Pepsico taps Cisco and BT for a telepresence initiative that will roll out in the companys major offices worldwide. The project will use Ciscos TelePresence technology and BTs services. The move illustrates the growing enterprise demand for telepresence technologies, and the need for interoperability between vendor systems. Cisco and Polycom differ on the ways to establish interoperability standards.
- A decision by Pepsico to deploy Cisco Systems TelePresence solution illustrates the growing demand for the technology, which can help enterprises improve collaboration and reduce expenses. The giant food company announced Feb. 2 that it will use Ciscos solution and services from BT to improve co...

Recently, eBay has become more social. In July, the auction giant had begun to allow employees to collect stories from users and to post them on an internal Web site. Eventually, the site may become open to the public, according to eBay's partner, Tokoni, which powers the stories site and announced the collaboration today.

The idea is for eBay to try to replicate Barak Obama kind of success in using social Web to grow its brand and to increase its users' loyalty. Users can write and submit stories about anything: One entry I've seen talks about what it's been like to move to, and fall in love with California. Perhaps people will start coming back to eBay not only to trade goods, but also to get to know other people. That must be eBay's hope, at least.

To date, Tokoni has created similar stories communities for former eBay CEO Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign and for political organization WomenCount.

Oracle's collaboration with InQuira produces a service that allows enterprise call centers to seamlessly combine their Web and voice channels within a call center on-demand product, and pair that with embedded analytics. Operating hand in hand with Oracle CRM On Demand, InQuira's On Demand Web Self-Service application allows customers to find relevant data on a network.
- In a move that reflects an industrywide effort to build out end-to-end services, Oracle announced an option for companies to integrate the capabilities of its Oracle CRM On Demand with partner InQuira's On Demand Web self-service applications. The combined service, which Oracle plans to offer a...

Cisco says the $180 million collaboration alliance between HP and Microsoft leaves partners out. HP disagrees.

In a story we ran this morning, Network World's John Fontana points out that Nortel's liquidation of assets could threaten it's two-year-old partnership with Microsoft to sell so-called "unified communications"--software that lets corporate workers easily reach other, whether through phone, email, instant messages, video conferencing, etc. But that may a relatively small change in Microsoft's strategy on that front. I say this because in reporting my story this week about Microsoft's Business Division, I learned that OCS will be thrown in for free in certain versions of the upcoming Office 2010, due out by the middle of next year. As I explain in the story, this release is very much about collaboration. It makes sense to have that small UC business (maybe $1 billion in sales) serve the far larger Office business--especially since I'm not sure Microsoft has as strong a stand-alone UC story as networking king Cisco Systems does.

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Just how serious is Intel about breaking into new markets?

The chipmaker made that abundantly clear today, announcing it will acquire Wind River Systems, a maker of software for embedded devices, for $11.50 a share in cash, or about $884 million. The deal marks a 44% premium to Wind River's June 3 closing price.

With the purchase, is Intel picking up some cues with its partnership with Apple? No doubt, the chipmaker is known best for its manufacturing prowess. But it has always had a big group of software engineers who work on ways to optimize Intel's chips for everyday uses.

Intel, for instance, teamed up with Real to develop streaming media software that's widely used today to transmit audio and video over the Web.

But the Wind River purchase points to an increased emphasis on selling or using that software with finished devices. The company earlier this year announced a new collaboration with contract manufacturer TSMC to create customized chips.

Coupled with its focus on developing the Linux-based Moblin operating system for handheld devices such as netbooks, the chipmaker is making clear that the Apple-like strategy of pairing hardware and software is the way to go.

Wind River helps companies develop and manage device software for embedded systems and wireless products.

Intel is betting that its Atom chip family will drive new growth. The company hopes to notch billion more in profits over the next few years, and it making these big moves to make it happen.

Don’t look now but Cisco is poised to make a big play in the e-mail cloud computing and collaboration market.

Cisco on Tuesday launched a new set of cloud-based security solutions while also unveiling new WebEx solutions that integrate SaaS applications and the network infrastructure.

Featuring modular, SOA-based framework, Oracle® Communications Unified Inventory Management v7.1 includes pre-built technology packs that accelerate rollout of common IP multi-play and higher layer services including VoIP, MPLS L3 VPN, and Metro Ethernet/VLAN. Application enables true inventory federation through framework that allows integration and collaboration with external inventory systems …

During her keynote presentation at VoiceCon Orlando, Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior offered her thoughts on the future of collaboration and communications.

The technology enables companies in India that adopt it to reduce costs, enhance collaboration and speed up decision- making efforts.

Cisco’s North American channel chief has been promoted to senior vice president and is looking to foster better communication and collaboration within Cisco’s channel.

When clients ask for tips on cost-cutting measures, tell them to skip the airplane and log on to the Internet to attend meetings. Web conferencing also has the potential to improve their response time and effectiveness with their own clients. ————————————————————————————————————— This year, your clients will depend on you to help them cut costs, and unified communications and collaboration (UCC) software might help. UCC is an integration of communication tools such as e-mail, VoIP, audio and