is critical to proving value and providing accurate information in relation to ROI. With companies using a variety of different collaboration and communication mediums the issue of data analysis is made even more complex. We look at the correlation between accurate data analysis and providing great customer services

Often one of the lowest priority mediums within collaboration and meeting technology, sound is sometimes overlooked. Enhanced video capability and a simple user interfaces seem to be the number one targets with little attention paid to the quality of the audio. We spoke to Andrew Border from Dolby and he explains why this should not be the case and that sound and audio quality should be the number one priority for enabling functional and effective remote collaboration.

One of the most interesting angles at EC 2018 last week was the potential disruption caused by the new big players entering the market such as Amazon. The success of Alexa within the consumer world has driven a real desire for professional organisations to be able to leverage this technology in the workplace. We were lucky enough to be able to secure some time with General Manager for Alexa for Business Collin Davis so he could explain how they are looking to change the existing market.

Last Thursday during Enterprise Connect 2018 we conducted our review of the week's action with analysts David Danto and Tim Banting. Both previous guests on the Out Loud podcast and veterans of previous Enterprise Connect Events David and Tim take us through the week and give us their highlights. We compare this event to previous years and analyse the changing trends that have shaped the event in 2018.

On Monday during Enterprise Connect 2018 we were lucky enough to speak to RingCentral's John Finch, AVP for Product Marketing, and Jose Pastor VP of Product Management. John and Jose take us through the latest RingCentral news and provide some insight on the current market. As well as updates we find out what an event like EC 2018 means to them and their main drivers for sponsorship.

Earlier this week during Mitel Next 2018 in Munich we were lucky enough to speak to a host of senior Mitel Executives to hear their thoughts and opinions on the technology world and how Mitel fit into it. VP for UK & I and EMEA Channels Richard Roberts, CMO Wes Durow and EVP of Mitel Solutions Bob Agnes were all guests on Out Loud live giving us their opinions on all the latest trends.

Joining Patrick on the pod today was Koldo Loidi, Avaya’s Global Data Privacy Officer, to discuss upcoming GDPR implementation. A specialist in the field Koldo explains some of the steps that Avaya have taken already to ensure their internal processes are up to the new legislation and how that will protect their customers.

Kira Makagon is on the pod today. Kira is the Executive Vice President of Innovation at RingCentral so has a great insight into the UC marketplace. Kira looks ahead into the rest of 2018 to examine some of the emerging technologies that are shaping the industry. We also discuss their focus on simplicity for users and their development plans for the rest of the year.

Joining Patrick on the pod today was Vishal Brown from Yorktel to discuss the potential workplaces of the future and how they can be achieved with Unified Comms and collaboration. Vishal explains that to achieve the agile and mobile workplaces organisations demand, work is required from all factions from end users to systems integrators.

On Tuesday during Avaya's Edge World Tour we were lucky enough to speak to Fadi Moubarak, VP of International Markets at Avaya about their world tour and how they want to boost their partner's Avaya offering. We also spoke to some Avaya partners to find out how the event helps them and what they expect to happen with their Avaya business going forward.

Whilst attending ISE 2018 in Amsterdam last week we asked all of the vendors that we spoke to about why they go to huge amounts of effort to attend events. We tried to find out their main drivers for attending and if that justifies some of the huge costs behind the scenes.

André Hordagoda, co-founder of GoInStore, told us all about their proposition and how the future of online customer services and ecommerce might be drastically different in the future. With over 10 years' experience on the retail technology sector Andre is very familiar with the current systems in place and how these might develop in the future.

Today we look at SD-WAN with Atchison Frazer of Talari. One of the original innovators within software defined wide area networks Talari have great experience of the market. Atchison has a long history within the network industry both in the UK and the USA so was able to give us an overview on the benefits of SD-WAN and talk us through Talari's unique features.

With a long history in the UK channel, working within data centres and cloud service providers, Karl Roe of Nuvias is perfectly placed to give his Cloud Service predictions for 2018. Through the importance of IP and AI as a default for businesses, listen in as Karl gives us his breakdown for the year ahead.

Irwin Lazar joins us on 'Out Loud' as we look at the emerging market trends within the collaboration space. Currently Vice President Service Director at Nemertes Research, Irwin has a broad range of experience across the market sector and is currently working on analysis of the data relating to market trends within Unified Communication and Collaboration.

Following on from our interview with David Danto on Huddle Rooms, UC Today 'Out Loud' discusses his time at CES 2018. David filled us in the most interesting collaboration tech that he saw and also gave us the details on the infamous power outage that took place during the event. The most exciting products that David discusses are universal translators that finally appear to have reached a practical level, after years of promise, that could breakdown the language barriers around the world.

UC Today 'Out Loud' are joined in this episode by David Danto currently a consultant at Dimension Data. With years of experience across a range of industries David gave us his insights into how Huddle Rooms have developed and the trends for collaboration spaces going forward. We also discussed the ideology of such spaces and how organisations can better utilise such a resource in the modern world.