May 17, 2012

Telework Week Demonstrates Big Savings from Home Worker Strategies

working from home

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Working from home saves the time and fuel associated with commuting, and thus real dollars, but can also improve employee productivity and make employees happier. Not surprisingly, management is taking notice and becoming more receptive to the idea. Those are some of the key takeaways from Telework Week 2012, co-sponsored by Cisco and the Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on demonstrating the tangible value of telework and serving the educational and communication requirements of the Federal teleworker community.  This was the second year of the weeklong event and participation was up fairly dramatically, with an 80% increase in the… Continue Reading ›

Picked Up Pieces from the Show Floor at Enterprise Connect

Looks like businesses are done kicking the unified communications tires and taking action

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For those who couldn’t attend the recent Enterprise Connect event in Orlando, we wanted to get a sense for what the buzz was at the show so we talked to Jason Aubee, who is Principal, Strategic Consulting Services for Carousel Industries. This was Aubee’s third time attending Enterprise Connect so he offered some perspective on how this year’s event compared to the others he attended. Attendance Up, at Least on Paper For one thing, attendance was up this year from both the sponsor and attendee perspectives, Aubee said. “That means more people are interested in what’s going on and thinking… Continue Reading ›

Advice for a Successful Unified Communications Implementation

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If you missed the Enterprise Connect event at the end of March, you can still catch up on at least one presentation, from Ed Wadbrook, vice president of applications and collaborative solutions at Carousel Industries. Carousel has posted a video with Ed delivering an early version of his presentation, titled Technology in Search of a Customer: Critical Factors to Consider for Your UC Strategy. As we discussed in our preview of the presentation, Wadbrook cautions against adopting any unified communications technology for its own sake. You first need to ensure that it meets your business objectives and requirements. The promise… Continue Reading ›

Resist the Urge to Chase Technology: Define Business Objectives and Requirements First

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As we mentioned last week, Carousel will have a big presence at the Enterprise Connect Conference in Orlando next week, including a presentation by Ed Walbrook, our vice president of applications and collaborative solutions. We caught up with Walbrook to learn more about what he’ll be discussing; it’s thought-provoking stuff, to say the least. He has been in the IT industry in various capacities for 30 years, so Walbrook has seen a lot of trends come and go. But he is somewhat uniquely qualified to talk about trends related to unified communications because he’s been involved in the IP voice… Continue Reading ›

Heading to Enterprise Connect? Connect with Carousel

enterprise-connect-fbbanner

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If learning more about unified communications has been on your IT to-do list, you’d do well to make it down to Orlando later this month to Enterprise Connect, “the leading conference and exposition on enterprise communications and collaboration,” as it’s billed – and with good reason. As an industry leader, Carousel Industries will be highly visible at the event, to be held March 26 – 28, showing off both our products and our people. Four Stations on Virtualization, Video and More We’ll be offering four stations, each featuring a different technology.  We’ll demonstrate our UC and virtual desktop technology in… Continue Reading ›

Adding Video to UC Platforms Brings Many Business Benefits

video on smartphone

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If you’ve got kids and an iPhone, you’re probably on board with the idea that video is now mainstream. While kids like to snap photos, they love to play with the video camera on the device, endlessly recording each other doing pretty much anything and watching it with fervor. They are far from alone, of course. Consider that more than 800 million unique users visitYouTube every month. As of May 2011, 71 percent of adult Americans were using the Internet to view video information, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And it’s not just kids using those… Continue Reading ›

The Red Sox and Carousel Industries: Great Teammates

Fenway-in-winter

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I recently had the opportunity to do something I’ve always dreamed of doing. Walk up to home plate at Fenway Park and imagine myself blasting a shot over the Green Monster. (Note: It’s further than you think!) I had this rare experience when I was able to join Bob Harkins, Vice President at Carousel Industries, as we visited with Steve Conley, the Director of IT for the Red Sox in his Fenway Park offices. Carousel has been working closely with the Red Sox since 2003, when as Steve explained it, “We had a Centrex/Hybrid phone system running our call center… Continue Reading ›

Facing the Top Challenges Confronting IT: Avaya Podcast

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As a leading vendor that supplies infrastructure and tools to help customers address business requirements around voice, data and unified communications, Avaya sees first-hand the biggest challenges companies are facing. But it also knows how to address them. In this information packed podcast, we caught up with Steven Bandrowczak, Vice President of Global Accounts at Avaya, to get his thoughts on what he sees as the most vexing IT challenges of the day. 3 Biggest Challenges Facing IT Without hesitation, Bandrowczak cites the bring your own device phenomenon as the # 1 trend, “in every industry, every size segment, every… Continue Reading ›

Avaya Gives the iPad Flare! Watch the Overview Video

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Carousel’s partner, Avaya, today announced the availability of Avaya Flare® Communicator for iPad tablets. Avaya Flare Communicator broadens the next-generation user experience of the Avaya Flare Experience currently delivered on the Avaya Desktop Video Device, to include the market-leading consumer tablet. Avaya Flare Communicator provides mobile workers with secure, next-generation, unified communications and collaboration capabilities over both Wi-fi and 3G networks. Summing up the launch, Avaya explains what users can expect: Avaya launches secure, next-generation mobile collaboration for consumer devices with Apple iPad application – now available through Apple App Store Avaya Flare Communicator enables enterprise-class voice, instant messaging, presence… Continue Reading ›

Carousel Hires Two High Profile IT Industry Veterans for Key Leadership Roles

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Carousel Industries prides itself on industry leadership and consistently offering quality services. In an effort to bolster its expertise in two key areas – service delivery and unified communications – the company recently brought in two executives with a world of IT industry experience. In December, Carousel announced the hiring of Richard Losey as vice president of services. CRN included the hire in its roundup of “notable IT executive moves” for the month: VAR500 power Carousel Industries spent much of the past two years bulking up via acquisition, and also adding to its executive team. In late December, Carousel grabbed… Continue Reading ›