Blogging was a bit light last week as I was on the road. I'm still working on a "where's the money in VoIP" piece that I'll post in the next few days. Catching up this evening, there are a few new stories worthy of note from the past several days.

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Tool Targets VOIP Troubleshooting for SMEs
Apparent Networks on Aug. 21 at VoiceCon will launch a version of its AppCritical network troubleshooting tool designed specifically for small and midsize enterprises and the professional services organizations that support them.

AppCritical is designed specifically to help enterprises with pre-deployment assessments for adding VOIP (voice over IP to a network), and to troubleshoot and maintain the performance of VOIP and other network traffic. AppCritical SME brings that same capability to small and midsize enterprises that don't have the same technical resources and expertise that larger enterprises have.

Perhaps most interesting in that it seems to exclude the target maker on price. At $40K, most of the SMB market will turn the other way and look for other tools. I don't see success on the horizon for ths AppCritical solution. It's priced right out of the market no matter how good it might be,

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Nice post on VoIP Loop

Teleworkers- the goldmines
The US Government commissioned a study of teleworkers conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Executive Summary is available online.te

It appears that a potential goldmine of savings is in Teleworking/Telecommuting.

The details on costs and benefits:

•  Federal agencies surveyed spend $310-5,420 per year for teleworkers. 
• The average per user annual cost is $1,920.
• The cost benefits outweighed the costs and the ROIs of 200, 225 & 1500% are impressive.
  

I had the opportunity to chat with a couple colleagues at Booz Allen Hamilton who were involved in the edges of the paper. Sounds like a pretty solid report. I'm going to be reading it more thoroughly myself as teleworking's a pretty hot topic in much of my work,

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I'm not sure this has sunk in for a lot of folks just yet.

Turning Off the Collaboration Spigot at 30,000 Feet
By the end of the year, business travelers will no longer be able to use their laptops at 30,000 feet for live collaboration sessions.  

No, this has nothing to do with the new security restrictions.  Yesterday, Boeing announced it will shut down Connexion by Boeing, its in-flight Internet service by year's end.  [In June, Verizon Airfone, née Airphone (and later GTE Airphone) announced will shut down its phone service on commercial airlines, also by the end of the year.]  Yesterday's announcement was upsetting to many people, particularly road warriors who use the service more extensively than others. Basex chief analyst Jonathan Spira is one of those who is upset by the announcement.  "Especially on flights that occurred largely during the business day, I found FlyNet [Lufthansa's brand for the Connexion by Boeing service] extremely valuable.  It allowed me to remain productive in real time, placing calls via voice-over-IP, sending and receiving e-mail, and catching up on news."

I confess, I've never used Connexion personally on a plane. But I've had many a Skype and IM conversation with colleagues while they were in the air. This shutdown leaves a gap that will be beggning to be filled. The question will be , who can fill it at a profit. It's always looked pretty sketchy on cost recoverability.

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Cisco: No zero-day at Black Hat
There was no new security vulnerability disclosed in Cisco Systems' PIX firewall at Black Hat, the networking giant said this week. It has investigated claims by a security researcher that the firewall was flawed, but could not reproduce the issue.

"(We're) closing the loop on this one...for now," Cisco spokesman John Noh wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com.

In a presentation at the Black Hat security event in Las Vegas earlier this month, Hendrik Scholz of Germany's Freenet Cityline briefly mentioned a flaw in Cisco software. This apparent flaw had not been patched, he said.

I think everyone associated with BlackHat in any way expected Cisco to get some special attention this year. They painted a target on their back with their heavy-handedness last year. I'm not convinced this is completely the end of this, but for now, Cisco says there's no zero-day vulnerability.




Technorati Tags: VoIP, Apparent Netowkrs, AppCritical, teleworkers, Boeing Connexion, Cisco, zero-day vulnerability, PIX