business value & ICT - Telecommunications - Green IT - Orange Business Live blog

about this blog

This blog is about creating business value from ICT and provides a focal point for passionate discussions about how information and communications technology can bring actual value to your business. The blog is structured around seven topics (see below) ranging from application performance to unified communications. Subjects such as the impact of ICT on business, ROI calculations for communications services, and golden rules for new ICT transformation projects are discussed. 

the genesis

This blog was inspired by the Orange Business Live event held in Berlin in June 2008. Orange Business Live [http://www.orangebusinesslive.com] is an annual conference organised by Orange Business Services to discuss best practices, case studies and developments in enterprise information communications technology (ICT). The event brought together enterprise technologists and Orange experts, and it triggered interesting and passionate discussions about how ICT can help enterprises meet their business challenges.

the idea

We started this blog to continue the dialogue initiated at the event and extend the invitation to the broad community of enterprise readers. This blog isn't just for technical specialists; we will hold discussions at different levels including strategic decisions about ICT, implementation issues and tips, golden rules and advice, etc.  Should you have of a topic that you would like us to cover, please feel free to use the comment link at the end of this article to suggest ideas for us to review.

• network optimization: covers how to manage the performance of applications in a networked world, including the different types of technology, service level agreements (SLA) and aligning performance to business needs;
• telecommunications in emerging markets: the challenges and solutions, technology and regulatory issues, and other key issues for managing IT in emerging markets;
• green IT: how green IT can contribute to cutting enterprises' carbon footprint in the interest of sustainability and corporate responsibility;
• mobility: what challenges arise when deploying a global mobility strategy, how to overcome barriers and the business value of mobility;
• innovation: how innovation has improved areas such as security, performance and response time and user performance;
• telephony and VOIP: best practices and key learnings in IP telephony, such as the business case, consolidation and standardization, how to manage organizational challenges, fixed-mobile convergence and future developments;
• collaboration: how improving internal/external communications through collaboration and unified communications can yield significant business benefits by removing human latency from business processes.