While CFOs are seeing a silver lining in new cloud adoption by their companies in terms of capex and opex savings, their CIO brethren may not be quite as giddy. A new survey shows that 74 percent of respondents are still worried their company's security may be at risk.

The survey, Network Instruments' Fifth Annual State of the Network Global Study, said 60 percent of respondents anticipate half of their apps will run in the cloud within 12 months, 70 percent will implement video conferencing within a year, 25 percent said they expect video will consume half of all bandwidth in 12 months, and 33 percent expect bandwidth consumption to increase by more than 50 percent in next two years.

"While IT teams embrace cloud services and videoconferencing as a way to increase cost savings and business flexibility, these technologies introduce new components and environments which make ensuring positive end-user experience all the more challenging," said Brad Reinboldt, senior product manager of Network Instruments. "The reported lack of monitoring tools, quality metrics and visibility create serious obstacles that prevent IT from effectively managing performance and jeopardize costly technology investments."

Some 60 percent of organizations are embracing cloud services, essentially unchanged from last year, but those companies are anticipating increasing the number of Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service and private cloud deployments.

But, the chief bugaboo, security, remains. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they worried about ensuring corporate data security during cloud migration. The number is nearly double that of last year. Lack of accurate end-user experience monitoring and the bandwidth impact of cloud services also were issues.

NI's survey also showed than videoconferencing may finally have arrived, with about 55 percent of companies having implemented it; that number is expected to increase to 70 percent within a year. Close to two of three companies have multiple videoconferencing deployments in their organization, including 75 percent with standard conference rooms, 63 percent with desktop deployments and 30 percent using high-end telepresence.

The survey suggested lack of user knowledge and training were major hurdles, with more than half of respondents citing them as issues. On its heels were concerns about bandwidth (47 percent, and a lack of tools to manage video performance (47 percent).

By the beginning of 2013, nearly one-quarter of respondents expect video to consume over half of their bandwidth.

For more:
- see the report

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Virtualization: The Hot Trend Today's Organizations Can No Longer Ignore

I didn't know David as well as Rich Tehrani or Irwin Lazar, both of whom have written wonderful eulogies to him over the weekend, but what I can say is he was a gentleman and as industry analysts went, David was one of those who knew his stuff and didn't shout about it. He just did it right, all the time.

I started running into David at VON and IT Expo events many years ago. He always had a kind word, a smile and would reach out to me to talk about things. He also always took time to have briefings with my long list of clients.

David did his thing without a lot of flash. But he was a nice person through and through. Like with the passing some years back of Russell Shaw the VoIP and IP communications community has seen another one of the really good guys go before their time.

RIP David.

Cable companies have, so far, outdone telecoms in the drive to get broadband into homes. In the process, they have managed to take a huge chunk of phone business, in the form of VoIP, away from the traditional landline providers.

Now, as they watch their basic video subscriber numbers erode (as they have every year since 2005), cable companies have begun to look at another telco stronghold--videoconferencing and broadband services--specifically in the health care segment, as a possible prescription to renew their vigor, Bloomberg reports today.

For years, that business has long been the bailiwick of telephone companies, especially AT&T (NYSE: T)--which sells through its AT&T ForHealth division-- and Verizon (NYSE: VZ)--which sells via its Verizon Connected Healthcare Solutions.

But cable companies, worried that margins on their television business also are shrinking, aggressively have begun to sell broadband and videoconferencing to hospitals and doctors offices.

And, to a degree, they've already begun to make in-roads. Early earnings results showed just how much potential there was for cable companies in the sector.

After its business services revenue increased 37 percent in the fourth quarter, Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) CEO Glenn Britt called it the MSOs "biggest success story." And, TWC doesn't expect that it was a one-shot deal: the company forecast the segment to grow as much as 30 percent through the entire year.

Cox said four-fifths of the estimated $460 million healthcare-related services market in its footprint currently is still controlled by telecom companies. The company said health care makes up just 10 percent of its overall revenue from business service, $100 million more than double what it had been a year ago. It, too, expects to see strong annual growth in the segment.

Can cable take the business away? Or at least capture enough of it to change the landscape?

The key is going to be offering products that focus on interoperability, something that increasingly is becoming a buzzword among vendors looking to make the technology ubiquitous. The offerings also will need to be easy to use, contain rich feature sets and be available at an affordable price.

A recent study among rural doctors in Australia showed they were eager to use the technology, but turned to Skype, generally, because they wanted touse something that was simple.

If the videoconferencing industry, with the help of a hungry cable industry looking for opportunities, is serious about democratizing videoconferencing so that it's no longer confined to boardrooms and supplied by a handful of vendors, those are some things to keep in mind.--Jim

Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI) subsidiary LifeSize this week launched its LifeSize UVC Platform, which the company says is the industry's first integrated and virtualized software solution for HD video conferencing infrastructure.

The UVC (universal visual collaboration) platform integrates the capabilities of multiple single-purpose infrastructure products and makes them instantly available from one interface with one login account.

The company said the UVC platform is scalable and customizable, and includes infrastructure applications like HD streaming and recording, firewall/NAT traversal and Gatekeepers (routing and control).

LifeSize contends that with a single integrated platform and a deployment model to fit every IT environment, administrators can buy what they need now and scale up as the organization's needs grow.

"LifeSize has consistently delivered industry firsts," said Colin Buechler, who was named LifeSize's CEO earlier this month, "We were first to HD, first with one button streaming and recording, and now we are redefining video conferencing infrastructure... LifeSize has fundamentally changed the way businesses deploy infrastructure, unlocking the door to real adoption and growth in the video conferencing industry."

LifeSize is offering a "try before you buy" feature that enables instant downloads of the platform, which is globally available now.

The platform with infrastructure applications lists at $3,999; it currently includes UVC Video Center for streaming and recording; UVC Transit Server, a firewall/NAT traversal server; the UVC Transit Client, which is a firewall/NAT traversal proxy; and UVC Access, a gatekeeper/IP communications routing and control.

For more:
- see this release

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LifeSize brings its videoconferencing technology to the cloud

Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo is demanding help from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to help reign in what it's calling a signaling storm specifically exacerbated by an Android VoIP application that caused a major outage in its network.

The operator said the app and the way Android constantly polls the network generate massive signaling traffic.

Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) suffered outages in its LTE network last year and cited similar factors.

Operators are increasingly concerned with the booming traffic demands that also are likely to accompany cloud-based services and applications like videoconferencing.

DoCoMo's outage earlier this month was the fifth outage in the past six months. It affected 2.5 million subscribers.

For more:
- see this Rethink Wireless article

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Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM)'s RealPresence Mobile software will be shipping pre-loaded as an app on Motorola's new Droid Xyboard, the company announced today. It's the first tablet to ship preloaded with the software.

The company rolled out RealPresence Mobile, which it calls the first enterprise-class HD mobile video solution for tablets, in October. The software allows Polycom customers to connect with other standards-based video systems, including immersive video rooms, group/desktop systems, laptops and other mobile devices.

The app is already available free for iOS devices, the Motorola XOOM tablet and Samsung's Galaxy Tab. Polycom said the app has been downloaded more than 25,000 times since being introduced.

RealPresence Mobile allows users to simultaneously view content, such as presentations, in high-quality during video sessions.

"We want to enable our customer to be able to deploy across multiple platforms; we want them to have an easy choice as to what they want to use," Jim Kruger, SVP of global solution marketing told FierceEnterpriseCommunications when the app was introduced. "Having so many devices, the BYOD trend, has really made it difficult for IT departments. In many cases, they've tried to keep them at bay and not support them. This solution eliminates that problem; it allows them to manage and deploy via software."

Kruger said customers are looking to embrace mobility and tablets, which, he said, have a significant impact on business productivity.

It's a market that the company believes will see explosive growth in the short and long-term.

"The market driver is demand for mobility, and the key is tablets," he said. "The quality of the cameras, the processing power [and] the larger displays make tablets effective multipoint devices. They handle content and desktops; they make it easy to collaborate and connect into meetings."

Gartner predicts 900 million tablets will be shipped by 2015, with upward of 320 units shipped in 2015 alone. GigaOm Pro, meanwhile, said videoconferencing participation is expected to grow 14-fold to more than 140 million units over the same time frame.

For more:
- see this release

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Telepresence vendor Polycom (Nacdaq: PLCM) today announced it has acquired low-cost videoconferencing and video collaboration company ViVu. Terms of the cash deal, which closed Friday, for the privately held startup were not released. Polycom expects the transaction to be neutral to earnings.

ViVu is one of a number of vendors offering a scalable cloud-based architecture and enterprise-class secure platforms, without any proprietary hardware. ViVu's video collaboration software can be embedded into web applications such as enterprise, social and vertical industry applications to enable instant web-based HD video collaboration. The company, which offers a monthly service for under $10, in September rolled out its own app for Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad 2 and iPhone 4. The iOS component means the videoconferencing product now is available on PCs, Macs, Android devices and iOS devices, without requiring any proprietary hardware.

The company was founded in 2008 and employs about 25 people. Clients include TIBCO and Thomson Reuters.

ViVu gives Polycom a fast-track to embed HD video into web-based applications through an OEM model, accelerating time-to-market and adoption of Polycom HD video collaboration solutions, while driving awareness of the Polycom brand powering video collaboration inside a wide range of applications.

Polycom said its goal with the acquisition is to "make it possible for millions of people to use video collaboration as their preferred method of communication--easily, reliably and securely--regardless of network, carrier, protocol, application or device."

The acquisition is expected to be a key enabler for Polycom to continue to provide customers with the highest quality, scalable video collaboration. Polycom said it will leverage ViVu technology in its RealPresence Platform.

"ViVu is a compelling acquisition for Polycom as their technology provides a scalable architecture to quickly deploy rich video collaboration for a range of web-based applications for social, business and industry-specific applications, such as those for healthcare, finance and customer service," said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Polycom's executive vice president and general manager of UC solutions and chief development officer.

ViVu software applications are potentially wide-ranging and include customer service, telemedicine and financial services.

ViVu video collaboration software technology is already embedded into a number of enterprise applications. A couple of examples include TIBCO, where ViVu powers the HD video collaboration in TIBCO's enterprise social platform tibbr, enabling users to collaborate in real-time, and Thomson Reuters, where it powers the video collaboration inside Thomson Reuters' financial content application, helping financial professionals collaborate to view and discuss the latest news.

The acquisition of ViVu gives Polycom innovative and scalable software technology for web-based applications--as well as first-mover advantage--to deliver HD video collaboration for social media and vertical market applications.

For more:
- see this release

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The migration of consumers from video to broadband viewing and the subsequent change in subscriber numbers in different segments of providers' quarterly reports, is telling: cable operators are losing video subscribers, slowly but steadily. But the raw numbers may not tell the whole story. Editors Jim O'Neill, Sean Buckley, and Steve Donohue take a closer look at the subscriber numbers issue, what those numbers mean for telcos offering broadband and IPTV services and where cable MSOs really stand financially as their video subscriptions drop. Special Report

Policy management and addressing solutions management company Neustar (NYSE:NSR) has made its second acquisition of the year, entering into a definitive agreement to pay $650 million for TARGUSinfo.

TARGUSinfo, an independent provider of real-time, on-demand information and analytics services including Caller ID, offers services to help its customers identify, verify, score and locate their customers and prospects.

The deal, said Neustar officials, extends Neustar's position in the $30 billion information services market by combining TARGUSinfo's Caller ID and online information services, such as lead verification and scoring, with Neustar's strengths in network information services, including address inventory management, network security, and marketing analytics. It's expected to close in the fourth quarter.

TARGUSinfo generated some $149 million in revenues for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, representing 20 percent year-over-year growth. Following completion of the transaction, Neustar will have annual revenues of approximately $750 million generated from a more diversified platform of information and analytics services offered to a wider range of enterprises. 

"This transaction is a significant and logical step in our growth strategy," said Lisa Hook, president and chief executive officer of Neustar.  "Neustar has long provided communications, media and marketing companies with insights derived from their own data.  By combining with TARGUSinfo, we will be able to offer a much more diverse portfolio of services in the real-time information and analytics market."

In a blog post, Hook described the evolution of the deal as having formed over a meal between she and TARGUSinfo founder George Moore.

"Neustar's acquisition of TARGUSinfo wasn't the result of an investment banker bringing one of us the idea," she wrote. "Our combination stems from a meal I had the pleasure of sharing last year with George Moore, who founded and built TARGUSinfo into the formidable company it is today.

"Over dinner, George and I both became excited about the possibilities of what our two companies could do together," she said. "Since then, our senior teams have grown equally excited about how, by bringing these complementary companies together, we can broaden the scope of the services we offer to a larger and more diversified customer base."

Neustar shares closed at $28.04 Tuesday, up 1.6 percent, or 44 cents.

Hook less than a year ago assumed the CEO role at Neustar, taking over for founder Jeff Ganek in November 2010. She previously had been president and COO. The company in April agreed to a $39 million cash deal that will give it the Numbering Solutions business from Evolving Systems (NASDAQ:EVOL).

For more:
- see this release
- see this Washington Post article

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Hosted PBX service provider Virtual PBX has rolled out an enhancement to Virtual PBX Complete--VoIP Anywhere, which allows customers to use smartphones and computers as VoIP handsets with complete business phone system capabilities.

The new wrinkle means that, even if a user calls out on a personal smartphone, the caller ID information will show the company's caller ID information.

Virtual PBX was rolled out in February and can function without an in-place VoIP phone system, working as an inbound call router to existing mobile phones.

"Our launch of Virtual PBX Complete has generated tremendous demand from our customers. As they embrace our system, they are increasingly seeking the freedom to access their VoIP business features on any device, wherever they are," said Greg Brashier, COO of Virtual PBX. "By introducing Virtual PBX Complete with VoIP Anywhere, we are delivering that freedom and flexibility to carry their business extension anywhere in the world."

The company said no proprietary software is required and said VoIP Anywhere capabilities can be accessed through any standard softphone, such as those available for Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android phones, Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhones and computers. VoIP Anywhere allows the devices to appear as VoIP extensions in the Virtual PBX system, so calls to and from the softphone have full access to all system features, such as business caller ID for outbound calls, call recording, call transfers, presence management and reporting.

Virtual PBX said it also has reduced bandwidth requirements for VoIP calls, allowing high-quality calls to be placed over even modest data connections, including 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi.

For more:
- see this release

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Citrix Systems has gone mobile with its GoToMeeting product, offering Android users a free app that lets them connect to and participate in online meetings.

The company, which last month added a free HD videoconferencing component to its web collaboration product, said the app will be pre-loaded on the Droid Bionic from Motorola, the latest Android-powered device from Motorola Mobility arriving at Verizon Wireless today.

Motorola will also be pre-loading Citrix Receiver, which enables customers to access their corporate Windows apps and documents on over one billion different devices, regardless of operating system or form factor.

"(This) opens a world of choice for our customers who rely on our application for high-quality, secure and reliable web and audio conferencing," said Bernardo de Albergaria, vice president and general manager of the Collaboration, Online Services Division at Citrix Systems. "(This) announcement underscores our company commitment to helping businesses--large and small--achieve flexibility and agility in the way they work for maximum productivity and success, anywhere at anytime."

For more:
- see this release

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Dialogic is partnering with Voiceserve subsidiary VoipSwitch to develop an open standards-based mobile video conferencing solution based on the technology components commercially available from both companies.

The move to take advantage of the growing demand for videoconferencing solutions provides for SIP-based mobile video conferencing from Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android and Apple (Nadaq: AAPL) iPhone smartphones using off-the-shelf smartphone video client applications, rather than non standards-compliant proprietary networks and terminals.

"Demand for mobile multimedia services is poised to continue to increase and, as it does, it is important that the right tools are available to developers to help meet this demand," said Franz-Josef Eberle, vice president and general manager of VAS and Cloud Enabling Unit at Dialogic. "We are excited that through our collaboration with a great company like VoipSwitch, we were able to develop a more accessible mobile videoconferencing tool for the developer community."

Dialogic and VoipSwitch have combined VoipSwitch's  Vippie SIP-based smartphone client application, based on Dialogic's multimedia processing software, to develop a proof-of-concept. The solution is software-based, allowing for simple delivery of scalable and reliable new services.  

Dialogic's SBC, the BorderNet 500 Gateway, is used in the solution to allow clients to make SIP calls on the Internet from anywhere and enables them to deploy the solution in hosted or cloud environments.

Dialogic will demonstrate the mobile video conferencing solution set at IT Expo West in Austin and the Rural Cellular Association Fall Expo 2011 in Las Vegas the week of September 12th.

For more:
- see this release

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Wholesale VoIP services provider VoX Communications has developed a mobile app for use on all Android mobile phones, moving out of the shadow of companies like fring and Nimbuzz, which it previously relied upon to deliver its mobile VoIP application to an Android device.

The new app means users can install a VoX app directly on an Android tablet or smartphone via a download. VoX previously partnered with Nimbuzz in January on an iPhone app; it says it will launch its Android app in the Android Market within 30 days.

"We believe that this venue will give our VoIP services unprecedented exposure, as this App will be available to over 50 million Android smart phones in the U.S. alone," said Mark Richards, CIO of Pervasip, which owns VoX.

The app has features that, Richards said, gives VoX an advantage over some other apps, including Skype. The VoX app, for example, makes the VoIP service available in the phone's primary dialer with a single touch, meaning you won't have to sign on each time you use it. You can also set it to automatically register with VoX when Wi-Fi is turned on, or keep it registered for 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi; to maximize battery life, it can be set to register only when a call is made.

Richards said the company also plans to add video calling to the product by the end of the year, enabling video calling between an Android phone and an Ojo Vision video phone.

"As a nimble development technology company, we intend to produce a tablet video app that brings a product superior to Facetime to the Android Market," he said.

Mobile VoIP plans start at $4.95. VoX also offers 500 minutes for $9.95, and $29.95 for unlimited calling to the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

For more:
- see this release

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