Avaya and Skype Sign Strategic Agreement for Business Communications and Collaboration Solutions

Agreement includes plans for industry-first federation between Avaya and Skype communication platforms

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. and LUXEMBOURG – Avaya, a global leader in enterprise communications systems, software and services, and Skype today announced a strategic agreement to deliver innovative, real-time communications and collaboration solutions to businesses of all sizes. The multi-phase deal includes both go-to-market and an industry-first, joint technology integration that seeks to enable businesses to lower costs and expand how employees, customers, partners and suppliers communicate and collaborate with greater convenience and efficiency.

In the first phase of the agreement, Avaya customers in the U.S. market will have access to Skype Connect™, a product which adds Skype calling to IP-based enterprise communications systems, providing a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) communications channel between Avaya communications systems and Skype. Customers with Avaya Aura™ Session Manager or Avaya Aura SIP Enablement Server, CS1000, Avaya IP Office, or BCM systems can use Skype Connect to place calls globally for increased reach, while aiming to save on international calling. Enterprise-level security and features such as tracking, recording, regulatory compliance, and more are provided by the Avaya system.

Skype reported 124 million average monthly connected users during the second quarter of 2010. Now, Skype users can make inbound calls to Avaya customers in the U.S. market for free or at a low cost. Calls will be treated with Avaya's routing, conferencing, messaging, mobility and contact center capabilities, as well as other collaboration services. For example, businesses can:
Establish Skype Click & Call buttons for inbound calling from Web sites
Establish Skype Online Numbers for inbound calling from landline and mobile phones

Route inbound calls from a Skype user to an enterprise extension

Avaya customers in the U.S. market who are interested in Skype Connect can speak with their Avaya sales representative or an Avaya Connect channel partner contacts beginning in October.

In the second half of 2011, Avaya and Skype plan to deliver integrated unified communications and collaboration solutions for enterprises within the U.S. The integration is intended to establish federation between Avaya Aura and Skype communications platforms and both user communities, so that an Avaya end-user and Skype user can engage and interact via presence, instant messaging, voice and video. A business, for example, could use Skype to access an Avaya-based contact center in a simple and highly integrated way to quickly and efficiently resolve customer service issues. The integrated solutions will also allow enterprise IT managers to manage and control the inter-connectivity between end users to meet their corporate IT policies.

"Avaya and Skype have been working along parallel paths to offer, innovative, scalable, low cost, SIP-based communications to our respective markets," said Alan Baratz, senior vice president, Avaya and president, Avaya Global Communications Solutions. "Now, the two companies will work together, striving to improve collaboration and customer service by federating Avaya and Skype solutions for a common user experience that delivers unique benefits for businesses and their customers who are Skype users."

"Our relationship with Avaya is expected to expand the footprint for Skype Connect into more enterprises in the U.S. market, while allowing us to help Avaya's customers benefit from Skype's cost savings and access to Skype's global user base,” said David Gurlé, vice president and general manager of Skype for Business. "We believe our integrated solution in the second half of 2011 is expected to offer the benefits of Skype to a growing number of businesses and open up new ways for people to communicate and collaborate."

Mitel Mobility for BlackBerry Mobile - Voice over Wi-Fi

Mitel(R) (Nasdaq:MITL), a leading provider of unified communications software solutions, today announced the availability of Mitel Mobility for BlackBerry(R) Mobile Voice System 5 (BlackBerry MVS) with voice over Wi-Fi calling, extending Mitel's unified business communications features securely to BlackBerry(R) smartphone workers over cellular and Wi-Fi networks.

The solution is designed to increase employee responsiveness and productivity and allow users to maintain a single corporate identity.

With Mitel Mobility for BlackBerry MVS 5, companies can make their staff more accessible through their work phone number and keep cellular calling costs under control. Calls made through BlackBerry MVS are routed through Mitel Communications Director (MCD) which helps with adherence to company policies and enables savings on long-distance and international roaming charges. Employees also benefit from the convenience of a single work phone number shared between their desk phone and BlackBerry smartphone. Employees can be more reachable through their work phone number and can even enjoy the convenience of extension dialing from their BlackBerry smartphone.

The combined Mitel and BlackBerry solution offers seamless handoff between devices within the user's personal ring group, moving calls without restrictions to and from their desk phone, BlackBerry smartphone, home phone, or soft phone. It is also easy to use since incoming calls ring all devices simultaneously and employees can access BlackBerry MVS and Mitel's business communications features using a familiar interface.

"Through membership in the BlackBerry Alliance Program and the use of the new PBX interoperability platform that is now available with BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5, Mitel has developed and certified interoperability between BlackBerry MVS and Mitel Communications Director for their customers," said Jeff McDowell, senior vice president at Research In Motion.

"Organizations running a Mitel communications system can now use BlackBerry smartphones as wireless extensions of their deskphones to make employees more accessible while away from their desks and take advantage of potential savings on long distance and international calling charges."

Mobile workers can take advantage of voice over Wi-Fi calling available through BlackBerry MVS 5 to extend their reachability where cellular networks are not available, and reduce overall roaming and wireless charges. The Mitel solution enables BlackBerry smartphone users to take full advantage of Mitel business communications features without the need for a desk phone.

"Making and taking desk phone calls on a BlackBerry smartphone is a simple yet powerful concept and we see great opportunity for our customers to leverage the native BlackBerry experience and Wi-Fi capabilities with BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 integrated with Mitel Communications Director. This can lead to greater gains in responsiveness, productivity, and cost savings across their organizations," said Stephen Beamish, vice-president of marketing and business development at Mitel.

"The BlackBerry platform made it easy for us to extend the Mitel unified communications experience in a secure and intuitive way on BlackBerry smartphones."

One of the advantages of Mitel's voice virtualization strategy is the ability for IT managers to consolidate and combine Mitel and BlackBerry applications into a single virtual environment, bridging the gap between fixed and wireless telephony applications. MCD, BlackBerry MVS, and other business applications can be run simultaneously on the same server, enabling customers to better leverage their existing investment and use Mitel to connect to third-party telephony systems.

Rabobank, N.A., a California community bank that provides personalized service and a full array of quality products to individuals, businesses, and agricultural clients, is deploying Mitel Communications Director with BlackBerry MVS 5. Rabobank is fortunate to be selected to participate in the trial proposed by Mitel Communications Director and BlackBerry MVS, says Neil McSweeney, SVP/chief technology officer for Rabobank, N.A.

"The concept brought by Mitel and RIM extends the features and functionality our employees enjoy in the office securely to their BlackBerry devices. This 'follow me service' should offer a technologically secure way of providing seamless availability to our customers and potential cost savings to the bank that could help our overall profitability."

Earlier this year Mitel announced it is an Elite member of the BlackBerry(R) Alliance Program and last month announced the availability of Mitel Unified Communicator(R) (UC) Advanced Mobile for BlackBerry smartphones. This provides mobile workers access to all their corporate contact information, presence status, call history, and visual voicemail. The application uses location-based services natively present on BlackBerry smartphones to automatically update a user's status information and call routing preferences. Mitel UC Advanced Mobile is available for download on BlackBerry App World(TM) http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/12679

Mitel Mobility for BlackBerry MVS 5 is based on MCD 4.2. BlackBerry MVS 5 is available today in North America from value-added resellers (VARs).

This news release was distributed by GlobeNewswire, www.globenewswire.com

SOURCE: Mitel Networks Corporation

Gijima on the prowl for telecoms deal | TechCentral

by Candice Jones.

JSE-listed technology group Gijima has its sights on the local telecommunications market. It says it will either acquire or partner with a company that has its own network.

CEO Jonas Bogoshi says Gijima has decided to play a more direct role in cloud computing, including hosted services and voice and data technologies.

However, he says the company lacks the network infrastructure to make the new focus work properly for the business.

“It is the last requirement to make a consolidated go of the market. If we don’t do it, we will lose out,” he says.

Over the next 18 months, Gijima will actively look for a telecoms business that has its own infrastructure. It will then acquire or partner with that company.

Bogoshi says Gijima does not plan to seek its own telecoms network licence or to roll out its own infrastructure, mainly because that would prove too expensive. “It is a costly exercise, and it will cost more to train the skills we need to run a telecoms network,” he says.

However, he says the group is willing to pay for another business that already has the skills and infrastructure in place.

There are several market players Gijima could go after. At the beginning of 2009, around 300 communications providers were licensed by the Independent Communications Authority of SA to build their own networks, independent of larger players such as Telkom, MTN and Vodacom.

Though Bogoshi won’t say which companies Gijima is eyeing, analysts say unlisted ECN Telecommunications is a possibility. Another is AltX-listed Vox Telecom, which has a market value of nearly R500m.

Gijima already serves PABX — or traditional business telephony — solutions to approximately 2 000 customers and has plans to provide voice-over-IP services to at least some of those.

Bogoshi says managed voice services will boom in the next few years, especially given cuts in interconnection rates — the fees operators charge each other to carry calls on their networks.

Gijima has already started work on the first phase of its cloud computing plans and will have an integrated service centre up and running by October.

It’s building a data centre to provide remote hardware support and monitor systems that Gijima has put in place at its customers.

The company put together a task team at the beginning of the year to investigate cloud services and create a roadmap for the group to bring cloud computing to its customers.

“We can’t ignore the fact that cloud computing is becoming more popular in SA. Customers may still be a little reluctant, but they will eventually take up some cloud services,” says Bogoshi.

Interconnect cuts slow telecoms growth // ITWeb

By Leigh-Ann Francis
Johannesburg, 23 Sep 2010

Increased competition in the local telecoms market, coupled with the impact of falling mobile termination rates (MTRs), will restrict market growth in an already slowly recovering economic climate.

BMI-TechKnowledge senior analyst Tertia Smit, who wrote a recent report on the corporate and SME telecoms market in SA, predicts a market growth of only 5% over the next five years, with most of the growth coming form Internet and data services.

“Growth in the telecommunications sector has generally slowed down in the past year and this will continue until the end of the year, due to the slow recovery of the economy. The next few years will continue to be difficult due to ongoing regulatory uncertainty, and increased competitiveness, as well as the impact of falling MTRs on the LCR [least cost routing] market,” she says.

Vodacom's latest quarterly results showed the operator had taken a heavy knock from lower interconnect rates, reporting a loss of close to R400 million.

Earlier this year, pressure from the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) resulted in Vodacom, MTN and Cell C dropping interconnect rates to 89c per minute, from R1.25.

With operators still reeling from the effects of the first cut, ICASA had hoped to implement draft regulations for a further rate reduction this year, to 65c per minute, with the objective of reaching an interconnect rate of 40c, by July 2012.

However, mobile operators have been up in arms over the proposed glide path, and ICASA's regulations have not yet been finalised.

Despite the impact of MTRs on market growth, BMI-T suggests the situation presents an opportunity for fixed-line operators.

Flat fixed-line growth

BMI-T forecasts that, despite an expected 4% fall in fixed-line connections, mainly on the residential side where fixed-mobile substitution continues unabated, fixed-line voice revenues will record relatively flat growth over the next two years.

Neotel is partly responsible for this, as it continues to grow its share of the PSTN (public switched telephone network) voice market.

Growth in the fixed voice market could be somewhat improved, BMI-T believes, if Telkom and Neotel introduce offerings that take advantage of the falling MTRs by picking up traffic along fixed-to-mobile routings that was previously routed by means of 'traditional LCR' (using cell routers).

Incoming Telkom Mobile has previously stated that the primary purpose of its mobile offering would be to offer converged bundle options.

“Although there is good growth in the mobile data market, the Internet market in general, and particularly the revenues derived from business customers, will continue to be negatively impacted in the next couple of years by the general level of competitive behavior,” says Smit.

“This includes a heightened level of competition between the mobile operators within the corporate sector, where more vigorous discounting may apply in future,” she states.

Peter Walsh Consulting - telecoms consulting and optimisation

For a long time now I have wanted to focus on my skills and knowledge without the travel requirement and the stress of working in a high pressure environs. Whilst my position at DataRoom taught me more than I could have hoped for, everyone has a time limit and a tolerance level and I had reached my limits on both. My time to move on had clearly come. I wanted less travel time, a balanced working lifestyle and a lot less stress.

So I took a long hard look at what I wanted to do, who I wanted to do it with and how I wanted to be in my life. Where does my passion lie and what skills and knowledge can I share with my target market; businesses requiring insight into voice telecoms were some of the questions I asked myself.

It all starts with the age old problem businesses face with voice telecoms. Making and receiving phone calls is fundamental to just about every aspect of economic activity and the associated costs account for a substantial part of the operating expenses in any business.

Whilst these costs are unavoidable, they can be reduced. History and experience tells us that most businesses are spending too much time and money in the following key areas;

• making phone calls
• connecting to the back office when on the road
• renting infrastructure from service providers
• managing the costs associated with calls, connectivity and infrastructure

Managing these aspects of telecoms in business requires unique skills and knowledge specific to voice telecoms. Management teams often find it challenging to do so 100% effectively.

So I decided to start a consulting business, Peter Walsh Consulting, offering cost effective solutions for the management of voice telecoms. Our target market is businesses wishing to reduce telephone costs and sustain the savings into the future.

“Peter Walsh Consulting” is focused solely on voice telecommunications.

We get to understand your business need intimately. We have a deep understanding of how the service providers and vendors operate and we know how to build solutions that cater to your unique business requirements.

Our vision is to bridge the gap between the vendors / service providers and a business’s management team. Our strategy is ensuring your management team is able to deliver on a cost effective voice telecoms strategy.

Benefits of a partnership with Peter Walsh Consulting include;

• optimising voice traffic and infrastructure
• maximising savings
• ensuring continuity for the business
• increasing skills and knowledge
• improving business processes around telecoms
• documenting strateg
• sustaining cost reductions through up skilling and educating all the role player

What is the business need?

Procurement initiatives are typically contractual term and volume agreements, discounts on offer and least cost routing focussed. However this “service provider” or “vendor” facing approach is not ideal and leaves significant savings opportunities untouched.

9 out of 10 South African businesses become reliant on their vendors and service providers for knowledge and information. The manner in which this information is presented does not necessarily highlight areas of concern and is by definition not supplier independent and often not in the best interests of the business.

Using vendors and suppliers to “mark their own homework” can not only result in lost savings opportunities but there will also be no increase in the business’s knowledge and skills required to manage costs and sustain savings.

Even with traditional initiatives such as least cost routing [premicells], VoIP and supplier term and volume agreements in place; we find there to be anything from an additional 15% - 30% in savings left on the table when a service provider or vendor facing approach is used.

Managing voice telecoms is both time consuming and can be costly to sustain.

What can we offer your business?

• Optimisation of voice telecoms – call costs and infrastructure rentals
• Telecoms Auditing
• Telecoms Expense Management
• Supplier / Vendor Requests for Proposals
• Reduction in human resource requirements
• Increased in-house skills and knowledge

To learn more about our offerings, or read references from other businesses and service providers;

• phone - 083 441 6093
• email - peter.walsh@telkomsa.net
• web - http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwalshzar
• blog - http://peterwalshconsulting.blogspot.com

Why Peter Walsh Consulting?

About Peter Walsh

Peter Walsh has 13 years experience consulting to large businesses in South Africa. 10 years of this was spent as founding shareholder and Sales Director for DataRoom; a Telecoms Expense Management [TEM] focused company in South Africa.

Businesses large and small have benefited from his experience; both in the South African marketplace and in his role developing the DataRoom solution offering.

Apart from extensive experience in consulting and TEM; he has sold and or consulted on PBX / IPT, LCR, Cell Phones, 3G cards, Wide Area Networks, Cell Phones and Telephone Management Systems. He has planned and implemented multiple points of failover for voice telecoms [redundancy] for businesses with up to 5000 employees on a single site.

Vendors such as Dimension Data and service providers such as Neotel, Nashua Mobile and Vox Orion have made use of his skills and knowledge to deliver better solutions and offerings into their clients or manage their own infrastructure.

References on: http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwalshzar

His skill set in understanding and managing voice and voice infrastructure was honed whilst working with both the service providers and their customers; to ensure that the solutions we developed at DataRoom added value to all the roles players involved in managing voice telecoms.

About Peter Walsh Consulting

All consulting is done on a supplier independent basis. We work with the top telecoms consultants in the country and have the ability to support your business nationwide. We have strong relationships at all the main networks and service providers for fixed line and mobile in South Africa.

Understanding both the service providers and clients business need makes for a solid knowledge base and skill set when it comes to managing a business’s voice telecoms requirements.

We can optimise your voice traffic and voice infrastructure, assist you in negotiations with your suppliers, embed skills and knowledge into your business, help you formulate and document process and ensure you drive down costs and sustain the savings into the future.

Ends

Peter Walsh
Cape Town
Sept. 2010

Telco charges threaten preselect regulations

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

MWeb has expressed concerns that the Carrier Preselect Regulations (CPRs) could be undermined by Telkom and the cellular network operators, making it financially unviable for alternative telecommunications providers to carry calls that originate on those networks.

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) had the final CPRs promulgated on 20 August. This gives fixed-line operators Telkom and Neotel and mobile operators MTN, Vodacom, and Cell C, two and four months, respectively, to get ready to support alternative telecoms operators wanting to carry calls across their networks that originated on the incumbents' networks.

According to ICASA, CPRs are to afford consumers, who may have a limited choice of access, a greater selection in the provisioning of outgoing calls. ICASA adds that increased choice should lead to lower prices and a better quality of service.

Your call

Eugene van der Westhuizen, MWeb's GM of strategic programmes, says the point of these regulations is that they will allow a consumer to select, irrespective of which carrier they have a contract with, a different operator to carry and then terminate their calls.

Once the regulations are in place, a subscriber can choose which carrier will terminate the call by first entering a four-digit code, which links him or her to the relevant carrier, and then the number of the person being dialled.

“The carrier preselect code can be permanently stored in phone address books or can be entered on a call-by-call basis at the subscribers discretion,” explains Van der Westhuizen.

He says the problem is that the carrier's costs for carrying and terminating a call includes the termination rate that is normally payable, which is well known, plus this new unregulated and unknown call origination charge, which the access operator is entitled to charge the alternative carrier.

The interconnection rate for mobile operators is 89c a minute for peak hour calls and 77c for off-peak hour calls. Telkom charges 33c and 19c for national peak and off-peak calls, respectively. Local calls are charged at 23c and 12c for the peak and off-peak times, respectively.

Risk cost

Van der Westhuizen says the risk is the last charge, because it is unknown and unregulated, and could be set by the incumbent operators at such a high rate that, despite the good intentions of the regulations, it could become financially unviable and so revert to the status quo.

Carrier preselect introduces a new charge that is similar in concept to the interconnection rate – the price of the calls between all operators and which Parliament attempted to drive down in a series of acrimonious hearings last year.

“In terms of the carrier pre-selection regulation, the originating carrier (Telkom, Neotel or the mobile networks) will be entitled to charge the alternative operator (the one carrying the call) a call origination charge,” notes Van der Westhuizen.

This means the cost structure for an alternative telecommunications operator would be the interconnection rate for terminating the call, plus the new call origination charge to the originating carrier.

“The success of the whole venture depends on what charge is levied by the incumbents in the call origination charge. But, because this charge is not regulated by ICASA, it means that the incumbent operators can decide on the commercial viability of the regulations and they may not want to broaden competition in the sector,” Van der Westhuizen says.

None of the incumbent telecommunications operators had replied to ITWeb's queries at the time of publication.

Pandor prioritises telco funding | ITWeb

Pandor prioritises telco funding
By Leigh-Ann Francis

Johannesburg, 6 Sep 2010

Closer partnerships between the Department of Science and Technology and the private sector need to be created, says science and technology minister, Naledi Pandor.
Public investment in the telecommunications industry is a priority for the Department of Science and Technology (DST), as the network industry promises to provide the backbone of all the country's economic, industrial and innovative advances.

This is according to science and technology minister, Naledi Pandor, speaking today at the Southern Africa Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference, being hosted at the Spier Wine Estate, in the Western Cape.

However, Pandor argued that partnerships between the public and private sector are still inadequate.

She pointed to the SA innovation survey of 2005, which revealed the proportion of local companies engaging in innovative technologies compared favourably with the EU. Therefore, SA is a very innovative country, stated Pandor. However, the report indicated that not much of the research going into innovation is publicly funded.

Private companies do not always seek out public funding for innovation research, because the innovation is based on competition rather than a development imperative, she explained.

Government's role

An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development survey suggests current public funding for programmes in innovation must be intensified in SA.

“We should publicise our achievement and we should do more at establishing trusting relationships between funders and performers of innovation,” offered Pandor.

“I have just received a report around investment in technology innovation in SA, which suggests that we could accelerate our innovative ability if we had better partnerships between the Department of Science and Technology and the private sector.”

She argued that government plays a key role in funding the building blocks of innovation, basic research in universities' further training, and provides necessary infrastructure for laboratories and cyber networks.

“Government is also responsible for creating the best regulatory environment for the private sector – we must have a regulatory environment to invest and maintain a competitive market and nurture entrepreneurs,” maintains Pandor.

She stated that government funding must be a catalyst for innovative breakthroughs in national priorities, as these priorities cannot just be left to the market.

Funding targets

Pandor reiterated that public funding for innovation in the ICT sector would be integral.

“We have developed a plan to encourage greater interest in public funding,” she said, pointing to the DST's 10-year innovation plan, developed in 2008.

“One target was to raise the share of research and development spending to 2% of GDP by 2018. Another target is to expand the number of science and engineering graduates to 450 by 2018.

“Innovation and investment in new knowledge have been a strong foundation for economic growth and social change in all countries. The affluence of high interest countries is largely the outcome of ICT technologies.”

Pandor urged leaders in the ICT sector to work closer with the DST in driving ICT and innovation in the country. “I urge the industry's accomplished leaders to use your collective wisdom to come with innovative solutions to ensure that Africa is a continent of the future,” she concluded.

Cheaper telecommunications costs do not result in long-term savings | ITWeb

Cheaper telecommunications costs do not result in long-term savings
Unison

Press release issued by Unison

Johannesburg, 8 Jun 2010

Companies continue to spend billions of rands on voice and data communications; however, they are under a common misconception: that they are getting a reduction in cost from service providers who promise cheaper prices.

This is according to Craig Young, Group MD of Unison Communications, who sites a BMI-T SA IT Market Overview Sizing and Forecast report, which states that corporate and Top 350 Market Telecoms service types spend for 2008 for fixed voice, mobile, LCR (leased cost routing) and bulk SMS was believed to reach R34.8 billion.1

"While cost reduction is certainly on the agenda of decision-makers, what companies don't realise is that short-term communications price reductions don't necessarily reflect long-term," says Young. "In fact, costs actually escalate because communications infrastructure is complex with a myriad of technologies, service providers, data services and interoperability required."

"While we would like communications infrastructure to be easier, cheaper and seamless, it's not. A smorgasbord of incompatible technologies and a number of service providers within their communications environment comes at a high administrative cost," explains Young.

On top of this, Young says costly outsourced specialist skills are required to improve, integrate and extend their infrastructure to service and meet customer demands. "The reality is that this expertise costs," he says.

Young recommends companies take control of their communication infrastructure and acknowledge that their existing environment is complex.

He recommends the following:

1. Analysis: Enterprises don't do enough to get the information they need to make decisions. They need the business intelligence which shows them what kind and how much communication is flowing across their network. Unpacking traffic generated and understanding the impact of how users communicate and interact is critical. It is essential that this information is based on the company's own interpretation and not on the value proposition given by service providers. In addition, they must be able to incorporate information from communications into the financial plan; from there empowered decisions based on business/ financial factors can be made.

2. Longevity through interoperability: By knowing the future requirements for further convergence within their networks business can make decisions based on solutions that would yield the best ROI over the long term rather than cheap fixes that produce immediate results but end up costing more in the long run.

3. Planning: Bring in more information to the plan including true financial modeling of infrastructure and scenario planning. Identify key communication priorities based on business outcomes requirements and not technology requirements can be made though accurate planning.

According to Young, key for any corporate communications environment is to remember that interfacing between the users and client communication on an external and internal level needs to be at a standard where the course of business is fully supported and not hampered. Even if companies avoid an expensive upgrade system, integration still has to take place as seamlessly as possible.

By unpacking the traffic flowing across their network enterprises need to interpret this data. There is great potential for cost resolution, however businesses have to take charge of their environment and not simply purchase technology for technology's sake or because it is cheaper.

Use of mobile communications in government needs to be managed to curb unnecessary expenditure

Press release issued by Unison

Johannesburg, 25 Aug 2010

The latest research by Unison Communications reveals that between 47%-63% of government communication budgets are spent on cellphone communication. On average, mobile rates are 50% more expensive than fixed-line rates, which leaves the South African taxpayer footing the bill for expensive mobile calls.

"When taxpayers are footing the bill, government needs to be aware that there are high levels of mobile communications within their departments that cater for staff's personal use only," says Craig Young, Group Managing Director of Unison Communications.

"Our research reveals that as much as 63% of all mobile communications budgets go to private calls. Mobile communication is more popular and many government departments are forced to spend more on mobile contracts for employees, because they are issued by the departments themselves. Without established standards and policy on the correct use of mobile communications, departments could see usage go completely unmanaged and mobile usage in government is on average 20% higher than the private sector," he explains.

Young adds: "The complication is that proper usage of these phones is not effectively managed or monitored. Mobile billings are in many instances regarded as an HR expense and are removed from regular financial or technical costs. The fault here is that true amounts spent on private usage cannot be accurately determined."

According to Young, the challenges facing government are:

* Service providers are not going to willingly limit their services.
* Cap restrictions are ineffective and often lead to complicated HR challenges where the legwork involved to recover the money from employees is too time-consuming. In extreme instances, Unison's research has revealed that employees may owe as much as 80% of their annual salary in outstanding amounts.
* Mobile communications has increased communications costs as much as 60% despite departments adopting convergence strategies.
* There is a clear lack of accountability among government employees regarding their behaviour.

Without access to clearly presented and informative reporting solutions, department heads will not be able to effectively manage their mobile communication expenditure. By giving managers the right information and reallocating mobile communication costs and an IT or financial cost to the department, tighter controls can be established.

Y-generation demands mobile freedom | ITWeb

Remote users are on the increase worldwide but companies are not fully investing on security, says Sean Wainer Country Manager at Check Point Software Technologies.
There is a worldwide increase in remote workers and SA is no exception as the new Y-generation gets into the workforce demanding flexibility

This is according to Sean Wainer, country manager of Check Point Software Technologies Southern Africa, commenting on the findings of the ITWeb/Check Point Mobile Office Survey.

The survey asked respondents to reveal the number of remote workers in their organisations and discovered 21% have more than half of their employees working away from the office.

Of the respondents, 19% said mobile workers constitute 25 to 50% of their workforce; while 38% revealed that such employees make up 10%. Only 1% said remote workers are non-existent in their organisations.

Furthermore, the research determined that 79% of the respondents expect the number of network users in their organisations to increase. 17% said they will remain static while 4% foresee a decline.

Constant growth

Says Wainer: “Clearly, we are seeing a constant growth in IT users worldwide though remote users are growing substantially.”

This is a worldwide phenomenon, he says: “We are seeing not only a user demand for more flexibility, but a realisation from organisations that remote workers cost less in overheads”.

Another factor, says Wainer, is the growing understanding that remote workers are more efficient and generally more productive. He argues that there is no office space, power and consumables required for remote users.

On a scale of one to five, the survey also asked the respondents to rate their software application preferences. E-mail and collaboration, proved to be the most popular with 62% of the respondents saying it is very important for the mobile office.

Second on the list was productivity, eg word processing, garnering 39%, while PDF viewers came third with 23%.

De-facto standard for business communication

“Many people live and die by e-mail these days. It is the de-facto standard for business communication. It is a lightweight application, prevalent and demanded. It is also the single app that improves productivity the most,” says Wainer.

However, he says e-mail's popularity is also most open to abuse or attack.

The survey also found out that 27% of the remote employees have e-mail on the smarthones or PDAs.

“I think that this is the nature of the modern workforce. With mobile technology improving, being low cost and relatively efficient, this makes sense. However, this is also the weakest link in the security chain.

“The more advanced these units are becoming, the more data they store – not only mail, but attachments. Millions of mobile phones are lost around the world. Not many of them are password protected or encrypted. A lost or stolen phone often contains a wealth of private or proprietary information,” notes Wainer.

Prioritising security

On the security note, the survey also asked the respondents to rate, on a scale of one to five, how they view security. Generally, it was found many of the organisations prioritise security issues.

A high of 59% said they view securing remote employees access to corporate network as very important while 21% asserted that it's not important at all.

On the ability to securely access corporate from anywhere, 57% of the respondents said they regard it as very important while 19% think otherwise.

Interesting figures popped up regarding laptop data protection, with 43% of respondents saying it is very vital; 19% said it's not important at all while the remaining 40% were in-between.

Securing mobile data on USB drives had 53% of respondents rating it very important to important. 15% rate this averagely, giving it three out of five, while the remaining 32% gave it either four or five.

Data loss

On the other hand, Wainer believes that organisations are not investing enough on security. “There is a lot of education that is required. Both on the end-user side and within organisations.

“The primary security concern is the loss of data. One survey puts an average middle manager in the US's laptop at a value of over $50 000. This is not the hardware, or licensed software, but the value of the data contained therein.

“First, is the data that resides on the device – ensure the data on the machine is encrypted, ensure that users cannot easily remove information.

“Since these units are being used in 'rogue' environments like open WiFi networks, strong anti virus and network access control should be on the unit too. Further, a personal firewall on the units is always a smart move,” says Wainer.

He adds that the other concern is contact with the office while “out in the wild”. “You need to utilise a VPN solution that is secure, efficient and easy to use. Generally, the simpler the security, the better the end-user buy-in is and this is critical”.