ITExpo 2012 Talks Future of Communications

ITExpo in Miami marked its 40th anniversary and it’s not only changing with the times, but it is itself a harbinger of a technology evolution that will benefit enterprises of all sizes in the near future.

And it’s a future that Radisys can play a significant role in enabling (through our customers), considering that two key themes at this year’s event were enterprise mobility and video collaboration. There were dozens of video demonstrations as well as new product announcements including the Multi-Media Composition Engine from Radisys Media Server development partner APEX Video Communications. Sprint Business’ Chief Sales Officer Paget Alves, and Samsung’s Vice President and General Manager Timothy Wager, delivered keynotes with significant business customer references who are depending on mobile operators for delivering rich, interactive business applications.

In addition I participated in a panel entitled “The Realities of Mobile Video Conferencing,” which turned into a lively discussion about trends, challenges, and questions including:

• The rise of social networks and over the top services like Skype setting expectations for business video with HD quality and ease of access
• The challenge of enabling video conferences with participants using a range of heterogeneous terminals including PCs, tablets, and mobile phones
• Should enterprises build out infrastructure in their networks and address system and device interoperability or should they depend on service providers?  Answer:   It depends, but MNOCs and service providers can address bandwidth, QOS, and interoperability issues and overcome the lack of an authoritative inter-enterprise addressing scheme for video.

The timely announcement of the MPX 12000 media server as a video conferencing platform, and other Radisys assets including the SIPware application framework, protocol and network monitoring software puts Radisys’ customers at the forefront of this emerging, high value solution segment.

About the Author

Al Balasco is the Head of Media, Core and Applications Business. Prior to his current role, he was the Sr. Director of Product Management for the Media Server business. Before joining Radisys in October 2010, Al was the Director of Product Management in Avaya Inc.’s Unified Communications business unit where he was responsible for the delivery of a variety of collaboration solutions and partnerships. Prior to Avaya, Mr. Balasco was the Vice President of Product Management at Spectel and was instrumental in defining the company’s VOIP conferencing and collaboration strategy. He also served as Director of Marketing for Sonexis Inc. and Director of Product Management at Brooktrout Software. Mr. Balasco has over 25 years of product management, business development and marketing experience in the telecommunications industry and has an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston.

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