Overview:

Advanced Communications Services have become increasingly relevant
to businesses in large part because of the proliferation of branch
offices, remote workers, and the need for access to centrally provided
data and applications. These services, including Multi-Protocol Label
Switching (MPLS), Ethernet, Internet access, peering, hosted
connectivity and mobile offerings, are becoming even more critical
because the way we work is changing dramatically.

The majority of companies now:

• Centralize their applications and data in primary and backup data centers;
• Open new branch locations, with an average growth rate of about 12% a year;
• Expand the percentage of employees who telecommute full- or part-time;
• Implement new collaborative applications to improve productivity, customer service, and remote management of staff.

The Issue:

The Issue:

Carriers are struggling to realize new technologies' promise
Business Communications Review, April 2007

By Irwin Lazar, Principal Research Analyst and Program Director, Collaboration and Convergence, Nemertes Research.

Read The Article

If Ethernet Is The Answer, What Is The Question?

Microsoft, Nortel’s branch device has potential, but it’s not the first

Branch Office Best Practices Newsletter, By Robin Gareiss, Network World, 1/23/07

The CEOs of Microsoft and Nortel last week provided a further glimpse into some of the fruits of their partnership during a press conference in New York. One of the products they promised was a branch office appliance that combines VoIP and unified communications capabilities.

By Johna Till Johnson, President and Senior Founding Partner

The recent announcement by Verizon (NYSE: VZ) that it plans to roll out Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) starting in March highlights the continued demand for Ethernet WAN services (whether metro or long-distance).

Verizon (which provided few details, other than announcing availability of its service) joins AT&T (NYSE:T), which has limited deployments in about 20 cities, and alternative providers Masergy and Broadwing, both of whom offer VPLS services. (Masergy was the first to deploy VPLS services in the United States in 2003).

Visual Networks webinar, featuring Robin Gareiss, Executive Vice President of Nemertes Research.

Learn how real-time insight into WAN and LAN performance can optimize VoIP in a live, free technology webinar.

By Web Services Pipeline, InternetWeek
Aug 6, 2004

A research benchmarking study by Nemertes Research indicated that 75 percent of enterprises were using Web services to communicate with trading partners, customers, and suppliers. The study, "Extending the Enterprise" interviewed in-depth IT executives from 35 companies in a broad range of industries about their current "externalization" projects as well as planned initiatives. The firms were primarily mid- to large-size companies with annual revenues exceeding $500 million.

"We were primarily interested in how enterprises are externalizing the networks and building B2B and supply chain applications that reach outside the enterprise," said Andreas M. Antonopoulos, principal research analyst at Nemertes. Some of them were user-to-system applications, typically users using browsers to manipulate an internal application such as placing an order or seeing the status of a shipment, he said. Others were machine-to-machine interactions where internal applications talked directly to partner applications.