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Showing posts with the label Microsoft

Enterprise Connect 2019: AWS, Google Challenge Incumbents Cisco and Microsoft

I attended Enterprise Connect again this year; this was my fourth time attending and probably the busiest ever. I had the opportunity to meet with many vendors including Poly (formerly Polycom/Plantronics), Dolby Labs, PGi, LogMeIn, Voiceimplant, Ribbon Communications, Bandwidth, Twilio, Google Cloud, RingCentral, Cisco ... too many to list here. In the past I have been critical of the event which in many ways reflects its near 30-year legacy rather than looking at the future. However EC has experienced a major turnaround in the last 2-3 years; it also continues to be an important event for education and technical training. Check out the excerpt below from my EC '19 report. The full report was made publicly available by 451 Research at:  http://go.451research.com/mi-enterprise-connect-2019-aws-google-cisco.html Enterprise Connect is one of the largest events for business communications and enterprise networking, gathering 6,500 attendees and more than 200 exhibitors this yea...

AI and Voice-Enabled Applications Will Change How We Work in 2019

Apple made voice recognition mainstream when it launched Siri with the iPhone 4S in October 2011, influencing consumers' familiarity with voice-enabled applications. Our expectation was that human-computer interaction (HCI) could evolve and that by 2015, voice-enabled applications would be widely used on computers, smartphones and wearable devices by consumers and in the workplace. It is four years past our initial prediction, but there are signs that 2019 will be a turning point for the industry. Voice is emerging as the main user interface for many applications, devices and appliances. This includes smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, which according to 451 Research's most recent VoCUL Smart Home Leading Indicator survey, continue to be the most-owned smart home devices. The trend is now extending into the enterprise, but unlike the consumer segment, adoption is driven by use cases rather than devices. In this report, we look at six companies – Apprente, A...

Microsoft Starts Placing Ads on Cell Phone Portal MSN Mobile

From Cellular News and other news sources, we find out that Microsoft has started placing advertisements on the U.S. version of MSN Mobile. Microsoft already serves up mobile ads in Japan and some European markets. Competitor Yahoo began selling cell phone ads phones in the U.S. in late 2006 and expanded overseas in February (source: Cellular News ). What about Latin America? Microsoft introduced MSN Mobile in the Latin American market in 2006, with Brazil leading the way ( source ), as well as Movistar Chile and Argentina, with the launch of MSN Mobile ( source ). While this service is available in most of the region, it is a WAP based service that can be cumbersome. There are no available statistics that we know of for the penetration of this service, but we expect them to be very low. The deployment of 3G networks in the region can probably help operators provide a better user experience for this service, although given the limitations presented by a mostly prepaid customer base (~...