James Williams

The biggest issue facing Nortel enterprise customers on the heels of Avaya's $900 million purchase of that business is product overlap, consolidation and subsequent support, analysts say. Now comes the uneasy task of sifting through the product portfolio and eliminating redundancies - an ordeal that could leave Nortel and even Avaya users with a shortened life span on their investments. "There may be some surprises there," says Bob Hafner, an analyst with Gartner. "These are going to be two large companies coming together. Avaya emerged as the winning bidder for Nortel's enterprise business Monday, beating out Siemens Enterprise Communications.

It's not the easiest thing to do. Avaya is the leading revenue market share vendor in enterprise telephony, according to Dell'Oro Group, while Nortel is No. 4. (See our test of Avaya's unified communications platform.) Less overlap will be found in routers, switches and other infrastructure products, where Nortel has a larger market share and installed base than Avaya. "The biggest issue for users is, 'Show me the [product] road map,'" says Henry Dewing of Forrester Research. "They want to see hardcore product plans [and] how they are going to actually consolidate product lines." Avaya has pledged near term support for the Nortel enterprise products, including those serviced by Verizon, a Nortel reseller. These things never go without issues, problems or concerns." Slideshow: Rise and Fall of Nortel   Significant overlap is expected in the IP telephony/unified communications portfolios of both companies - IP PBXs, handsets and call management software. Verizon filed motions last week seeking assurances that Avaya would continue to support the Verizon accounts, which the carrier says include many federal law enforcement agencies. "I'd be surprised if that issue doesn't work itself out," says IDC analyst Abner Germanow of the Verizon/Avaya impasse. "I'd have a hard time believing they'd leave the U.S. government out to dry." Nonetheless, Germanow is advising Nortel customers to accelerate any assessment or planning activities in light of the Avaya takeover. "They should figure out where their own needs lie and how to most effectively migrate," he says. "They should hold companies to their multi-vendor visions - that open means open." Gartner's Hafner agrees. "Customers need to pay attention to what's going on in the [merged] organization" to detect any potential distractions or turf battles that may adversely affect them, he says. For a recap of 2009's hottest tech M&A deals, check out our slideshow. 

Cisco this week unveiled a blade addition to its Nexus line of data center switches that's designed to aggregate multiple physical x86 blade servers from various vendors into a 10G Ethernet fabric. The 4000 is intended to fit inside a blade server system enclosure and aggregate multiple 1G server NIC connections into a 10G pipe for connection to and from the Nexus 5000 and 7000 top-of-rack and core switches. Cisco broadens data center ambitions The Nexus 4000 is the first blade switch in the Nexus line, which also includes the Nexus 7000 core switch, the 5000 top-of-rack switch, the 2000 fabric extender and the 1000V software-based virtual switch. The Nexus 4000 supports the same NX-OS converged LAN/SAN operating system as the rest of the Nexus family, and Cisco's MDS SAN switch line.

The Nexus 4000 supports FibreChannel and FibreChannel over Ethernet, and IP-based iSCSI or Network Attached Storage over Ethernet Data Center Bridging specifications for converged LAN and storage access from the server. This is intended to provide consistency across the data center as well as scale, high availability, fault tolerance and uniform management, Cisco says. It features a specialized ASIC for low latency and lossless operation in a virtualized environment, Cisco says. The 1000V aggregates virtual machine images from a single server while the 4000 aggregates multiple physical blade servers, Cisco says. It can work in conjunction with Cisco's Nexus 1000V virtual switch, which resides on blade servers running VMware's ESX 4.0 virtualization software. The Nexus 4000 will be sold to Cisco's OEM customers who will rebrand it and then sell it to end users.

Since it is being developed for blade server vendors, Cisco says it will leave product details, availability and pricing up to those particular vendors. Cisco expects its existing base of Catalyst blade switch OEMs to purchase the new Nexus blade switch. The new switch will compete with HP's new 6120XG and 6120G/XG blade switches, and 6- and 10-port BNT switches from Blade Network Technologies, which are resold by IBM. The Nexus 4000 is a small piece of a broader strategy outlined by Cisco for its data center and FCoE initiatives. In that vein, Cisco says it plans to unveil FCoE modules for both the MDS and Nexus 7000 switches; a 16Gbps FibreChannel MDS switch; and an 8Gbps FibreChannel expansion module for the Nexus 5000 FCoE switch. As part of that strategy, Cisco is positioning its MDS FibreChannel SAN switches as evolutionary elements in the transition to unified data center switching fabrics. These will likely come in the first half of 2010, Cisco officials said.

The University of Arizona is embarking on the transformation right now. These will be piece parts in Cisco's plan to incrementally evolve data centers to FCoE by starting at the server edge/access point and deepening the immersion into the aggregation and core areas of the data center network. Eighteen months ago, the school commenced an "enterprise system replacement" project to upgrade its data center networking facilities to better support its HR, student information, financial management, grants management, business management and data warehousing applications. The school also deployed FCoE converged network adapters on the servers with plans to employ FCoE up to the core Nexus switches, Masseth says. The school needed an infrastructure to support 300 to 400 physical servers, several hundred virtual servers running ESX, and 300 Terabytes of storage across 13 different EMC arrays for 55,000 users, says Derek Masseth, senior director for infrastructure services at the University of Arizona. "Our architecture was not going to meet our needs," Masseth says, referring to the school's current infrastructure of Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches and MDS 9500 directors in the SAN. With that, the university installed three Nexus 7000s in the core and several Nexus 5010s at the top of server racks. University of Arizona realized a 50% reduction in capital expenditures and a 30% reduction in power consumption per port with the Nexus deployment, Masseth says.

The school is currently a Dell shop for its blade servers. The school is not yet evaluating Cisco's Unified Computing System to further tighten its server, storage, networking and virtualization environments but plans to give it a close look over the next year. In the meantime, the school plans to decommission its Catalyst 6500 switches from the data center. "We'd like to get to a pure Nexus data center," Masseth says. "We have a very strong desire to be on a single platform."

Sprint is making it clear to software developers that it wants to help them make new applications for its devices, no matter what platform they run on. The 10 best Google Android apps   The conference will feature not only Sprint executives, but also representatives from HTC, Palm and Google who will try to teach attendees about best practices for developing software for multiple mobile operating systems.  Sprint also says that the conference will address enterprise M2M business solutions and 4G technical development and resources. "Our objective with the [conference] is to create a forum for mobile app developers and those who develop apps for the desktop to get a taste of what's possible for them using the tools that Sprint's developer program provides," says Len Barlik, Sprint's vice president of wireless and wireline services. "With today's operating system platforms, powerful new devices… and the strength of the Sprint Now Network and 4G, the opportunities are limitless." Sprint has become more aggressive over the last year in trying to bring more high-end smartphones onto its network.  The carrier scored a modest hit with the Palm Pre over this past summer and the company is slated to release its first smartphone based on Google's mobile Android platform on Oct. 11.  The carrier has also expanded its smartphone roster this year to include the BlackBerry Tour and the Palm Centro, although the company shares the rights to sell those phones with Verizon Wireless. During its Open Developer Conference to be held in Santa Clara, Calif., later this month, Sprint says it plans to focus on a wide array of mobile operating systems, including Google's Android, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Palm's webOS and Research in Motion's BlackBerry operating system.

In its search for water on the moon, NASA slammed not one, but two, spacecraft into a deep, dark crater on the lunar south pole this morning. NASA successfully nailed a target about 230,000 miles from Earth - twice. It was a precision operation.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, known as LCROSS, separated into two sections last night. Four minutes later, the rest of the space probe shot through the miles-high plume of debris kicked up by the first impact, grabbed analysis of the matter, and then it too crashed into the lunar surface. Its empty rocket hull, weighing in at more than 2 tons, was the first of the two pieces to slam into the lunar surface at 7:31 a.m. EDT today. Effectively, it was a one-two punch designed to kick up what scientists believe is water ice hiding in the bottom of a permanently dark crater. NASA said it will issue a report on its initial analysis of the probe at10 a.m. EDT today.

With NASA still hopeful to one day create a viable human outpost on the moon , it would be helpful for anyone there to find water rather than haul it up from Earth. NASA had been promising live images of the impact and resulting debris plume but the live images on NASA TV disappeared moments before impact. The orbiter is expected to send its own analysis of the debris plume back to earth later this morning. The LCROSS spacecraft, which blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on June 18, went aloft with its companion satellite, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter . As the Atlas V rocket carrying lifted off, a NASA spokesman called it "NASA's first step in a lasting return to the moon." NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter , which has been in orbit around the moon since late June, was 50 kilometers above the moon's surface during this morning's impact. The LCROSS spacecraft heavily loaded with scientific gear.

The instruments were selected to provide mission scientists with multiple views of the debris created by the hull's initial impact. According to NASA, its payload consisted of two near-infrared spectrometers, a visible light spectrometer, two mid-infrared cameras, two near-infrared cameras, a visible camera and a visible radiometer. Before it crashed into the moon, LCROSS was transmitting data back to NASA mission control at 1.5 Mbps, NASA noted this morning.

Anyone can record ho-hum video on an iPhone 3GS and shoot it to YouTube. For example, you might want to make a business video of a "talking head" explaining a concept, or a sales demo video showing a product up close and personal, or even just a video blog about a news item of the day. Yet, it's possible to record excellent video that looks crisp and colorful without the typical jerky-camera look. The following tips and tricks can make your iPhone videos really pop-and garner more attention from your audience of YouTube viewers.

So, first off, it's important to keep the iPhone perfectly still during video recording. The three main ingredients to a great video are stability, lighting, and sound quality. The iPhone is meant for portable video, so-to stabilize a video shoot - I use the portable Joby Gorillapod Flexible Tripod ($22) and the Zacuto Zgrip iPhone Jr. mount ($70), which holds the iPhone and attaches to the tripod. Lighting is critical for the best video. I use the Zgrip because I can re-position the iPhone for the best viewing angle and it works with my much-more-stable camera tripod as well. I use the Litepanels Micro (around $285) and attach it to another camera tripod.

Of course, if you're not ready to fork over this amount of money, try using a house lamp to boost illumination-and remove the shade for the brightest light. The LitePanel is expensive, but casts a uniform, video-friendly glow across the faces of my video participants-a glow that looks more like sunlight. While most light bulbs will cast a yellow-ish light (a good reason to use a photo or video light), you can use your video editor to color correct lighting problems. You could try the included iPhone ear bud set for sound, but the cord is not long enough. With the iPhone, it's hard to get a good viewing angle for video and record sound close enough at the same time.

Another option is the Shure SE210 ear buds ($180) and the Shure Music Phone Adapter ($40), which has a long cord. Just be sure to record a hand clap - with the iPhone video and Samson audio recorder going at the same time, to sync up video and audio. However, your best approach is to use a Samson Zoom H2 Handy Recorder ($200). Record audio separately, then sync the video and audio in iMovie on your Mac. Other video tips: if you are making a business video, you can run a teleprompter on your Mac using NovaStorm AquaPrompt ($15) so your subject can read from a script. And last, don't forget to smile. [John Brandon is a 20-year veteran Mac user who used to run an all-Mac graphics department.] Also, be sure to include some pre-roll before and after the video so your cuts in iMovie-or on the iPhone 3GS itself, which supports simple editing cuts-don't look too choppy and awkward.