ICT Solutions • October 2013

Number 8 I October 2013

ICT Solutions ICT advice for business leaders

Unified Communications Always available as you like

Video Conferencing Services Communication in words and images

The New Way of Working What is your mobile function?

The

future of ‘voice’

Show your company’s true colours.

You multi-task.

Now, so does your printer.

HP LaserJet Pro 300 Color MFP M375

Up to â‚Ź 175 cash-back* HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color MFP M475

Always use original HP toner cartridges.

Need more information or want to order?

Contact an ICT Expert near you via www.belgacom-ict-expert.be! * Valid from 1 September to 31 October 2013, or as long as stocks last. After your purchase, visit hp.be/superpromo to claim your cash-back.

The future of voice The world of multimedia is changing. Television, for example, is migrating from a well-defined infrastructure to computers, tablets and smartphones. In the same way, telephony has evolved into multimedia.

It is no longer just about the voice, but about the image and direct communication (with several partners) as well. It no longer only involves a traditional telephone but also – yes, indeed – computers, tablets and smartphones.

Visit our new ICT information platform: www.ictnews. be provides information for anyone interested in ICT and technological developments, and makes the link between the business world and ICT.

These days employees have a different set of expectations as far as work and technology are concerned. They want to be able to communicate with colleagues wherever, whenever and via whatever device they choose. Instant messaging (chat) and video conferencing are part of that, as is the possibility of editing documents together during an online meeting.

The future of voice no longer lies in a separate platform specially set up for the purpose, but in complete integration in the devices that we use these days, as well as in popular office applications. In the future, voice will be accompanied by the image of the correspondent. Making a phone call is becoming a real multimedia experience.

Nowadays there are several technologies, products and services available to achieve the future now. The applications have become simpler and more stable – they always work – and they are better integrated.

Belgacom is evolving with them and consequently offers various possible solutions, just two of which we discuss in this number of ICT Solutions Magazine.

The future looks exciting, and we try to share our passion with you.

Happy reading!

Kris Verheye Vice President Corporate Market, Enterprise Business Unit, Belgacom

In this issue 3 Editorial 4 Dossier: The future of voice Communication is a question of choosing the right tools for each situation. And voice is one of them.

7 Dossier: All-in-one communication Phone, email, chat or video conferencing? With Unified Communications they’re all possible with just one solution.

10 Dossier: The future of telephony Speech technology and real-time translations have taken speech into the 21st century.

15 Solution: Belgacom Video Conferencing Services Video conferencing is a smart weapon to cut costs in your company.

12 Infographic: 4 communication dimensions

16 Digitips: Document management for mobile workers

14 Solution: Enterprise UC for SMEs Due to UC’s influence on critical business processes, a scalable choice is important.

17 Digitips: New functions within the New Way of Working 18 Digitips: In times of cyber war

For questions concerning specific IT solutions you can always contact our account managers or our network of ICT Experts (www.belgacom-ict-expert.be).

19 Book: iDisorder

A publication of Belgacom Group | Number 8, October 2013 | Publisher Belgacom nv, a public limited company, Boulevard Albert II 27, 1030 Bruxelles Concept and production: Minoc Business Press nv, Parklaan 22 b10, 2300 Turnhout | www.minoc.be

october 2013

•••

3

dossier

Still talking

The future With the rise of email, chat and video conferences it seems like ‘voice’ or ‘a nice oldfashioned phone call’ have been pushed right out of the picture. But these days communication is more than ever a question of choosing the right tools for the situation.

And voice is one of them.

C

ompare an office now to one of three decades ago and you’ll see quite a lot of differences. The PCs, the lack of fixed places and the disappearance of ashtrays from the desks catch your eye immediately. But one difference that is perhaps not quite as obvious is the sound.

Whereas in a typical company round 1980 there was the constant ringing of phones, these days it’s mainly the soft tapping

4 •••

www.ictnews.be

of keyboards and notification sounds on all kinds of communication programs that you hear. Of course people still make phone calls, though not necessarily always from a fixed phone on a desk.

Verbal communication just happens to be richer and less prone to ambiguity than text in mails and chat messages, so it continues to be an important work tool.

After all, communication is not only about what you say, it’s also how you say it. The

subtle body language is missing in mails, like the intonation or the speed with which something is said. These are things that reveal a lot about what a person is trying to say.

Everything IP Reasons enough then why all businesses are still completely committed to speech.

But the way phone calls are made has fundamentally changed, and actually

dossier

of voice Is VoIP the solution for you?

• Are your communication costs sky high?

• Do you need a transparent price structure?

• Do you want better integration of speech into a broader range of modes of communication (such as chat, presence and video)?

• Do employees often call abroad?

• Do you have employees who often work at home?

• Are there a lot of telephone calls within the company, between two or more branches, for example?

• Are smartphones used a lot at the office?

• Do you have employees who are mobile on the work site, and who walk around in a warehouse for example?

• Is your office moving to a new location?

• Is your telephone exchange in need of renovation?

What do you need?

In fact, Voice over IP relies on four components: the IP exchange, network switches, IP telephones and the gateway to the telephone network. An IP exchange (actually a server) is only

that is a good thing. New technologies open doors to new opportunities, so speech remains just as relevant as it has always been and can be closely integrated into the whole package of communication tools. More about Unified Communications a little later though.

First it would be a good idea to have a look at the technologies underlying them. In terms of speech there are two major evolutions that have decreased the use of telephony via the classic analogue network (PSTN or POTS network) or the ISDN network: VoIP and IP PBX. VoIP, or Voice over IP, is one of the technologies that have turned the telecom market completely upside down in recent decades. But what exactly is it?

To start with, VoIP is ordinary ‘telephony’, communication over the telephone - just like you’ve always known it. The difference is in the way in which the words you speak reach the other person and, vice versa, how his reply reaches your ears. In a classic telephone call your

speech was turned into analogue or digital signals, which in turn ended up with your correspondent through a dedicated telephone network via exchanges. With VoIP there is no need any more for a separate telephone network; all calls are turned into data packets and sent over an IP network.

In most cases the only network used is the one that distributes the Internet in the company. A number of support concepts and technologies, such as Quality of Service (QoS) and compression, ensure that there are no hitches and calls sound crystal clear. Often the quality of the sound is even better than via classic or mobile phones.

Easy switch One important change is that voice is no longer analogue or digital signals sent over a cable, instead the signals are packed into data packets. That means that voice can be handled by software. So speech communication is

one component of the changeover, and not even the most expensive. After all, an IP exchange can consist purely of software. In addition to that, you need IP telephones or softphone applications on the computer if you want to use sophisticated applications, such as the online telephone book or other consultative functions. If your telephone exchange is only a few years old, there is a good chance that it can be extended with an IP card. This makes it possible to connect a number of IP telephones and to switch over gradually – usually called a hybrid solution. You’ve got the network switches already; they are part of your standardIP network.

The gateway to the telephone network is built into the server or can be supplied separately.

october 2013

•••

5

dossier

The Voice glossary Voice over IP: telephony with data

network, to announce a missed call via

packets that are sent over a regular IP

mail for example.

network.

IVR: Interactive Voice Response refers

QoS: VoIP shares the network with

to the telephone technology whereby

lots of other types of data traffic.

you can access a computer application

Thanks to Quality of Service, voice

with an ordinary telephone, such as a

packets are prioritized, so that there

voice-guided menu.

are no hitches.

UC: Unified Communications refers to

Bandwidth: in practice you should

the increasing integration of telephony,

reckon that a VoIP conversation usually

mail, instant messaging and mobile

requires between 32 and 80 kilobits per

devices. People can now be reached

second.

uniformly via the appropriate hardware

CTI: Computer Telephony Integration

and software, both at the office and

refers to the interaction and integra-

from various mobile devices or even with

tion of computers with the telephony

a web browser.

not something you do with a device any more, instead it has become an application. The fact that VoIP is in an application now opens the door to a whole lot of new possibilities. Suddenly there are IT solutions that work much better with telephony. For example, you can start a telephone call on the computer by clicking on a telephone number in an address book, or see whether the person you want to speak to is at the office today.

There are several standards for VoIP communication, SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and H.323 being the best known. There is an interesting technological story behind VoIP, but the important thing for the end user to know is that nothing has changed compared to the ‘old days’. For everyday use everything is just the way it used to be. At the most some new telephones may appear at the office. Making calls is done in exactly the same way as it used to be, though. That makes VoIP even more attractive, because the learning curve is as good as non-existent. What is crucial to company telephony is the Private Branch Exchange (PBX), otherwise known quite simply as telephone exchange, a term

6 •••

www.ictnews.be

that has survived from classic telephony.

In its most recent form, IP PBX, this is quite simply a telephone exchange that can process telephony on the IP network. So a PBX exchange is no longer a cupboard full of switches in the basement, but software that works on a server. There are hybrid exchanges, too, which can support classic and digital telephones as well as VoIP devices.

Countless advantages We said it already at the beginning of this article: IP telephony has a lot of advantages. The most obvious of these is the cost. Since VoIP works with data packets that are sent over a data network, a lot of the things that used to drive up the cost of communication have disappeared. Phone calls between the various branches of your company within your own country are, in principle, free. If you phone a foreign branch of the company with the same VoIP infrastructure, the price may be either very low or non-existent. In any case, rates for VoIP are more transparent and easier to predict. Providers can work with a flat fee per month instead of a

“Since VoIP works with data packets that are sent over the wider Internet, a lot of the things that used to drive up the cost of communication have disappeared.”

price structure based on phone minutes.

VoIP can be bundled with other modes of communication as well. Besides that, important savings can also be made on the management side. If a new employee starts to work or someone moves to another department, it is easy to make the necessary adjustments to the telephone infrastructure if you use VoIP. In fact, your IT department can simply do it themselves via a web interface on the computer. The days when a technician had to start by finding his way around the hundreds of coloured wires in a telephone exchange in order to add to the number of phones in a telephone exchange are long gone. There are more advantages too. VoIP telephony is extremely flexible. If your company has an office without fixed workstations, an employee that has just arrived can lay claim to a telephone merely by entering a code. His telephone number will automatically be linked to that device and all his calls will be put through. If you work with a Unified Communications solution the system will immediately indicate that the person concerned is present. VoIP may seem like a technological adventure, but it doesn’t have to be. It is important though to embark on it with a partner that can offer SLA’s (service level agreements) that provide good cover. A good SLA guarantees that you can count on support in the event of problems or malfunctions.

dossier

Total solutions

All-in-one communication Phone, email, chat – or why not set up a video conference, after all? Until recently no one would have asked that question casually, but now opting for one or the other is merely a matter of pressing a button. With Unified Communications it’s all possible with just one solution.

V

oice-over-IP has had a huge impact on speech communication, but the wider communication story has undergone significant development too.

This revolution is called Unified Communications (UC), a broad term for solutions that bundle all the different means of communication into one. It has put an end to having lots of different systems, each with their own logic, costs and management. Unified Communications has simplified the whole communication business for companies – and offers a nice bonus too. Due to the far-reaching integration of, let’s say, speech, email and chat new and very interesting possibilities have emerged.

amount of their time working from home.

The fact is that mobile working is the new reality for many organisations, so new ways of communicating have to be found - because solutions that assume that an employee sits at his or her desk from nine till five are outdated. There must be sufficient flexibility to cope with very diverse scenarios, from the classic

employee sitting at a fixed desktop computer to the salesperson who communicates mainly with a smartphone in his/her hand. The increasing internationalisation should not be underestimated either. It means that even small companies need to be able to consult efficiently and affordably with a supplier in – for example – China or Brazil.

Why UC? As we mentioned previously: voice has become an application and can therefore run as software on a computer. The result is that it’s easy to create a bridge to other applications, such as instant messaging or a company address book and calendar. The emergence of Unified Communications has less to do with technological progress and more to do with major changes in terms of how people work. It’s a story that you, as an entrepreneur, probably know: companies are becoming increasingly ‘virtual’, with employees that are on the move a lot or who spend a considerable

october 2013

•••

7

dossier

THE FIVE BUILDING BLOCKS of Unified Communications • Telephony and speech traffic: this is both fixed and mobile telephony.

With a lot of UC solutions the integration is so advanced that you can use one phone number for both devices.

• Mail: most UC solutions include a complete back-end for email communication, which is sometimes extended to fax and voicemail.

• Instant messaging: for internal communication in particular, sending quick messages via instant messaging is very useful. It is more like a conversation than a load of email messages. Chatting is often possible via an application on the computer, as well as via apps and the email program.

• Presence: employees can signal their availability, which can be visible, for example, in the mail program. Signalling a status is also an option. You can indicate that you are attending a meeting and will therefore only accept messages and not telephone calls.

• Conferencing: video calls between two or more discussion partners are possible. Conference calls and video meetings fall into this category too.

Types of videoconferencing With over seventeen years’ experience

Belgacom takes over the management

in video conferencing, Belgacom offers

and support, and offers live assistance

products for every target group. All

to video conferencing users.

its solutions are compatible with the ISDN (H.320), IP (H.323) and H.264 ITU

• Video Conference-as-aService: suitable for companies that

standards for video conferencing.

do not want to invest in infrastruc-

• Desktop and Tablet Video Conferencing: a highly acces-

ture. Belgacom provides everything,

sible solution whereby the hardware

fixed-fee service model applies.

on computers and tablets is used for video conferencing. The back-end is

• Telepresence or Immersive Video Conferencing: this is the

then a service such as Cisco WebEx.

absolute top as far as video conferen-

• Managed Video Conference Services: some companies

cing is concerned, with several large

already have some infrastructure for

a dedicated room. This solution is ideal

video conferencing, but by no means

for high-level discussions. It creates the

everyone is familiar with using it. With

feeling that everyone is in the same

Managed Video Conference Services,

room.

8 •••

www.ictnews.be

including connectivity and support. A

displays and a good sound system in

Suitable for everyone Just as voice communication is better in some situations than a written text, face-to-face contact can also be more appropriate in certain situations. If something complex needs to be discussed or explained, for example, it is even more important to be able to see each other than to hear each other. After all, people get a lot of extra information from body language and facial expressions. Is your discussion partner really listening or is his mind on something else? Does he agree with what you have just said or not? These are things you often read from someone’s face, but can’t deduce from a text or an answer you have only heard. Face-to-face meetings have one big disadvantage, especially if more than two people are involved in the discussion: you need to get everyone together, in the same room, in the same building. That is not always easy. The solution – a video conference – still has the image of being just for big multinationals. But the days when you could only set up a video meeting in a dedicated room with a whole lot of apparatus and support are over. Those who wish may, of course, opt for a highlevel video conferencing room specifically equipped for the purpose. That may be relevant for a company with significant branches abroad.

However, via Unified Communications video conferencing has become very accessible for SMEs as well. There is no need for a special room and/or infrastructure, and with a minimum of investment every employee can participate from his or her computer or even a mobile device. But why would a smaller company be interested in video communication? The classic argument is well-known: video conferencing avoids travelling, and therefore saves time and money. And these are two things that the average entrepreneur likes to be economical with. Travelling involves certain risks too. It puts a burden on the environment and employees, and means that the latter are out of the action while they are away on a trip. The disadvantages just increase the more people have to travel. Companies that are more locally imbedded and whose employees rarely go on business trips may find that argument less persuasive.

dossier

Very accessible Nonetheless, there are more than enough reasons for SMEs to take a look at video conferencing. And as often as not it is not purely about cost cutting. Video conferencing offers new opportunities, especially if it can be set up easily. Consultations with colleagues no longer require all the participants in a meeting to come to the office, for example. Briefings can be short and powerful. That is handy for employees who work at home or who want to spend the rest of the day visiting customers. Moreover, a video call is much more suited to giving training than a phone call or email, and it is a lot more convenient than arranging physical meetings if several employees have to be trained. Quality control is easier too, because it is much better to consult with components suppliers. You can even have a look at the product that is going to be supplied. What is very important is that video conferencing is a much more effective means of communication when there are problems and calamities, so it helps to reduce downtime.

These are major plusses.

Furthermore, from a technological point of view many of the barriers have been eliminated. An important one is that the bandwidth needed for video conferencing no longer poses a problem for companies. A typical company connection is sufficient. In terms of hardware, there has been such excellent progress that there are seldom shortfalls in processor strength.

A video conference with Full HD video is in most cases possible with a regular laptop or even a smartphone. Indeed, the considerable evolution in mobile devices means that video communication will just become even more practicable. Only the very cheapest telephones lack a camera for video calls. A very positive aspect is that video conferencing systems are no longer exclusive. Solutions from different brands can work together. Via a so-called gateway someone with a Cisco video conferencing system can talk to someone with a system from say Polycom or Sony, to give a random example.

H. Essers chooses Lync As a fast growing company specialised in logistics and transport, H.Essers needed a solution for fast and efficient communication between its 32 branches in Belgium and abroad. H.Essers is active in 11 European countries and has over 3,700 employees, which translates into a substantial demand for IT and telephony solutions. With regard to the latter, in particular, the transport firm was faced with a very complex situation, with approximately 24,000 fixed and mobile numbers and a mixture of a variety of different brands of telephone exchanges.

It was time to switch to a homogenous UC solution.

The option chosen was Microsoft’s Lync, rolled out by Belgacom and H.Essers’ own IT department. “The centralised management and deep integration with other Microsoft applications – like Office, SharePoint, Outlook, CRM and System Center – clinched it”, explains Wouter Schuurmans, Senior System Engineer. After a pilot project in the IT department Lync was extended to all the company’s Belgian departments. For H.Essers, the added value of Microsoft Lync lies mainly in the use of the presence and video conferencing functionalities. The company has many employees in many different locations. Via Lync these employees now know immediately whether colleagues are available and, if they are, through which communication channels. An additional advantage is that H.Essers can react fast to new takeovers; a sudden expansion is no problem because the Lync platform can be scaled up – or down, for that matter – very easily.

Agentschap Ondernemen: Flemish authorities opt for video conferencing Like many government bodies the independent Agentschap Ondernemen wants to reduce commuter traffic to their offices in Brussels and invest in home working or working in satellite offices. There are a total of eight of these branch offices in Flanders, each with its own expertise, which means there is a lot of telephone traffic between them to exchange knowledge. In the past there were often meetings in Brussels too, with lots of travelling as a result.

So the Agentschap Ondernemen, which prepares the economic policy operationally and gives advice to entrepreneurs, opted for a new, more efficient means of communication. It chose a Forum 750 exchange plus 450 IP telephones, with Belgacom as the implementer. The immediate effect of the switch to VoIP was significant savings. “The connectivity costs dropped by half. Moreover, we were not only able to scrap all of the analogue lines, but also about half of the ISDN connections”, says Luc Boone from the ICT staff service. The Agentschap Ondernemen immediately went for video conferencing as well, to reduce time-consuming travel to Brussels.

Thanks to the switch to VoIP, it had the capacity. Incidentally, the Agentschap Ondernemen chose a mobile video conferencing set-up and not individually organised rooms. “If we move to other offices eventually, it will be very easy to take the devices with us.”

october 2013

•••

9

dossier

The next step

The future of New developments are making sure that telephony leaves its classic image behind. The blurring of the lines between fixed and mobile, speech technology and real-time translations have taken speech right into the 21st century.

W

e certainly have not reached the end of the telephone line yet anything but. Voice is still evolving a lot, and there are several trends that are completely changing and will continue to change the way we make telephone calls. Possibly the biggest change is the convergence between mobile and fixed phones, whereby the difference between the two is disappearing. A lot of functions that used to be handled by telephone exchanges are moving to the cloud now. There are a lot of advantages to that too. The most important being the cost savings, since your organisation is always sure of the newest and best service. Moreover, the huge improvements

10 •••

www.ictnews.be

in the field of speech technology have opened the door to all sorts of new applications, for which voice commands can be used. What do you think, for example, of an automatic translation function that translates what you say into something that the Chinese person you are calling can understand?

“A lot of functions that used to be handled by telephone exchanges are moving to the cloud now.”

Convergence The convergence between fixed and mobile is already a fact. And that means that the classic distinction between the two is disappearing, which is above all practical. We know what it’s like: you want to reach someone, so first you try the landline and then you try the mobile.

In a convergence scenario there is only

one number. Phone that and both the smartphone and the fixed phone will ring, at the same time. The person being telephoned can decide himself which phone he will use to answer. There are advantages in terms of usage as well. It is very easy, for example, to redirect calls from your fixed phone to your mobile, and mobile phones can be reached with abbreviated numbers. If necessary, one can even include home phones. Indeed, in the future it will be possible to integrate any device with voice. A television set, for example, or the smart wristwatches that are being developed. And everything is getting smarter, so the devices of the future will be able to arrange what they can do between themselves. You will phone someone up, for example, and if his/her device supports video as well (and is set to use video), the video will be switched on automatically with it.

Since voice is also sent as data, there is convergence of the networks too. In the distant future we will not need a separate telephony network any more at all. This convergence is already occurring in companies where a completely Unified Communications platform has been set up.

dossier

telephony Cloud As in many other domains the cloud has a big impact on speech communication and Unified Communications. As a term, cloud may sound rather abstract, but actually the idea behind it is simple: replace a server which an organisation manages itself on its own local network with a server in a central data centre. It is a rational choice to make, because in the long term it is cheaper and it takes some of the burden off your own IT department, since the service provider maintains the entire infrastructure on an ongoing basis. Actually maintenance and the application of patches are also the cloud provider’s problem. Generally speaking, you will be much quicker to use the newest software version as well. After all, rolling it out is not such a problem. The cloud is usually better for the environment.

Cloud providers make more efficient use of servers than when every company has its own underused server running.

In terms of Unified Communications the current trend is to go straight for the cloud. One of the main advocates for that approach is Microsoft, with its Office 365. It certainly makes the switch to a UC platform a lot simpler, because no servers need configuring. Management of the system is easier too, amongst other reasons because cloud solutions often put their money on a self-service model,

combined with powerful management modules. Another plus: UC-as-a-Service lends itself very well to upscaling, so if the company suddenly expands, it’s easy to deal with it. A cloud approach can be used for speech as well though.

It is perfectly possible to swap an IP PBX exchange with a cloud version or to work with VoIP services that operate completely off-site. The dominant argument here too is cost savings.

Siri The future will bring even more advanced possibilities. Thanks to steady progress in the field of speech recognition and

processing, new and unexpected ones keep turning up. Siri – well-known as the smart speech function on the iPhone – is leading the way, but that does not mean that it is only for mobile devices. Because speech processing happens in the cloud, where there is a lot of calculation power available, it is possible, for example, to provide real-time speech recognition, which is interesting for security applications, and speech-guided services. You can also set up a call centre solution via Belgacom which, rather than working with voice menus, provides text to speech (TTS) and even automatic speech recognition (ACD) as well. Give it a bit of time and the next step may be automatic translation functions which turn speech from one language into another. That might sound like sci-fi, but there is a lot of research being done at the European level and viable applications are expected in the years to come.

october 2013

•••

11

infographic

4 communication dimensions Social

Mobile

Enterprise social networks, for contact with colleagues & partners, are growing

Mobile enterprise applications for the support of mobile applications and platforms are growing

45%

a year.

37%

a year.

Unified Communications

In Belgium

40% 30%

of (big) companies already use Unified Communications (UC) and

Video In Belgium

46%

of companies already use “Immersive video conferencing”.

12 •••

www.ictnews.be

are considering it.

advantages of videoconferencing • Save on travel costs • Improve efficiency of meetings • Improve work-life balance of business travellers and home workers • Reduce the ecological footprint • Improve cross-border collaboration

Belgacom Privilège Personalised service 24 hours a day, wherever you are.

Do you need an extra Internet or TV connection? Is that mobile phone or tablet that you can’t live without malfunctioning or lost? A quick fix for a technical problem? Do you suddenly need to travel abroad and want to activate a roaming plan? No worries: we’ll take care of all your technical and commercial questions in no time. This way, you’ll always be able to get the most out of your Belgacom services. With Belgacom Privilège you get excellent, personalised VIP treatment for all of your Belgacom needs.

Would you like to find out more about Belgacom Privilège?

Mail to privilege@belgacom.be, call 02 203 01 49 or surf to www.belgacom.be/privilege © Belgacom 2013. All rights reserved. Belgacom NV under public law, boulevard du Roi Albert II, 27 – B-1030 Brussels.

Each day more opportunities

solution

Cisco Business Edition 6000

Enterprise UC for SMEs Unified Communications is high on the agenda of every company that wants to swap their costs for flexibility. It is precisely because UC has such a big impact on the most critical company processes that it is important to make a sound, scalable choice.

The Cisco Business Edition 6000 enables companies to convert their outdated telephony infrastructure to Unified Communications in a cost-efficient manner.

A

quick refresher: Unified Communications (UC) is the name for technologies and services that bundle business processes together and optimize them. It’s obvious from this broad definition that UC has an influence on every level of your business operations. The impact ranges from simple parameters such as user behaviour to the integration of communication channels such as telephony, email and chat into existing environments, such as Outlook. The objective is always identical: to improve interaction with employees and customers, as well as managing and sharing knowledge in a more optimal way. In an age when even small and medium-sized companies are dependent on the speed and reliability with which they can process information, Unified Communications is a must if you want to remain competitive.

In the meantime, Unified Communications has itself evolved incredibly fast as well, so that accessibility and versatility have made huge strides in progress. That is necessary, too, if ever more communication channels (think of Facebook and Twitter) and devices (tablets and smartphones) have to be added and managed.

Flexible collaboration services The fundamental value of a smart UC

14 •••

www.ictnews.be

solution lies in its reliability and scalability.

Those who want to equip their small or medium-sized company with a sound Unified Communications platform, should not burn their fingers on temporary or inadequate solutions or products. And that is exactly why it is good news that Cisco - a world leader in network and communication solutions - and Belgacom are offering one of the most tried and tested Enterprise solutions in a package, tailored to suit SMEs these days.

Switching to UC The Cisco Business Edition 6000 offers all the UC options (voice messaging, presence, instant messaging, web conferencing, video communication, etc.) and is an affordable, simple, scalable choice for medium-sized companies. The mission of the Cisco Business Edition 6000 is simple: to enable medium-sized companies to convert their outdated telephony infrastructure to Unified Communications

in a (cost-)efficient manner. This platform ensures faultless communication flows whereby the right message, whatever the form and location, reaches the right user.

Ultra-scalable solution Relying on its experience in the enterprise segment, Cisco now offers an ultrascalable solution for small and mediumsized companies. The solution can host up to eight virtual machines, which can be used for UC solutions (video, instant messaging/chat, voice mail, redundancy, etc.), as well as for third parties’ solutions, and can be scaled for up to a thousand users. The Cisco Business Edition 6000 combines a series of easy to scale and flexible collaboration services with optimal interoperability and availability to increase your productivity while at the same time reducing the complexity and costs.

More information on www.belgacom.be/cisco

solution

Belgacom Video Conferencing Services

Always available Video conferencing is one of the smarter tools you can use to cut costs in your company. Not only do you save on travel and hotel expenses, but also in terms of the environment, risk and time optimisation video conferencing is the way to hold meetings and communicate in the year 2013.

V

ideo conferencing is much more than a group call via camera.

The options that are available today offer a wider range of functions for individual calls, group calls, location to location communication and mobile call services. But you can also use your video conferencing structure to set up training courses or presentations for internal and external distribution. Or why not use this type of remote video installation to keep a distant eye on stocks of raw materials or the production process, so that you can intervene fast and efficiently if there are problems? To be a useful alternative for face-to-face discussions, video conferencing must fulfil a number of conditions. Perhaps the most important is that the virtual meeting room that you create must be easily accessible for all the participants wherever they are. In the past virtual meetings suffered from the spectre of their difficult start; there was always one participant who was missing the right hardware or software and could not, as a result, be present on time. And that is just one of the problems that Belgacom has eliminated with Video Conferencing-as-aService. The management, technologies and equipment are completely unimportant now in setting up a (virtual) meeting. If you rely on a flexible cloud model you only need to worry about the timing, the content and the participants in your meeting.

process is very straightforward too. You give Belgacom VCaaS access to your endpoints (everything from your smartphone to a telepresence room) and then a team from Belgacom will make sure that your infrastructure is set up optimally for the Belgacom platform – via the Internet, ISDN or Belgacom Explore. And that’s all there is to it actually; you can now simply book your virtual meetings. Then the Belgacom VCaaS platform will automatically start the video conference at the right time; the participants just need to be present. And if you need extra infrastructure – if you need more than two endpoints, for example, or you use either ISDN or IP lines – you just need to book it in advance.

Belgacom VCaaS solves the problems for you. This flexibility is not limited only to our range of services, for that matter; in terms of pricing and additional services you can set up Belgacom VCaaS completely

in function of your company’s needs. For example, you can choose between a fixed fee and a ‘pay as you use’ model.

Whichever scenario you go for, you can count on the services being monitored by experts from Belgacom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can also – optionally – be available immediately to provide direct support. Normally VCaaS offers up to eight endpoints per conference, but that can be increased to suit your needs.

Likewise, there is no limit on the number of conferences that you can hold via the Internet. Video conferencing is a musthave tool for companies that want to remain competitive in the current economic climate - but only if it is sufficiently flexible, efficient and reliable in the way it functions. By combining the advantages of video conferencing with a cloud model, Belgacom VCaaS helps you progress in every respect. Obviously you can count on Belgacom for standard on-site video conferencing solutions too, which you can manage yourself or Belgacom will manage for you. And there is also a service offering live assistance while you set up complex video conferencing meetings.

More information on www.belgacom.be/vcaas

Simplicity is key Video Conferencing-as-a-Service (VCaaS) puts simplicity high on the agenda. The

october 2013

•••

15

digitips

Document management for mobile workers

Mobile working gains in importance Mobile employees are an increasing part of your personnel. That is not always taken into account when a document management project is rolled out.

“B

ig companies often make a deliberate decision not to take mobile devices into account in their document management approach, something that they often start to regret later when they realise that there is a need for it after all.” That is the experience of Tom Vanderbauwhede, Managing Director of communication bureau Lemento. In his opinion it is usually a question of being afraid of opting for too large a scope: “A document management project takes a long time as it is, because the routes are often long. If you add a mobile component to it too, it takes far too long before you can really start using it – at least that’s what people often think.”

More complex Yet working with documents is one of the biggest frustrations for mobile employees,

16 •••

www.ictnews.be

according to a recent study by IDC. According to this study of nearly a thousand ‘information workers’ (employees whose job is mainly linked to information) almost half of them use a smartphone for professional purposes, a figure that will probably rise to nearly two thirds this year. Approximately one sixth of those questioned use a tablet, and this figure is likely to more or less double in the space of a year. “The work environment is constantly getting more complex for everyone”, concludes Melissa Webster, Program Vice President at IDC. “With the explosion of mobile devices and new cloud services, information workers should be able to enjoy increased efficiency in their use of documents, whatever device they work with.”

and printer world, such as Xerox, give the necessary attention to scanning and printing documents as well. The company recently launched ConnectKey, a document management module that can be integrated into various multifunctional devices. “With the multifunctional as a secure hub, ConnectKey can easily scan and upload documents to the cloud and print safely from any mobile device”, says Pierre Collette, marketing and communications manager of Xerox Belgium-Luxembourg, “but the software can also send sensitive business information straight to the workflow process” - an integrated environment for your documents with a multifunctional device as the start and end point of your document flow.

Risks

Security

End users are often left to manage as best they can, using solutions in the cloud like Dropbox or FileShare. But obviously there are certain risks associated with that, warns Didier Van Speybroeck, CEO of ICT services company Silicon: “If you just put company documents on your own account in the cloud there is a very real chance that you won’t have the most recent version. For many companies this is an argument for making documents available to mobile devices after all: access to the latest version of a document can mean sufficient added value to make it worth the investment. And suppliers of document management software are working very hard now on mobile extensions, because they realise that this can keep their clients away from solutions such as Dropbox.”

Document management players from the photocopier

“Besides the technical requirements needed to integrate with applications like QuickOffice, for processing documents, or SlideShark, for making your presentation with your tablet via the cloud, security is the most important concern in terms of mobile document management”, according to Margo Vrolix, document management expert at EMC. “It is important for users to get access to information when they need it and for access to be denied to them when they have no need for it any more. That’s why Mobile Document Management is often closely followed by Information Rights Management. It is only if you put the security intelligence into a document yourself that you can avoid a document that is to be shared with an external partner falling into the wrong hands.

In other words: with IRM a document knows itself whether a user can have access to the information or not.”

digitips

New functions within the New Way of Working

What is your mobile function?

Mobility means being able to work anytime, anywhere, on whatever device you want to, with all the necessary applications and files whatever the available network. But are we ready for it?

M

obility comes in a variety of forms. We work at other locations (at our partners’, at other companies), on the move (on trains, planes and in hotels, during congresses) or at home. Whether and when this is possible depends very much on our own ambitions, the organisational possibilities offered by the company where you work and your job or role within the company.

I’m allowed to, but I can’t There are organisations that allow mobility for everyone. But that doesn’t mean that it is actually possible for everyone.

Task-oriented employees, for example, are mostly tied to their workplace. Think of receptionists, secretarial employees, shop personnel, buyers, order processors, desk clerks, warehouse staff, all sorts of administrative jobs, and so on. Task-oriented employees work with a limited set of applications or sometimes even with just one business application.

Approach: It may be useful for these profiles to deal with business mail outside the classic work hours, or to read internal online media at home.

I’m allowed to, but I don’t want to Even if your organisation allows mobility it does not mean that every employee wants it. There are certainly employees who don’t feel the need to read their business mails at home or to connect with the company online.

Approach: Not everyone wants or has to be available all the time. A variety of tasks are also possible at home for those who wish, without a computer, smartphone or internet access.

I’m allowed to and I do, too One category of employees, who are referred to as nomadic workers, spend little time working at the office and in some cases never go there, but work a lot on location, with customers, at other branches or at home. Think of consultants or project managers, for example. The more time people spend outside their own offices, the greater the need to be able to work together from a distance and to network.

Approach: This category has the sort of ‘office job’ that is very similar to that of a knowledge worker, except that it’s not physically in their own companies. But the majority have a work experience that is much more flexible than with an internal job. For these jobs good facilities, such as a portable computer or tablet, a smartphone and appropriate mobile Internet, are crucial.

I want to, but I’m not allowed There are companies where working off site is expressly not permitted, even though more and more employees ask to be allowed to. After all, finding the right balance between work and life is very important these days.

Approach: Take a close look at your policy. Organisations who do not allow employees – for whom it is not necessary, but could be useful - to work, for example, at home are finding it increasingly difficult to take on young employees and keep them.

I have to For some jobs or professions you have to be flexible about your work hours and locations, in which case it won’t be an issue with the management either. Jobs where you can simply be evaluated on your per-

formance fit well into the flexible model of mobile computing, as do jobs that require you to visit customers or patients. Often one works alone in this type of job and there is no need for meetings or teamwork.

Think of recruitment agents, care workers, inspectors, mechanics, fieldworkers and security personnel. Employees doing this type of job are not on the whole tied to a particular workplace, though the work hours often coincide with office hours or shifts.

Approach: These profiles need appropriate devices, in addition to special applications and processes. Mobile working is part of the main task. A lot of work used to be done offline and people had to catch up with administrative tasks, such as answering emails and the like, either before work or afterwards at home. Now this is often done on the spot.

Mobile computing is still not flexi working With all these jobs there is a motive for working differently or somewhere else.

Nonetheless it is not exactly what you would call flexi working, where employees are actually free to decide on their own working hours and locations.

Organisations that actively promote flexi working often set up flexible workstations internally. Employees can choose the most suitable work environment depending on their activities (lounge, private office, shared office, hall, canteen or the bar, for example).

Mobile computing and flexi working involve for the most part the same technical infrastructure.

october 2013

•••

17

digitips

In times of cyber war What do ABN Amro, KLM and even the CD&V have in common?

They have all fallen victim to large-scale cyber criminality. Their websites all shut down after a so-called ‘Distributed Denial of Service’ attack. Although this sort of attack is not new, the scale was hitherto unseen. “Cyber attacks are the biggest direct threat facing modern society.”

T

he CD&V party spokesman put it like this: “We are in good company. The CIA and a number of banks have all fallen victim to similar attacks.” In a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, (hacked) computers send massive numbers of requests to a particular website. From a technical point of view it is often not so complicated to carry out a DDoS. And new tools are constantly being developed that can be fired at a site’s various vulnerabilities.

Some attacks are aimed at disrupting your IT infrastructure, others try to target your business applications. In fact, many attacks don’t even need the brute force of a DDoS, because there are often weaknesses in sites that can be exploited with a few ‘precision strikes’.

“As an affected party it is best to get in touch with your hosting provider as fast as possible, preferably during the attack.

“After all, they can block a great deal of the traffic”, advises Dave Piscitello, senior security technologist at Icann. “It is best to give them as much detail as possible, such as the type of traffic or the source.”

War The motive is often a mystery as well.

Many attacks are carried out for the sheer hell of it. But in his recent book ‘Cyberoorlog’ (Cyber War) Albert Benschop, lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, sees it as a war in which the stakes are computer systems and networks that form the basis of economic and infrastructural processes.

The combatants are not discontented

radicals or muddled hackers but national bodies with cyber soldiers in service who have been specially trained for the purpose. This is not new. According to Benschop the first skirmishes in the cyber war took place in the late nineties already.

In 2010 the American-Israeli Stuxnet turned out to be a very sophisticated cyber weapon, in the form of a worm virus, that damaged hundreds of nuclear centrifuges and set the Iranian nuclear weapons program back years. According to the professor this new style war is still relatively easy to finance and can be started reasonably anonymously. “It is difficult for a state to defend itself against a cyber attack, whilst the effect for citizens, companies and the authorities can have only disastrous consequences”, in his opinion. In ‘Cyberoorlog’ he presents a cyber doom scenario, too, whereby a country like the Netherlands or Belgium is targeted by a hostile state. The step-by-step developments, from bad to worse to outright nightmare, are reminiscent of a science fiction film. But Benschop rightly considers that a cyber attack poses the biggest direct threat to modern society. And the new reality he sketches is not exactly cheerful.

Avoid downtime The increasing attention attracted by DDoS makes companies wonder what they should do about Internet risks. Experts stress that you must take measures at every level (application, server, network, etc.) and both in your own data centre (on the premises) and in the cloud, if you want to avoid the risk of downtime due to a DDoS. It requires more than that though.

Where IT Risk Management has traditionally been aimed in the first instance at prevention, cyber attacks such as DDoS require a more reactive approach, also known as ‘Active Threat Management’.

18 •••

www.ictnews.be

How do you protect your website?

1. Put it on the agenda. Protecting a website is not exactly the same as protecting your PCs, for example.

2. Consult an expert, such as your hosting company or service provider. They are specialised in website security.

3. React fast. If you notice anything strange, contact your hosting provider as fast as possible, preferably during the attack.

4. C ollect information during an attack, or have it collected for you, such as the type of traffic or the source.

book

One week without a smartphone prescribed by doctor The abundance of information that we are facing, is not healthy for our mental well-being.

Cyberspace has become a real addiction.

I

n 2015, approximately 80 per cent of the world population will have a smartphone, tablet or laptop. More than half of the population in western countries uses these already. Roughly this translates to: they are online 24 hours a day.

In the book iDentity Larry Rosen, professor of Psychology in California State University, raises the alarm. The author wants to show that too much trust in IT gadgets and websites has tied humanity up in a web of technology. Teenagers post their day-to-day activities on Facebook. Fortyyear-olds search the Internet for information about skin blemishes, even when their doctor has already told them that there is nothing to worry about.

Larry Rosen, who is honest enough to admit that he too was a gadget junkie from the start, comes up with examples that are amazingly recognisable. Ignoring an incoming text message during a meal or while on a car journey? Impossible! Going to bed without quickly checking email?

Unlikely! According to reports, some people even start experiencing withdrawal symptoms after a couple of days without Facebook.

Disorders Apart from the many footnotes and an exuberant, typically American acknow-

ledgements section, the rest of the book is pretty readable. The author tries to show that many of us use new technologies and media in a manner that causes symptoms that match those of psychological disorders. A phenomenon that becomes increasingly more difficult to treat.

Moreover the consequences are pretty far-reaching. The author sees that frequent use of Internet and social networks also gives rise to problems such as eating disorders and a disturbed body perception. With secondary symptoms such as social isolation, paranoia and voyeurism.

But, and that is the second goal of the book, this trend is fortunately not irrever­sible. Rosen offers strategies and checklists that are simple to apply. These are intended to firstly permit acknow­ ledgement of the problem, and then provide a solution and techno break. With the intention of ensuring that the techno junkie in us can find a healthy balance again between the use of digital media and dignified behaviour. Or as he himself writes: reset our brain.

Larry Rosen, iDisorder – Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming its Hold on Us, Macmillan, ISBN 9781137000361, 256 pages.

October 2013

•••

19

Together we fulfill your ICT vision

Collaboration

The Persgroep opted for Unified Communications at more than 20 sites

Datacenters

Pietercil increases reliability and efficiency with Belgacom Matrix Cube

Luc Verbist, CIO, De Persgroep

Jan Christiaens, CFO, Pietercil

Networks

The National Pensions Office masters IT with endto-end monitoring

Digital media

Renmans manages promotional screens of 376 butchers from the cloud Thomas Bovy, IT Manager, Quality Meat Renmans

Luc Coppens, General Advisor, NPO

Security

ATS Groep finalized disaster recovery plan with security solutions Korstiaan Schipper, ICT Manager, ATS Groep

Belgacom Explore seamlessly connects all your offices and prepares you to work in the cloud. However your ICT strategy will of course go a step further: from security to big data, the new way of working, unified communications, focus on your core business, etc. Together we build innovative and reliable solutions for the most diverse ICT challenges. Check our realizations and discover how Belgacom can deliver also your ICT vision.

More info? Surf to www.belgacom.be/ict

Š Belgacom 2013. All rights reserved. Belgacom NV under public law, boulevard du Roi Albert II, 27 – B-1030 Brussels.

Each day more opportunities