WiFi Alliance Shows How to Get Interoperability Done

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  Mike Fratto

  Standards without interoperation don’t address enterprise IT’s primary need.

• The WiFi Alliance WiFi Certified ac program once again assures WiFi buyers that products will work together.

Ask any IT administrator if standards are important and invariably they’ll say yes. Ask them if interoperation is as important, they’ll say yes again. Press them for which is more important, standards or interoperation, and in many cases they’ll say interoperation. Standards are wonderful things that have both business and technical benefits, but at the end of the day, IT has to deploy and manage products in live environments and seamless interoperation is critical.

Extending Corporate Video Conferencing to Mobile Devices

Brian Riggs - Research Director, Enterprise Software and Communications

Summary Bullets:

• Mobility to be the next big product trend for enterprise video conferencing technology
• There are a number of ways to extend corporate video conferencing solutions to mobile devices

The increasing adoption of video conferencing systems in the enterprise combined with the increasing adoption of video-capable mobile devices is set to both challenge and annoy IT departments. One of the problems is that the software and systems that deliver business-class video conferencing (from Cisco, IBM LifeSize, Magor, Microsoft, Polycom, Vidyo etc.) are completely different from the software that runs on the mobile devices wheedling their way into the enterprise as part of the BYOD phenomenon (from Apple, Google, Fuze, Skype, Tango, etc.). It’s unlikely that the two will learn to coexist peacefully anytime soon. Enterprise IT departments will continue to deploy on-premise or cloud-based video conferencing solutions that meet security and compliance requirements. And end users will separately use separate consumer-friendly video conferencing technology on their mobile devices with or without IT’s formal blessing.