unified communications

Hosts: Pat Richard, and Tom Morgan.

In this episode, we look at the following:

1. Tom's role at Modality
2. Bots in Teams
3. UCMA development
4. Differences between developing for Skype for Business on-prem vs online
5. What tools are needed

Running time: 00:28:24

Hosts: Pat Richard, and Jamie Stark.

In this episode, we look at the following:

1. Jamie's role at Microsoft
2. IT Pro Tools program
3. Microsoft Ready
4. Enterprise Connect
5. The Teams road map and new features in January
6. The TAP program

Running time: 01:05:44

Hosts: Pat Richard, and Josh Blalock.

In this episode, we look at the following:

1. User groups
2. What are Call Queues and the new features in Skype for Business Online
3. Updated training materials in MyAdvisor.fasttrack.microsoft.com
4. Skype for Business client updates and differences between MSI and CSR versions of clients
5. Career path options for UC pros

Running time: 00:42:11

Heads in the Cloud, hosted by Chief Marketing Officer David Portnowitz and Chief Knowledge Officer Graham Potter of Star2Star Communications, discusses business tips and trends in Unified Communications. Our conversations feature guests from the best of the industry.

In our inaugural episode, we chat with President and Principal Analyst at COMMfusion LLC, Blair Pleasant. We discuss user adoption in the rapidly expanding UC space. Blair shares her six-step strategy for engaging customers before a new service rolls out, and how to achieve the best ROI.

Show Links

• Our guest: Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst of
  COMMfusion LLC and a co-founder of http://www.ucstrategies.com
• Websites:
• http://www.commfusion.com Analysis and Consulting on Unified
  Communications, Collaboration, and Contact Center
• http://www.ucstrategies.com Unified Communications Strategies - An
  industry resource for enterprises, vendors, and system integrators
• http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-experts/blair-pleasant.aspx
• Coming soon: www.bcstrategies.com Sign up for beta access at http://www.ucstrategies.com
• Blair’s twitter page: @blairplez https://twitter.com/blairplez
• Blair’s Podcast: Consultant’s Corner http://www.ucstrategies.com/consultants-corner-podcast-blair-pleasant.aspx
  • Listen on Stitcher http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/american-entrepreneur/the-consultants-corner
• Discussed Statistics:
  • Companies like Cisco, Avaya, Toshiba are moving away from hardware
  • Importance of customer service at every step
  • Studies show that successful deployment of UC occurs when users are enthusiastic about new tech prior to roll-out
  • VoIP services market is expected to grow to $140 billion USD by the year 2021
    • 1 billion VoIP users by the end of 2017
    • Market will expand 10% every year until 2021
    • Experts project that by the end of 2018 only 6% of U.S. population will still be using traditional landline
      phone network
• Telecoms are losing an average of 700,000 landline
  customers per month