Johann's Unified Communications : video

HP and Microsoft Expand Alliance in Unified Communications and Collaboration

jkruse — Wed, 20 May 2009 01:42:30 GMT

At Interop Las Vegas 2009, HP and Microsoft Corp. today announced a four-year strategic global initiative to deliver an end-to-end unified communications and collaboration solution. As part of their Frontline Partnership, the two companies expect to invest up to an additional $180 million in product development, professional services, as well as joint sales and marketing, to help organizations lower cost and improve productivity.

The end-to-end solution, which is planned to span software, hardware, networking and services would enable customers to improve business output and reduce travel, telecom and IT operating costs. This would be accomplished by streamlining communications across messaging, video and voice with connected applications and devices. HP and Microsoft also plan to provide the flexibility and control customers need to manage their communications infrastructure efficiently.

Product development and integration

The two companies will form joint teams to collaborate on products and services development across Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server, as well as HP ProCurve networking products.
HP will obtain Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for the HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC and select smartphones.
HP will obtain Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for new IP desk phones.
HP Business Technology Optimization (BTO) software will provide additional support for Microsoft Office Communications Server, including the ability to provide real-time quality of service metrics for the voice and video network over the IP infrastructure.
The two companies will provide end point interoperability with HP Halo Telepresence Solutions and Microsoft Office Communications Server-based unified conferencing, enabling remote participants at any Microsoft Office Communication Server-enabled PC to join telepresence conferences.

Professional services

Microsoft and HP will offer a full set of business productivity services ranging from assessment, architecture planning and design to implementation, monitoring, management and support for software, hardware, network, server, storage and infrastructure components in the shared portfolio.
HP will dedicate a global team of service professionals to support the joint solutions, helping customers achieve improved levels of network availability and response times.
HP and Microsoft will also target communications service providers, offering them the same technologies and services to enable hosted unified communications and collaboration services for small to medium-sized businesses.
HP and Microsoft will provide services for customers who seek to run their technology on-premise, fully outsource, or who opt for a combination of both.
Microsoft and HP will work together to address customers’ real-time collaboration needs using HP Halo Managed Services and HP ProCurve products.

Read the press release at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/may09/05-19HPUCGPR.mspx

NBN + UC = :D

jkruse — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:19:00 GMT

The recent National Broadband Network (NBN) announcement in Australia is the best piece of news I have heard in some time.

Fibre To The Home (FTTH) with speeds of 100Mbps is going to dramatically change how Australians work, play and socialise online. I haven’t heard yet if these speeds are symmetrical or asymmetrical (i.e. if uplink speeds are equivalent to downlink, or not), but I guess it may be too early in the process to know.

At home I have a Naked ADSL2+ connection from Internode (via an Optus DSLAM) which is great in theory, but in practice I only get about 4Mbps down and 384Kbps up.

I work from home a lot, and at the moment at least 10% of my time is spent video-conferencing with customers and workmates. With reductions in travel budgets this is likely to increase in the coming years.

384Kbps uplink is sufficient for CIF video in Office Communicator 2007, but now in R2 we support VGA and HD video which of course have greater bandwidth requirements. Currently I have to physically travel to the office in North Ryde to send VGA or HD video, which kind of defeats the concept of Unified Communications (collaborate from anywhere – work is something you do, not somewhere you go).

So this is why I’m excited about the NBN – faster uplink speeds will enable higher fidelity video-conferencing at home, which will provide more opportunities for remote collaboration, travel reductions, flexible meetings, and work/life balance.

Now if only they could get it up and running in < 8 years :)

OCS 2007 Video-conferencing Interoperability White Paper

jkruse — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:11:52 GMT

Office Communications Server 2007 is the first Microsoft product to combine enterprise-ready IM, presence, video-conferencing, web-conferencing, and VoIP telephony in one solution. In addition, OCS 2007 includes real-time videoconferencing solutions running on servers in your intranet or interoperating with video-conferencing hardware vendors such as TANDBERG or Polycom.

Providing interoperability between Office Communications Server 2007 and video-conferencing vendors allows you to take advantage of your existing video-conferencing hardware investment while extending video-conferencing features to other users with minimal hardware investment and user training. The users that attend conferences using dedicated video-conferencing hardware can schedule meetings and determine attendee availability using familiar tools, such as Microsoft Office Outlook or Office Communicator 2007.

Download the whitepaper and get more info at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ocs/cc836454.aspx

Tech.Ed 2008... what a week!

jkruse — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 07:54:00 GMT

Tech.Ed 2008 has finally wrapped up... I was in Auckland for Tech.Ed NZ on Monday and Tuesday, and then in Sydney for Tech.Ed Australia from Wednesday to Friday.

It was a hectic and somewhat exhausting week as I was the track/content owner for Unified Communications and Mobility, and I also presented or co-presented 9 sessions. But more importantly it was a fun week... I met literally hundreds of my peers and associates in the local technology industry, we launched a local Sydney UC community, we had a great party on Thursday night, and the vibe of the whole event was simply amazing!

Here are some photos and videos from Sydney....

Some of the local Microsoft UC team - Alan Cardenas, Steve Edmonds,
Mario D'Silva and Colin Lee

" It was this big! " - Mario D'Silva presenting UNC305 (Exchange 2007 UM)

RFID scanners

Who will be The Ultimate Expert?

Sydney UC kick-off lunch

Me on the left, Brendan Carius on the right: setting up before UNC314
(OCS/PBX Interop... In Real Time!)

Brendan and me presenting UNC314 (OCS/PBX Interop... In Real Time!)

Mexican Wave during Mobility Smackdown! Filmed with a Treo Pro

Colin Lee chats to some Women In Technology about Tech.Ed

In case you haven't heard, Tech.Ed 2009 will be at the Gold Coast. See you there!

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TE08NZ: UC interview

jkruse — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:56:00 GMT

I was interviewed yesterday at Tech.Ed New Zealand by Nic Romaniuk about my views on Unified Comms, and how it's changing the way people work.

Check it out at http://www.microsoft.com/nz/teched08/office-unified-communications.aspx (click Johan Kruse (SIC) under Other Videos on the right).

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Talking Smack!

jkruse — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:40:00 GMT

Yesterday I caught up with Roger Lawrence and Rick Anderson and we recorded a video discussion about Mobility Smackdown!, one of the most popular sessions at TechEd Australia.

Hear about the history of Smackdown! as well as what's planned for this year. It's going to be massive - demo-offs, competitions, prizes, and best of all no Death-by-PowerPoint!!!!

Video: TechEd 2008: Smackdown! discussion

Smackdown always fills up, and although this year we've secured one of the largest theatres we still expect it to be full. In the lead-up to TechEd keep an eye out here and at Roger's blog for information on how to secure preferred seating!

And of course stay tuned for more information on UC and Mobility at TechEd in Australia & New Zealand.

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Meet Colin Lee

jkruse — Wed, 28 May 2008 05:32:12 GMT

Last week I caught up with Colin Lee, one of this year's presenters in the Unified Comms track at TechEd Australia and New Zealand.

Deeps was around and had his video camera handy so we recorded a quick interview. Colin discusses some of the topics he'll be presenting this year, as well as his thoughts on previous TechEds.

Video: TechEd 2008: Chat with Colin Lee

Over the coming weeks I'll be chatting with the other UC and Mobility presenters about TechEd, life, the universe, and everything. Keep an eye out!

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Vodcast: RoundTable

jkruse — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:01:00 GMT

See me demo RoundTable in a Vodcast which Deeps has put up at The TechNet Australia Blog.

Update: for those who have asked about the flickering during the RT screencast - that actually wasn't a problem with RoundTable, LiveMeeting or OCS - it was my laptop CPU struggling to keep up with Windows Media Encoder encoding my screen to WMV. I was running on battery power at the time (see my system tray power icon) and therefore my PC wasn't at its best :(

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Video: demo of upgrading a CCR cluster from Exchange 2007 RTM to SP1

jkruse — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:37:07 GMT

From You Had Me At EHLO...

To demonstrate upgrading a CCR cluster from Exchange 2007 RTM to SP1, I have created a video demo that takes you through the process of upgrading the passive node followed by upgrading the CMS to SP1 and finally upgrading the active node. This demo also demonstrates "Managing Clustered Mailbox Server" via the Exchange 2007 SP1 Exchange Management Console.

Watch it at http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/12/03/447658.aspx

Technorati Tags: exchange 2007, sp1, video

Video Series: Exchange 2007 SP1 Standby Continuous Replication (SCR)

jkruse — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:43:06 GMT

From You Had Me At EHLO...

Beta 2 of Service Pack 1 Exchange Server 2007 is available for public download and preview for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. As I wrote in my blog entry, Standby Continuous Replication in Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1, SCR extends the continuous replication technology in Exchange 2007, enabling new data availability scenarios for Exchange 2007 Mailbox servers. You can find product documentation for SCR in the recently refreshed TechCenter update at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676502.aspx.

To demonstrate one of those scenarios, I have created a 5-part blogcast that takes you through the process of enabling SCR, monitoring SCR, and activating an SCR storage group copy using the Exchange Management Shell and other features, such as database portability. This scenario is based on the scenario detailed in the Help topic Standby Continuous Replication: Database Portability.

An example of using SCR with a standby cluster is detailed in the Help topic Standby Continuous Replication: Site Resilience with Standby Clustering.

Download the videos at http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/09/13/447006.aspx

Technorati Tags: scr, sp1, exchange 2007, dr, video

Media Center + Zune + Xbox 360 + Slingbox = :D

jkruse — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 13:59:00 GMT

Ok so this post isn't really related to UC at all, but what the hey ...

Over the Christmas/New Year period I finally got around to playing with my media setup at home (yep, I'm a geek alright). I now have the following hooked up and working nicely:

40" Sony Bravia HDTV
Media Centre PC (Vista Ultimate Edition)
Xbox 360

Xbox Live (Gears of War rocks)
Xbox 360 acting as a Media Centre Extender

Zune (yes I got a brown one - and I like it!)

Bose noise-cancelling headphones (I spend a lot of time on planes)

SlingBox Pro

So now I have an almost-perfect media experience wherever I am (actually that kind of is related to UC - where I also have all a perfect communications experience wherever I am!).

At home I can stream music, TV and movies to whatever room I am in; if I'm on a plane I have all of my music and most of my movies on my Zune (I used to have an iPod Mini then a Creative Zen Micro, but with the excellent screen and battery-life on the Zune I will never go back); and I can watch my TV at home from anywhere in the world via the SlingBox (handy when I'm in the USA and the rugby is on TV).

So my question is - what do you reckon I should do next?

I'll post some photos as soon as I find the charger for my camera!

The Devil Wears Prada... and does Unified Comms!!

jkruse — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 11:10:00 GMT

Video: The Devil wears prada .. and does Unified Comms!