Avaya Integration Will Bring Google Talk to Desk Phones

I find this incredibly awesome and a great step towards multiple company technology collaborations. Being able to bridge existing IP phone technology with Google talk, and online office applications provides small businesses that much more incentive to look at alternatives to Microsoft's collaboration suite.

To hear some of the wilder speculation, it shouldn’t be more than a few more years before Google is providing most of the applications and communication services most people will ever want. They'll use Google Apps hosted document processing and spreadsheet services to do all their office tasks, and make all of their phone calls over the Internet via Google Talk. In short, Google will replace both Microsoft and AT&T. But while such a vision may border on fantasy, a plan Avaya announced last week could bring at least the telephony part a step closer to reality.

IP Office plus Google Apps could prove attractive to small and mid-sized businesses. [VoIP News]

Skype Pricing Creeping Up

Charging each subscriber a €2 per month service fee might seem like a strange next step for a free phone service, but the eBay-owned Skype has moved to bundle a number of what it describes as its 'favorite' add-on services into a new offering Skype Pro.
Skype Pro takes the company in something of a new direction as eBay seeks a way to recoup the massive investment it made in the predominantly free peer to peer voice application.

Earlier this year the company added a €0.039 cent connection fee on every call which already started to push the pricing advantage the company has over traditional non-P2P VoIP Service providers.

More details at this VoIP News site story.

Skype 3.1 beta adds virtual yellow pages

Although Skype 3.0 was just released a few months ago, a new public beta version has already been made available. Skype 3.1 brings to the table, among other things, including a new business search feature.

SkypeFind is the main addition to 3.1, and Skype is calling it a feature that allows users to find and review local businesses. With this new addition, which is largely user-driven, Skype hopes it will be able to create a virtual yellow pages type of directory.

Check the Skype blog for additions details and screen shots.

Evolution of employee monitoring stretches far beyond email

The concept of organizations keeping a watchful eye on employees during company hours is nothing new. From the introduction of the time card 120 years ago, which required employees to clock in at the beginning and end of the work day, employee monitoring has evolved from simple confirmation that individuals are present and accounted for, to more detailed insight into employee activities taking place while "on the clock."

This evolution has been driven in part by today’s widespread use of email in the workplace, plus the increasing popularity of instant messaging, blogs and other online communication forums - all of which expose companies to new data security risks.

The boom in electronic communications, combined with business challenges - such as increased industry competition - and the introduction of data and privacy laws on both a national and state level, require organizations to take extra steps to reduce the risks associated with outbound email and to protect corporate assets in the process.

Continue with the birth of email, the risks, content security and the reality of the evolving communications landscape.

The top ten trends for SMBs in 2007 by AMI Partners

The top ten IT trends for global SMB markets were released by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc, a consulting firm specializing in IT, Internet, telecom and business services market intelligence trends and strategy, with a strong focus on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises. Unified communications: To unify or not to unify? AMI predicts that VoIP will begin a long transition from a market-driven attraction of all-in-one VoIP appliances that support voice / unified messaging / security / mobility with provisions for remote management and desktop / server collaboration application integration. Among SMBs, there will also be steady growth in enterprise messaging applications such as IBM / Lotus Sametime and Exchange Instant Messaging services as these companies realize the benefits and convenience of real-time communications.

[CRN India]