Obviously power consumption and the need for reducing the power use of the network became a critical discussion.  Both National Semiconductor and Nortel have been focused in this area and we covered both today and tomorrow.

The other critical area we discussed is how wireless will transform the enterprise.  As the next generation of wireless capability rolls out, the value of having a wireless campus/building will become significant.   The ability to eliminate the current structure of an office by having an organic mobile work environment will change the office landscape.

I will put a post up about the wireless campus and what it could mean to office physical layouts and organizations in the near future.

Meanwhile, I am in Ottawa this week working with the new enterprise team to get the focus we need to drive forward with Advanced Research, Incubation and other programs to build success in the Nortel enterprise business.

For those who might be interested, I will continue in my role as Enterprise CTO and continue driving strategy as well.  I look forward to sharing more about how we will change the velocity of the enterprise business over the next couple of weeks.   Wherever possible, I will try to respond to any questions about how this will change our focus and how we are moving forward.

As you may be aware from his final post on the CTO Blog, John Roese will be leaving Nortel at the end of the year.  I want to thank John for his efforts and contribution in transforming Nortel.  A number of the activities that he started during his tenure will continue in the Enterprise organization.    As we move forward over the near term, an area of focus for me will be integrating a number of team members from the central organization into the enterprise business and assuring that key investments in Advanced Research and Innovation continue.  We need to build on the momentum we have in many areas and focus our innovation and investments to areas that create value for our customers.

If you have  chance to go to the site, you will find case studies on Microsoft OCS integration, CS2100 Centralization, and Steve discussing how he is delivering world class IT at best in class costs.

What I find most exciting is Gartner's recognition of the unique vision and strategy that Nortel has for "Open UC".  While others in the leader quadrant such as Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco have a proprietary solution only, the unique Nortel vision of providing open UC capabilities that extend from collaboration into business process integration is both unique and leading the industry.  By effectively partnering with both Microsoft and IBM, Nortel is the logical choice for high performance UC solutions.

If you want to read the whole report, you can find it here on the Nortel web site:  Gartner Magic Quadrant for UC 2008.

Gartner Note:

*The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

First I am going the Nortel Global Advisory council, meeting with key CIOs from Global 100 companies that, as key Nortel partners, are both a sounding board for our strategies as well as advisers to us.   Then next week I m in London for the NETF (if you have not yet registered, there is still time at NETF-2008).  Following NETF I have customer events in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.  Then I am continuing on to Australia and New Zealand, where I will be doing a talk at  Gartner Symposium and a number of other sessions.

One might ask why, with telepresence and all the other tools, would we subject ourselves to traveling like this.  In the end, it is the critical opportunity to interact at a level not possible without face to face, and the opportunity to touch over a two thousand IT professionals in a couple of weeks.   As was discussed in the posts earlier around the value of video, sometimes Face to Face is the only way.

I will keep you updated as I move around the world, both on the different views of the coming Unified Communications and Communications Integration adoption as well as the how the economy is affecting IT in different areas.

In discussion with customers about having dual core network switches from separate vendors and a mix of edge switches, the concept of a specific attack only affecting half the network is perceived by some as a valuable capability.  In discussions with a major European airport, they indicated their discomfort with having a single vendor solution if a worm or other attack could bring the network down, essentially closing the airport.  By having separate core redundancy and a mix at the edge, a worm or software bug would only impact half of the ports, the remaining half of the network would still be operational.

The question that came from this article is whether having a mixed vendor environment will also minimize the impact of these counterfeit devices.  Is the low probability of having counterfeits of products (and associated failures) from two vendors worth the challenge of managing a dual vendor environment?

The event was held at the world class rowing venue at Dorney Lake, built and owned by Eton College.  This will be the rowing venue for the 2012 Olympics and is truly a world-class facility.  I remember the boathouse and rowing on the estuary between Alameda and Oakland when I was on the Frosh crew at UC Berkeley and this facility is truly world class.

The morning event was keynoted by Sebastian Coe, Chair of LOCOG.  In his address he stressed the key focus of the games on creating an environment where the athletes can perform at their best, with an infrastructure that is both absolutely dependable and transparent.  He emphasized that the choice of Nortel as the official infrastructure supplier was influenced by the Nortel experience in Turin in 2004 and Vancouver in 2010 and the commitment to excellence that Nortel brings to the games.  As a previous Olympian and the gold medal winner in the 1500m in 1980 and 1984, Mr. Coe understands first hand that dependability and organization are critical to achieving top level performance.   In my talk I discussed how the new technologies in wireless and communications integration can transform the experience of the Olympics for athletes, coaches, volunteers, a well as local and remote spectators.

This was an exciting event and the beginning of an incredible challenge as well as an wonderful opportunity to contribute to the Olympic movement.  It will also add to Nortel's reputation as the company to go to for the big challenges in networking and communications technology.  All of us at Nortel Understand the trust that the LOCOG is putting in us and will assure that we deliver the infrastructure that will make this the most connected Olympics and Paralympics ever.

I have some friends who just made the move to iPhones.  While they are delighted with the change, it did mean an increase in cost over their previous devices.  As a small business, they are struggling to maintain their revenue stream, but they felt that the functionality of the device would enhance productivity and make the investment worthwhile.

On the other hand, many organizations seem to be holding off their normal upgrades and transitions.  PC refreshes move out, software licenses are not renewed, etc.

If we believe that growth is truly driven by the impact of technology on productivity, does this suggest that the productivity growth rate will flatten in the near future?  What are the critical technologies that will generate growth and that should not be short-changed during the slow-down.

Obviously the underlying infrastructure is critical, but capabilities such as UC and the integration of communications, information and business processes are probably the critical investment moving forward.....

I have tried to do posts when I thought I had something interesting to say, alas, I find that at times when I am embedded in internal activities this has precluded me from getting a post out.   As many of you are aware, ne of my focus areas is the overall vision, strategy and technology direction for the enterprise business.  The Nortel planning process includes Session 2, Strategy and Session 3, Multi-generational Roadmaps.  the timing for these are Q2 and Q3.  Over the past 5 months I have been heavily invested in time in these internal activities, and they generate much less blogging content.

So, in the interests of making this a dependable blog, I am going to focus to having at least three posts per week (MWF) for the rest of the year.   After a period, please comment on your preference; regular posts, sometimes less than focused, or less regular and more focused.

For those who regularly visit the blog, I thank you and appreciate your indulgence.

In communications, the continued bandwidth revolution and the demand created by Moore's Law and the changes in the human I/O have continued to make regular technology obsolescence a tradition.  We can argue that we are reaching a peak in bandwidth demands 9see some of my previous posts on this topic), but until you get to that point, the replacements will continue.  And for both Nomadic and Wireless the trend appears to continue much longer.

The otehr factor that seems to be reducing longevity is complexity.  About 2 years ago I moved from a tube based television to a rear projection television based on a new technology.  I was awed by the 1080i HD pictures, and the overall feel of the relatively large picture.  After about 18 months the lamp in the TV went out, probably caused to some degree as the TV was in a cabinet (I have since installed n exhaust fan in the cabinet to control heat build-up.  Then, at about 20 months, the TV began to develop a distinct green cast to the picture.  After diagnosis by the repair group, the Color Module (light source, chips, etc.) had to be replaced.  While the parts were replaced under warranty, I had to foot the labor bill.  So essentially within 2 years about 50-70% of the initial cost was incurred in repairs.   While the new TV was in the shop we returned the now 12 year old tube TV that had previously been there and it works great.  In fact, I have never had a tube TV fail.  I wonder if this is due to the maturity of the technology or the simplicity of the design?

Is complexity growing faster than our ability to effectively manage the reliability and longevity of the resultant implementations?  We have seen the power utilization analysis that Nortel has done showing lower power use in data gear versus competitors.  Is some of this due to good design decision that reduce complexity?

Complexity is the bane of reliability, but I am beginning to think it is the bane of longevity and TCO as well....thoughts?