We certainly take pride in our approach to journalism – our coverage of impressive technology projects, our resources for helping you create better RFPs (and better ROI), our perspective on where technology is heading and our focus on evolving our content for today’s digital audience.

An important complement to that is providing a platform for our audience, the folks who live breathe the challenges related to choosing technology solutions for an organization.

You care about what you do. Who better than you to present an idea, issue a challenge or pick a bone with the tech decision-making community?

Since we launched TD, we sought to be a voice for the folks who are in the trenches, choosing technology solutions for their organizations and taking responsibility for the return on investment. If you write for TD, you can amplify your own voice.

Some of my favorite MyTechdecisions articles have been written by tech decision makers like you.

Examples of Topics to Be Tackled by Tech Decision Maker Community:

• What keeps you up at night? What do you see as the biggest potential threats to an organization’s network and how can folks in the tech decision making community mitigate those concerns?
• How has the role of an IT professional changed during your career? Maybe you’re now charged with creating access control or unified communication and collaboration (UC&C) solutions for your organization. And how have you adjusted?
• How do you truly educate and get employees to take ownership of their role in the organization’s cybersecurity?
• What are your methods for choosing which vendors (AV, electrical, office design, communications, etc.) to work with? And yes, we’d welcome an opportunity to learn from your mistakes, as well.
• The video display industry is big on specs – HDR, 4K, 8K, you name it. What specs are actually important to you and your organization when rolling out video solutions?

These are just a few topic examples. We’re actually more interested in the ones that, as mentioned, are likely rattling around in your head.

How to Write for MyTechDecisions

You don’t have to be an executive, CIO, CTO or IT director (but you can be). You don’t have to be great writer (we are a team of editors). You just need passion for what you do.

If you’re interested in writing a column for MyTechDecisions, here’s how it works:

• Send an email to zachary.comeau@emeraldx.com; or web editor Alyssa Borelli at alyssa.borelli@emeraldx.com.
• We’ll kick around your ideas and discuss how to optimize them for our audience.
• We’ll give some direction, including a suggested word count and deadline.
• You’ll pour your thoughts into a column.
• Our team will edit as needed and help to position it for maximum impact.
• We’ll run significant changes by you to make sure you’re comfortable with your by-lined column before it gets posted.
• We’ll share it and promote it to TD

Are you ready to take a thought-leadership role in the tech decision-making community? If so, we’d love to hear from you — and so would MyTechDecisions’ audience.

The post Write for Us: Why You Should Write for MyTechDecisions appeared first on My TechDecisions.

“As business leaders navigate an expanded distributed workforce, secure and resilient communication and collaboration tools are critical to maintain business continuity,” said Jed Brown, senior vice president of product and design at Fuze.

Related: Yamaha Unified Communications Deploys Conferencing Solutions at Barstool Sports NYC Headquarters

“Many decision-makers have been forced to digitally transform their businesses practically overnight. At Fuze, we are continuously innovating to make sure our technology not only meets enterprises where they are on their digital transformation journey, but also provides a secure, scalable, and integrated experience to compete in the rapidly evolving digital economy.”

More on Fuze 6 from the company:

• Resiliency & Scale: Updates to the backend services architecture enhances monitoring, intelligent routing, and capacity management. This ensures the best experience for users across calling and meeting use cases on mobile, native desktop, and web clients. Updates to the admin experience further simplify adding new users and guests, as well as adjusting the service entitlements for existing users, enabling customers to quickly scale as the demands of their organization shift. Since the start of this global crisis, Fuze has seen >300% increase in key meetings and mobile engagement and >600% increase in communication with video through the Fuze platform.

• Enhanced User Experience (UX): With the increased demands for rich face-to-face interaction and remote group collaboration, Fuze meetings will double the number of available participant video streams. This update also adds Fuze Join to simplify meeting join flows for attendees on an expanded range of browsers, including older browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer). Fuze 6 enhances the desktop and web experience for Fuze Contact Center with mobile queue access and increased accessibility to contact center functionality within the UCaaS experience for agents and supervisors. Other updates include enhanced multimedia messaging service (MMS) capabilities and chat reactions, including emoticons, access to the full meeting roster on mobile, dark mode for iOS, and new keyboard shortcuts for Fuze Web and Desktop to help streamline communication for all users.

• Enterprise-Grade Integrations Platform: With this update, developers have increased accessibility and documentation for implementing integrations with the Fuze platform with enterprise-grade security and performance. This allows organizations to maximize the communications and collaboration solutions that best support the needs of the modern workforce. Additionally, Fuze customers have access to an expanded Marketplace of pre-built integrations, including updated calling and meeting integrations with Slack, Microsoft Teams and G-Suite.

• Security By Design: Fuze was designed for users and built for the enterprise, where security and data protection has always been purpose-built. The Fuze 6 update provides continued support for risk mitigation of emerging trends and security threats. To prevent unauthorized access or mishandling of information, Fuze integrates security best practices across the development lifecycle and conducts frequent penetration testing and vulnerability management.

For more information on the Fuze platform, click here.

The post Fuze 6 Platform Aims to Secure Business Continuity with Secure, Scalable Comms appeared first on My TechDecisions.

AVI-SPL Symphony is a cloud-based solution which focuses on managing and controlling every single AV device across an organization’s locations which uses what the company calls an “adaptive library method” to integrate with ticketing systems like SalesForce, scheduling, TMS, EMS, and analytics applications.

A device app management app allows for adapters for AV and UC companies like Poly, Cisco, Crestron, SurgeX, Pexip, etc.

“The whole idea of AVI-SPL Symphony is to save the meeting by being proactive,” says Frank Mehr, Senior Vice President of Research and Development at AVI-SPL.

“We provide data we gather from your monitored devices and use that data to form solutions before they become a pain point.”

An AVI-SPL Symphony case study in brief:

• a client’s system was exhibiting regular problematic behavior, tracked and analyzed by the Symphony platform
• because of the platform’s key business intelligence capabilities, the problem was narrowed-down to the power supply from one manufacturer was defective
• the power supply was replaced, and the problem was solved for good

“The users don’t even have to know and don’t have to be concerned about the technology,” Mehr said.

Read Next: 5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of IoT Building Systems

Symphony’s place in IoT deployments

“IoT is a nebulous term, but almost every AV manufacturer has its own APIs. One of the advantages we have is we can write an adapter for any device and have it work seamlessly with Symphony.

“If you’re used to using Alexa IoT devices to control different specific functions at home, you’re already smart enough to use AVI-SPL Symphony. We can manage any device.”

Learn more here.

The post AVI-SPL Symphony Aims to ‘Save the Meeting’ appeared first on My TechDecisions.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen us abandon cassette tapes, VHS tapes, floppy disks, dial-up modems, pagers, beepers, dumb phones, MP3 players, CD players, tube TVs, and countless others. Those have all been replaced with more efficient high-tech gadgets, technology and services.

As I came across the story of a company that is threatening the walkie-talkie market, I was sort of amazed that walkie-talkies were still around.

Relay makes a $50 push-to-talk device that was first marketed to families to give children an alternative to a smartphone that would let parents communicate with and track the location of their kids.

The devices uses 4G LTE radios, Wi-Fi, GPS, a Qualcomm chipset, headphone jack and long-lasting battery.

According to Fast Company, the device was meant to provide the connectivity of a smartphone without the addiction of another screen.

However, those same features made it popular with businesses, as the device replaced smartphones with walkie talkie apps that brought the possibility of distractions with social media and other apps.

Fast Company notes that the unpredictability of Wi-Fi and cellular networks can be an issue, but the article didn’t present those issues.

The publication cited Cofounder and CEO Chris Chuang, who said Relay could eventually become something like a workflow automation system for active workers.

“With speech recognition, a concession worker might be able to put requests into a resupply queue, and with automation tools, managers might be able to schedule messages for their staff. Chuang doesn’t like to say it publicly, but internally Relay thinks of itself as a Slack for active workers, the implication being that it’s a platform whose usefulness will extend as more businesses get on board.”

Read Next: 21 Extinct and Outdated Office Technology and What Replaced Them

Could this IoT walkie-talkie device finally make the walkie-talkie obsolete? Well, Fast Company says it isn’t slowing down, despite walkie-talkie technology being three quarters of a century old.

It’s widely accepted that 5G and IoT will shape the future of the connected world. If you’ve been looking for a more affordable and current upgrade to how your fleet communicates, consider checking this company out.

The post Consider This New Way to Communicate with Your Team appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The agreement supports Fujitsu’s strategy of building a strong ecosystem of partners across its Digital Workplace portfolio, adding productivity tools to enhance Fujitsu’s unified communications as a service (UCaaS) offering. This helps organizations to transform workplaces and to improve employee engagement, the companies said.

Fujitsu will offer RingCentral Office and RingCentral Contact Center as part of Fujitsu Digital Workplace solutions.

The agreement between RingCentral and Fujitsu will cover Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

“The cloud has changed the workplace and how people work forever. Employees want to be more autonomous, entrepreneurial, and free from the constraints of traditional working hours. To attract the best talent and unlock its creativity, businesses must create a compelling employee experience that enables and supports their expectations,” said Annette McInnes, head of employee experience at Fujitsu.

“We’re committed to delivering industry-leading workplace solutions to our customers, and we’re proud to be associated with RingCentral.”

Marty Piombo, VP of strategic partnerships at RingCentral UK said, “The benefits of cloud communications to the enterprise are clear—from employee productivity to customer engagement.

“We’re honored to work with Fujitsu, a leader in Europe for digital workplace services, and support their strategy to deliver additional benefits to enterprises and their employees.”

Read Next: Collaboration Tech Fails (And What They Should Have Been)

RingCentral’s open platform integrates with leading business apps and enables customers to easily customize business workflows. RingCentral is headquartered in Belmont, California, and has offices around the world.

The company provides unified voice, video meetings, team messaging, digital customer engagement, and integrated contact center solutions for enterprises globally.

The post RingCentral UK & Fujitsu will Provide Enterprises in Europe with Cloud Comms and Contact Center Solutions appeared first on My TechDecisions.

When it comes to implementing communications technology in your organization, you want to make sure you understand what you’re getting yourself into. That’s why we’ve created this quiz – How Well Do You Understand Communications Technology. After five minutes you’ll have an idea of whether you have a solid, basic understanding of what goes into choosing and implementing communications technology, or if you need to do more research before you get started.

From the technologies and applications involved, to the process of choosing an installation partner, to the installation process itself, we’ll quiz you on multiple aspects of the decision making process when it comes to communications technology. From understanding exactly what unified communications entails, to incorporating smartphones into your communications portfolio, to understanding the time and effort that goes into installation, our quiz will test your understanding of communications technology from idea to implementation.

If you’re in the dark already, why not check out our resource, “The Technology Manager’s Guide to Communications Technology” to get an idea of everything that goes into communications technology? This extensive document is written by working AV integrators and covers everything from the process of writing a communications technology request for proposal (RFP), to the installation process. You’ll learn about the technologies involved, the applications you can choose from, and more. Most importantly, you’ll learn everything you need to include in the RFP in order to choose the right installation partner for your technology project.

Then, take our quiz below to find out how well you understand commercial communications technology!

The post Quiz: How Well Do You Understand Communications Technology? appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Types of Products Associated with this Technology

Vendors offer communications solutions that are a) installed on-premise on your network; or b) hosted by your telco/internet carrier; or c) provided as-a-service by your communications vendor.

New IP (Internet Protocol) phone systems consist of a communications server running the telephony control functions and an application server that runs the unified communications functions. A media gateway houses the interfaces between the LAN and the WAN/carrier networks as well as between the traditional PBX interfaces (analog or digital). For the on-premise systems, vendors typically have traditional payment models such as cash and the monthly lease of equipment, whereas the hosted and as-a-service systems are typically purchased by a monthly per-user or per-line rate based on a certain feature set (e.g., voicemail, caller ID, conferencing, etc.). Most vendors will package minutes of long distance and offer premium services such as unified communications, call queuing, and web collaboration.

How Can a Communications System Solution Help Your Organization?

Capabilities of this Type of Technology

There are many benefits to using a communications system. It will allow your organization to accomplish the following:

• Save on expenses by replacing costly T1 interoffice circuits and using an IP wide area network (WAN) to carry voice traffic.
• Replace traditional telephone circuits with Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking to provide cost savings and add a level of resiliency to the network.
• Add new features and applications such as presence, texting/instant messaging, voicemail to email delivery, and corporate contacts directory dialing.
• Integrate smartphone mobility into your organization.
• Integrate with existing business back-office IT applications such as Outlook and Skype for Business.

How these Capabilities Help Your Organization Work Better

These capabilities will help lessen the burden for your organization by achieving the following:

• Reduce the manpower required to manage multiple applications and separate voice and data networks as well as reduce the resulting maintenance, helpdesk and support costs.
• Provide an improved user experience by offering integrated business-office and mobility applications such as chat, instant messaging, and voicemail to email delivery on smart phones.
• Establish better connectivity by having a corporate directory that is constantly updated.
• Improve staff-to-staff communications by offering presence indicators on phones or PC/smartphone applications.
• Allow users to go from the office to the road while enjoying a consistent communications user experience.

How Can You Justify Purchasing a Communications System Solution?

Ways to Pitch this Technology to Your Superiors

Knowing the full scope of your organization’s requirements for a communications system solution and understanding how that new solution will be of benefit will not only help you write an effective RFP; it will also give you the ammunition you need to pitch the solution to purchasing managers and superiors who may have to sign off on the investment. An up-to-date solution will help accomplish the following:

• Provide a platform that can keep up with changing technology.
• Position your organization as an industry leader, indicating to staff and potential new hires that you are implementing emerging technology.
• Increase flexibility and productivity for your mobile workforce by allowing integration with smartphones, and by providing an improved user experience through voicemail to email delivery on smartphones, texting, directory dialing, and presence.
• Simplify moves, adds, and changes (MAC) by using new web-based tools that allow your internal telecom/IT team to easily manage and support MAC work that has previously been done by the vendor.
• Increase quick feature activation through software downloads, thereby eliminating outdated systems.
• Provide the flexible procurement of servers and components that fit within your organization’s data center environment (as opposed to one-off, unmanageable system components) via open standards technology and open systems architecture.
• Allow the use of SIP trunks and the replacement of costly interoffice T1 circuits to provide significant, recurring monthly cost savings.

Save Money with a High ROI

This type of technology can provide a substantial return on investment, having a direct impact on your organization’s bottom line. Here are a few of the ways a communications system solution can save money:

• Use new web-based sysadmin tools that allow an internal telecom/IT team to easily manage and support moves, adds, and changes (MAC) that have previously been done by the vendor.
• Change out T1/PRIs (Primary Rate Interfaces) for SIP trunks using existing high-speed internet connections, providing up to a 30-40 percent savings in recurring monthly costs.
• Replace interoffice T1 circuits, and provision voice traffic over the existing enterprise WAN.
• Review how calls are being distributed to removed, unused, or unnecessary CO (central office) lines over the WAN. Consolidate lines at remote sites—reducing lines from five or six, to one or two—still providing the same level of operational efficiency.

The post Understanding Communications Systems from RFP to Installation appeared first on My TechDecisions.