Nortel Buzzboard

Earlier this week Joel Hackney, Nortel’s president of Enterprise Solutions, gave some early thoughts on Global Connect. With the event over, Joel had a few parting thoughts on the event. Here is his guest post:

[Note - when I originally posted this last night, I accidentally “back-dated” it to yesterday morning. I have since corrected it so this morning so it will show up at the top of the blog posting list]

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Joel Hackney, Nortel President of Enterprise SolutionsI wanted to take this opportunity to share a few closing thoughts on Global Connect. Bo has done a fantastic job keeping readers up to speed on what’s going on at the event with his Buzzboard posts here, and I appreciate the forum.

With nearly 3,000 attendees at Global Connect 2008, this presented an incredibly powerful opportunity to exchange ideas. Our customers and partners brought their stories, their successes and their needs to the forefront as part of the give-and-take that represents the cornerstone attribute of the event.

My primary take-away from Global Connect 2008 is that many Nortel customers are already leveraging the power of unified communications and are anxious to do more. In fact, the question I received most often at the show was “how can you help my business?” That came from customers of all types. The opportunity for UC is huge, and we’ve only just begun.

You’ve likely seen my recent Buzzboard post that calls out the benefits of unified communications. But meeting with customers provided a great deal of anecdotal evidence of just how incredibly powerful the technology can be, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Take for example Dr. Marc Demers, a surgical oncologist with Orlando Health and a UC advocate. I won’t rehash the productivity gains and network simplicity, increased collaboration and remote diagnosis capabilities that UC enables, you can read the case study here. What I do want to emphasize is the end-game. Orlando Health was able to shave about 10 percent of I wonder if there is a country on our planet more aggressively embracing UC than Denmark…Is it really any wonder that Denmark also ranks first globally for broadband penetration?the time from their discharge process, a serious productivity gain. So what? That means patients can be discharged that much earlier and that means beds become available that much more quickly. What it all boils down to is that they can accommodate 10 percent more patients, without doing anything else. No added hospital wing, no charity fund drives, no construction and no distractions, just many more patients being served effectively. When you consider that each hospital bed costs two million dollars to build (including the supporting infrastructure), that translates to real savings and productivity enhancements simply, affordably and elegantly.

We also had a contingent of more than 65 customers from Denmark at this year’s Global Connect. I wonder if there is a country on our planet more aggressively embracing UC than Denmark. You can read the UC deployment stories of companies like Jyske Bank and Danske Bank to get a more complete view as to how the Danes are moving the marketplace forward. Is it really any wonder that Denmark also ranks first globally for broadband penetration?

While we are on the cusp of appreciating what truly can be accomplished with UC, we are in middle of the voyage. We know where we were, we know where we are and we think we know where we are going, but the end of this story remains a bit elusive. Just as Marc Andreessen and his cohorts at Netscape could not predict the rich pageant that they had opened to the public when they created the Internet browser, so too do we know we are on the path to something big, but what it is has yet to be fully defined.

What’s it all mean? Businesses need to shorten the decision making process, remove human latency that impedes the velocity of communications and make true collaboration capabilities available to their executives and employees. That’s UC.

My take-away is that Nortel customers and partners get it. They understand the power of unified communications and more importantly, the business benefits it enables. For those who attended the Global Connect, I hope your take-away is that Nortel has listened closely to the demands to integrate communications back into your business processes.

Thank you very much for coming to the show and for taking the time to read this blog. I look forward to seeing you in Pittsburg at Global Connect 2009.