Video Conferencing and Why Polycom Shares Are Down

Once again, the IT pundits were wrong. Lots of “experts” said the video conferencing and TelePresence industries would enjoy a boom during the economic bust.

The reasoning: Executives are cutting business travel to save money, and opting instead for video conferencing and TelePresence. But here’s the problem: Not all video conferencing companies are built equally. Consider the situation of Polycom (a big, established player) vs. LifeSize Communications (a nimble start-up). Read more of the story....

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Corning Contiues Leading in Shielded Copper Products

Corning Maintains a Leadership Position in Shielded Copper Products as its new FutureCom S500 Shielded Copper RJ45 Module Achieves Independent Third-Party Cat.6A Component Certification

It is boring news, but is essential to the infrastructure of our country.

Corning Cable Systems LLC, part of Corning Incorporated's (NYSE:GLW) Telecommunications segment, announces the launch of its new FutureCom(TM: 69.74, +4.04, +6.15%) S500 RJ45 module. This high-performance, fully-shielded Cat.6A copper module is the first in the industry to receive a certification, as per approved TIA Standard 2008-04, Augmented Category 6, ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-10 Component Standard, by GHMT, an accredited, independent test lab for cabling and connection components.

With the introduction of the FutureCom S500 module as an essential part of the FutureCom EA system, Corning maintains a leading position in terms of component and channel performance for 10Gbit/s Ethernet shielded copper systems, making it an ideal solution for high end data centre and local area network (LAN: 23.59, +1.39, +6.26%) applications.

The FutureCom S500 module is part of the new FutureCom EA system, the latest addition to Corning's 10Gbit/s Ethernet copper cabling systems family. The system offers high network performance and security with alien cross talk protection that is compliant with the Cat.6A requirements. It also supports Power over Ethernet and Power over Ethernet Plus. The FutureCom EA system exceeds international ISO/IEC 11801:2002 Amd1:2008 and American ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-10-CAT6A system standards requirements.

The FutureCom EA system is fully backward compatible with the IEEE 802.3an standard; the recently released ISO/IEC Class EA standards; the ISO/IEC and EN Classes E and D and the TIA Cat.6 and Cat.5e standards.

Read the rest of the news here.


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Top 6 Online Tools for 2009

Harness the Power of Online Tools for Marketing from AT&T

It has never been easier or less expensive to use online tools for marketing a small business. The technologies are plentiful and can be used for everything from acquiring more customers to tracking what current customers think about your product or service. Free trials and services abound, so testing the water to learn what will work best for your company is easy.

Here are some of the top resources to consider for your company’s marketing.

Search engine optimization
Search is central to online marketing. Prospects will find you, or not, based on how well you have set your site up to be found by the search engines. Services are available to help you identify the terms that will attract high-potential prospects to your site as well as what words drive prospects to companies in your industry. Services will also help you submit your site URL to top search engines and teach you how to read search engine reports. Or, you may want to invest in paid search, which is buying key words that will ensure your ad’s placement when someone searches using a particular term. Compete.com and Wordtracker have solutions specifically for small businesses.

Online advertising
Consumers and businesses research and shop online, so your business may benefit from placing ads on carefully chosen websites. If you create online ads, you will need to select the words most likely to lead customers to you through a search. A few well-placed ads can introduce Web users to your business. Choosing the right sites is also key as is the opportunity, where it makes sense, to target ads based on demographics or geography.

Surveys Callout 3
The better you know your prospects and customers, the more skilled you will be at targeting them with products they want to buy and marketing messages that resonate. Online surveys are easy and quick to develop and enable you to solicit valuable feedback from your visitors and add interactivity to your site. Surveys take very little time to design, which means you can use and change them frequently. Services, such as SurveyGizmo and PollDaddy, require no previous experience and walk you through each step of the process.

Web analytics
Most marketing campaigns are only as strong as their tracking. Online marketing is no different, and revising your efforts will enhance their payback over time. Web analytics refer to the tools that measure who is visiting your website and what they do once they arrive. This vital information will help you to assess what works and to devise a plan for refining your approach to maximize the payback on your marketing efforts. Most services that help with search and advertising can also assist with analytics.

Blogs
Web 2.0 has ushered in a new era of interactivity by shifting online interactions from one-way to two-way communication. You can write a blog to reinforce your knowledge and establish yourself as an authority in your area of business. This forum may encourage visitors to interact with you, thereby strengthening your customer relationships and enabling you to learn more about customer concerns. A blog also provides you with a place to drop search-friendly terms onto your site so the search engines will categorize you as an expert in your field and rank you higher. You can also use a blog to talk about a new product as a way of gathering prospect and customer feedback.

Social networking
Online networking sites bring people together. The professional network LinkedIn provides a way to support and develop business relationships, as well as to lure potential employees through its popular job boards. No longer restricted to college students, Facebook also has emerged as a valuable communications tool for businesses. Stay in touch with former and current colleagues; learn about events related to your industry; and join groups to network with likeminded professionals across the globe. Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is another useful service in today’s social media world. Twitter users, also called “tweeters,” send updates through the Web or text messages (SMS) in 140 characters or fewer. Conference and trade show attendees can use Twitter to stay up to date on relevant news, and your customers can “follow” your Twitter stream to see news about your products or services.


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