By Bo Gowan
11 September 2008
11:27 am EDT
While unified communications is the big technology buzzword that today’s enterprises are considering as they evolve their voice and data networks, a lack of education and “know how” on how to approach deployment of UC solutions may be hindering rapid adoption of UC across the industry. Such is the concern of Scott Schauer, Nortel’s Director of Certification.
I recently talked to Scott about the education and training needed to move to UC, his efforts heading up Nortel’s certification activities, as well as a new effort called Nortel Press which publishes certification self-study guides on industry technologies and Nortel products.
Scott was telling me about a new UC self-study guide that Nortel recently introduced, and it got us talking about the uncertainty some enterprises may face when looking to understand the benefits, costs, and technology choices of moving to UC.
As an application, UC is new territory for many enterprises and their IT departments. Uncertainty about “where do I start” with something as “powerful” as UC can cause businesses to put off the decision (and benefits) of transitioning.
One way enterprises can get a better understanding of how to deploy UC is through Nortel Press, books first introduced in April. Nortel Press takes existing traditional certification training courses and converts them to self-study guides. The guides contain the same material you’d see in the classroom, but makes it available at a lower price (as little as $75) and with a more flexible format. Each book maps into a Nortel certification, and a certification practice exam is on a CD-ROM that’s included with each book (the cost of the actual Nortel certification exam is not included).
Vendor neutral self-study guides focusing on Unified Communications and VoIP are available now as well as a book focusing on the Nortel BCM 50. New study guides available in the 4th quarter of this year or early next year will cover Nortel’s Ethernet Routing Switch product line, Data Networking and Real Time Networking.
Read the rest of this entry »
By Bo Gowan
8 May 2008
3:51 pm EDT
Nortel has been giving out some hardware recently — hardware in the form of trophies and plaques that is. Today in Richardson, TX, Nortel gave out several awards to top performing suppliers for 2007 at the 12th annual Nortel Supplier Forum.
The winners were:
Diversity Supplier of the Year - Telamon-Corp, Inc.
Innovation for Services Supplier - Ledefyl
Innovation for Technology Supplier - JDSU
Quality & Service - Services Supplier - Manning Global
Quality & Service - Technology - Spansion
Supplier of the Year - Renesas
Supplier Representative of the Year - Joanne Maio, BellMicro
Additionally, this press release came out from Nortel distributor WestconGroup, highlighting that James Turner, a member of the Westcon Convergence UK sales team, has been recognized by Nortel as “Best Distributor …
Read the rest of this entry »
By Bo Gowan
21 January 2008
3:46 pm EST
Two weeks ago I wrote about the progress Nortel was making with channel partners and some of the new programs that were out for 2008. Last week, Nortel added another program update when we unveiled four new “starter kits” for our UC 1-2-3 program.
UC 1-2-3 was launched last summer to help channel partners and end customers streamline the process of selecting, purchasing and deploying a unified communications solution though pre-engineered, pre-configured packages and sales tools that simplify the quoting and ordering process.
These four new “starter kits” could also be called “UC for Beginners” kits, allowing simple trial or limited UC deployment scenarios. The Mobile IP, Road Warrior, Work at Home, and UC Starter Kits each address …
Read the rest of this entry »
By Bo Gowan
10 January 2008
3:53 pm EST
Over the last 4 quarters (4Q06 to 3Q07), Nortel’s Enterprise business has shown double digit YoY growth. With roughly 85% of enterprise sales going through channel partners, growing Nortel’s channel based is key to this continued success.
In a March 2007 interview with CRN, Mike Z admitted that in the past Nortel hasn’t always done a good job working with partners, and said in 2007 Nortel channel partners would see a significant improvement.
Over the last week, David Wilkinson, Nortel’s North American VP of Channel Strategy, as been talking publicly about the progress that Nortel has made in improving channel support and growing our partner base. Here’s a quick sample…
Jessica Davis of Channel Insider highlighted the fact that …
Read the rest of this entry »
