Nortel Buzzboard

I have ignored it all year. Had absolutely no desire to do it.

Twitter.

I already have this Nortel blog, so how can Twitter and its 140 character limit per message possibly provide me any value when updating my “followers”?

Quite frankly, I’m not sure I know. I haven’t created a Twitter communications strategy, calculated the expected ROI, or any of those things that I’m told I should do before moving ahead.

I’m also supposed to be focusing on the conversations I want to have, and who I want to have them with…not the technology. At least that’s what Groundswell tells me.

So I had no desire and no plan — why …

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My last activity of the day here at Global Connect was to attend the Exhibit Hall Opening Reception. I spent a little time on the Nortel booth, but mainly I wandered around the rest of the exhibit area to see what the other vendors were doing. Of course, being an INNUA event, the exhibit hall was filled with partners, suppliers, and other companies that do business with Nortel.

Here is a summary of what I saw and heard during my wanderings, as well as a few pictures to go with it:

Nortel’s big Enterprise partners were all in attendance — Microsoft, IBM and Dell — and all were showing off their unified communications capabilities. …

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One piece of Nortel news that slipped past me recently was our introduction of the Software Communication System (SCS) 500, a new unified communications solution targeted specifically for SMBs in the 30-500 user range (though it can scale to 1000).

The Nortel Softphone 3455 - which can be used as part of Nortel’s software-based SCS 500 unified communications solution for SMBsA new UC solution from Nortel for SMBs, you say? Probably some new cousin of our BCM50 or some scaled down version of one of our IP-PBXs, right?  One way or another you’re probably thinking “a new box.”

But no, this new product release is a shiny, round…disk.  A CD-ROM — because SCS500 is completely software-based.  Not only that, but it is built on open source technology — SIPfoundry sipXecs to be exact.  Yes you heard me right — Nortel just introduced a new fully software-based, open source solution.  Got your attention?  Here are the details….

SCS500 bundles together VoIP, instant messaging, presence, on-demand audio/video conferencing, unified messaging
The solution also provides some advanced call routing features that are not commonly available on SMB solutions, including automatic call distribution (ACD), advanced auto attendant, personal auto attendant, and find me / follow me.
Two softphone clients are available as part of the solution.  You can also use Nortel IP phones, LG-Nortel IP phones, or even multi-supplier devices. 
Application integration is a big focus, with plug ins available for Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes that integrate SCS500’s UC capabilities with those applications.
Go here for an interactive virtual tour of the SCS500 and some of it’s capabilities (mainly focused on VoIP and softphone capabilities).  There are some additional details and multimedia tools available off the Nortel UC solutions for SMBs page.

To be clear, you can’t just go to your local Best Buy and buy a copy of SCS500 off the shelf.  The solution is currently available on IBM and Dell servers.  In fact, we’ve talked about these two offerings individually in a few recent press releases.

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