Tandberg is unveiling the EX90, a telepresence offering that brings the immersive video collaboration technology to the desk. At the same time, Avaya is teaming up with LifeSize to add more video conferencing capabilities to its Aura platform.
- Tandberg and Avaya are making moves in the video collaboration space. Tandberg on March 18 launched EX90, which extends the companys telepresence capabilities to the desk. The EX90 brings the functions available in Tandbergs Telepresence offerings including video and audio quality, and InTouch t...

Avaya and Polycom are expanding their relationship to include the development and marketing of new voice and video unified communications solutions. The integrated offerings will be based on Avaya's Aura UC platform and Polycom's Open Collaboration Network strategy. The Avaya-Polycom partnership is the latest move in a quickly changing UC landscape as vendors attempt to take on major players like Cisco Systems.
- Avaya and Polycom are expanding their partnership to include integrated video, voice and collaborations offerings, the latest move in a quickly evolving unified communications market. The two companies March 9 announced plans to jointly develop and market a host of new, tightly integrated UC sol...

The UC alliance between Siemens Enterprise Communications Group and Polycom comes in the middle of other maneuverings in the market, including Ciscos intended acquisition of video conferencing equipment maker Tandberg. At the same time, Mitel is kicking off a bus tour through the United States to show off its UC offerings, including its TeleCollaboration telepresence software.
- The maneuvering in the increasingly competitive video conferencing space is continuing, with Siemens Enterprise Communications Group announcing that it will integrate Polycoms telepresence technology into its unified communications offerings. The alliance and resale agreements between the two co...

Auction site eBay is flooded with listings for Google Nexus One, which went on sale on Jan. 5. While Google sells the phone without a contract for $529, dozens of optimistic eBay sellers are trying to resell the gadget for as much as $1,000.

As of Jan. 14, a number of eBayers were peddling these smartphones for a much more realistic $300 or so, and I've even seen a price as low as $212. There were more than 300 Nexus One devices listed for sale. By comparison, the site offered 1,519 listings of iPhone 3GS devices that were also not tied to a carrier contract. Some of the more reasonably priced Nexus One offerings have garnered more than 10 bids; I'd counted a total of about 100 bids for the phones that were listed today.

The take-away: When the iPhone, for example, came out, it took expense and some effort for people to unlock it prior to selling it via eBay. So the iPhone typically sold for a premium to the retail price for weeks after coming out (with the exception of damaged iPhones). Nexus One discounts -- on new, undamaged phones -- seem to have arrived much more quickly. And it's unlikely resellers will be able to make an extra buck. I wouldn't expect to see an extensive resale market for the Google phone.

The relatively low number of bids may also indicate low interest in the device from shoppers from other countries. Google plans to make the phone available in other countries later in the year. Currently, the smartphone is only available in the U.S., and I suspect most of the people bidding for it on eBay live elsewhere.

Now that gearmaker Avaya and Web-calling service Skype share a private-equity owner, the two companies are discussing ways they can better work together. "We are having conversations with [Skype]," Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy said in an interview today. Kennedy didn’t go into detail, but these talks most likely focus on how the companies can work together, as opposed to some sort of combination of operations.

It's not difficult to imagine Avaya helping Skype enter new markets, such as the premises of its large business clients. While Skype's Web-calling service is already widely used by small businesses, it's yet to prove that it's reliable enough to serve the needs of large enterprise customers. Perhaps Avaya, whose business is focused on the enterprise, could help Skype make its Web-calling service more attractive to such large companies.

What's more, Skype could be integrated into Avaya's products, which include certain Nortel gear (Avaya closed its Nortel acquisition today). Nortel has long helped carriers like Verizon service their corporate customers. By integrating its offerings with Skype's, Avaya could help reduce these customers' telecommunications bills.

VOIP fax specialist FaxBack announces a beta of a fax ATA device, an alliance with voice over IP services company Epygi and a partner program offering to add Microsoft Fax capabilities into VOIP telecom offerings for free.
- Voice over IP fax server solutions specialist FaxBack announced a beta program for a new fax analog telephone adapter device, an alliance with Epygi Technologies and a new partner program at this years ITEXPO event in Los Angeles, which ran earlier in September. According to FaxBack, the Fax AT...

On July 17, Verizon Wireless announced that it will voluntarily start limiting the terms of its exclusive deals for handsets to six months. Is this a big deal? Well, sort of.

Today, when consumers think of LG Chocolate, BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Tour, they think of Verizon Wireless. But in another six months, these phones could potentially become available from a slew of small regional carriers, which, otherwise, may not have received access to these phones until years later. But here's the rub: These small carriers have to be really small, and service fewer than 500,000 customers to get access to Verizon's gear. Cellular South, which has been among the most active regional carriers rallying against handset exclusivity agreements, has 800,000 customers, and won't be able to benefit from Verizon's offer at all.

Having new handsets exclusively for six months will still allow Verizon Wireless to differentiate its offerings and to grab new users. New phones typically sell the most units in their first few months of introduction anyway. And other industry players have been moving to six-month exclusive contracts as well, though they haven't exactly announced that: Carrier Sprint Nextel will only offer the popular Palm Pre exclusively for six months, after which time the device will become available through Verizon.

Still, Verizon Wireless's gesture is significant, as it puts more pressure on AT&T to move to shorter exclusive contracts. For the past two years, AT&T, of course, has been the exclusive U.S. service provider for the best-selling Apple iPhone. It was in large part AT&T's success with the iPhone that prompted smaller carriers like Cellular South to ask the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the wireless industry, to review legality of exclusive handset arrangements. The FCC recently announced it would review the issue, and a decision is expected in the next year.

Most analysts believe that carriers would rather shorten the duration of their exclusive contracts themselves to ward off regulation from the FCC. Verizon's move "will put pressure on the other carriers, T-Mobile (part of DT), Sprint (S), and most notably AT&T (T) to follow suit and limit the duration of exclusives," Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. analyst Rebecca Arbogast wrote in a July 17 note. That said, I wouldn't bet on AT&T offering to voluntarily relinquish its exclusive iPhone contract any time soon.

A week after Nortel sold off several business units to Nokia Siemens Networks for $650 million, Nortel announces Release 3.0 of its SCS unified communications solution, as well as a deal in which it will work with Microsoft to bring a UC environment to a European telecom. Nortel has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy for most of the year, and officials say along with the Nokia deal they are also shopping around other business units.
- As a bankrupt Nortel Networks looks to sell off various parts of its business, officials continue making enterprise moves, including two unified communications announcements. Nortel announced June 23 that it was extending its SCS (Software Communication System), an open UC solution that had been...

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IBM and Avaya are expanding their partnership to help businesses better secure their UC environments. Avaya has certified some security products from IBMs ISS unit to run with its new Aura UC architecture. In addition, IBM will incorporate Aura into its own converged communications solutions.
- IBM and Avaya are looking to increase the security around joint unified communications offerings, a key concern as more businesses embrace a converged communications environment. The two companies are planning to build UC offerings that include security products from IBMs ISS (Internet Security ...

Sprint is touting partnerships with vendors such as Microsoft, IBM and Cisco as a way of pushing forward its unified communications efforts. Sprint officials say the partnerships are bringing together technological capabilities from all parties to enhance UC offerings for customers looking to streamline their wired and wireless communications. Sprint has saved $6 million annually by implementing a UC program, officials say.
- Sprint is expanding its reach into the unified communications field. The wireless network giant May 11 outlined the capabilities of its offering and touted its partnerships with Cisco Systems, IBM and Microsoft. The collaborations are bringing together Sprint's Global MPLS network; SIP Trunking...

Could the U.S. wireless industry have just entered a period of continuous losses of subscribers who are on long-term contracts? Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett argues that's indeed the case.

In today's report, Moffett estimates that carriers like Sprint Nextel and others haven't yet recognized some 450,000 post-paid (or under-contract) subscribers who fled their services for cheaper, prepaid offerings from carriers like Leap and Boost, a subsidiary of Sprint's, in the first quarter alone. Some of these subscribers will appear on financial statements as losses in the second, and some -- in the third quarter. So while, based on current results, the U.S. wireless industry's post-paid subscriber numbers appear to have risen 7% in the first quarter year-over-year, they've actually fallen 13%, Moffett estimates.

For the wireless industry, this math spells disaster. Not only is post-paid growth over, but the carriers are actually losing post-paid subscribers at a double-digit pace. Prepaid subscribers, meanwhile, generate a lot less revenue. That means that the wireless industry's financial metrics may take a hit as subscribers migrate to cheaper services.

The impact may not become apparent for a while. Today, most carriers are still able to show brisk overall sales growth thanks to uptake of data services, such as wireless e-mail. U.S. wireless data sales rose 32% in the first quarter year over year, according to Chetan Sharma Consulting, for the first time crossing the $10 billion benchmark. Still, if post-paid user losses continue, the migration to prepaid offerings could soon start to offset the stellar wireless data gains.

Cisco Systems unveiled several updates to its unified communications offerings and launched a new TelePresence videoconferencing system at VoiceCon on Tuesday.

Nortel and Siemens are unveiling new software and services designed to make it easier and more affordable for enterprises to buy and deploy unified communications platforms. Nortels CS 1000 Release 6.0 includes greater integration of communications technology into a businesss network. Siemens not only rolled out its OpenScape UC Application, but also a services program aimed at easing the deployment and integration of the UC platform. Siemens also launched OpenScape Xpressions, an out-of-the-box UC platform.
- Nortel Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications are rolling out enhanced software and services aimed at easing enterprise deployment and management of unified communications technology. Nortel March 25 unveiled the latest release of its Communications Server 1000, which offers greater inte...