NEW YORK, United States
The MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum) launched their "Carrier Ethernet for Business" world tour in New York today with a keynote presentation by Don Tapscott, CEO the New Paradigms think tank, and co-author of the international best seller "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything". As well as spelling out the role of Carrier Ethernet in enabling this new collaborative business paradigm, the one-day event featured real-life case studies from enterprises already reaping its benefits - with a strong focus on practical strategy and implementation advice. This is the first of a series of events to be continued in Los Angeles and Chicago in October before traveling to Asia and Europe next year.
"Winning companies today have open, porous boundaries" explained Don Tapscott. "They compete by reaching out to harness external resources rather than do everything internally. They set a context for innovation and then invite customers, partners, and others to co-create their products and services. Even mature companies like Boeing, BMW, IBM and Procter & Gamble are getting in on the action. Their leaders have seized on collaboration and self-organization as powerful new levers to cut costs, innovate faster, co-create with customers and partners, and create a 21st century business environment."
Bob Metcalfe, Ethernet inventor and advisor to the MEF, pointed out how the spread of Carrier Ethernet helps create the business communications environment described by Tapscott: "Ethernet is standard, cheap, fast, flexible, and ubiquitous - a quarter billion new Ethernet switch ports ship annually. And Ethernet is Internet plumbing that enables decentralized communication, encouraging people to escape hierarchies and form collaborative groups."
Following the keynote, those attending the New York event learnt about the real business benefits from actual users, together with an update on the new services being offered, with detail on SLAs, compatibility between providers, where these services are now available and soon coming online - together with the various access options. Case study topics focused on the real-life experience of a migration to Carrier Ethernet, the financial and business benefits with particular emphasis on ROI. Migration strategy issues included: when best to migrate in terms of a company's growth and the increasing availability of services; how to ensure seamless migration; the best location for a pilot project and incremental versus mass roll-out. A final session addressed the challenge of highly mission critical applications, how well they are served by complex heritage technologies, and how the simple, cost-effective solution really can match up to these demands.
Mike Tighe, MEF Chairman and Executive Director Strategy, Verizon Corp summed up the success of the first day of the world tour by saying "The MEF has done an amazing job promoting Carrier Ethernet to service providers, resulting in an explosion in MEF members, with many cable MSOs now joining the ranks. The result has been a new wave of services targeting enterprise users, and it is now time to spread the message to those users as this tour intends. It's only just the beginning, for Don's presentation points the way to a hungry market for new hosted collaboration services that could soon be offered by providers."
The next tour dates are October 9th at Double Tree, Santa Ana, Los Angeles, followed by October 11th at The Palmer House Hilton, Chicago. For details and registration go to http://www.networkworld.com/events/mef07/index.html. Early booking is recommended.
View a recording of today's press briefing at:
http://www.netevents.tv/docuplayer.asp?docid=116
About The MEF:
The MEF is a global industry alliance comprising more than 130 organizations including telecommunications service providers, cable MSOs, network equipment/software manufacturers, semiconductors vendors and testing organizations. The MEF's mission is to accelerate the worldwide adoption of Carrier-class Ethernet networks and services. The MEF develops Carrier Ethernet technical specifications and implementation agreements to promote interoperability and deployment of Carrier Ethernet worldwide. For more information, including a complete listing of all current MEF members, please visit http://www.MetroEthernetForum.org/
For further viewing:
"The History of Ethernet" featuring Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe:
http://www.netevents.tv/docuplayer.asp?docid=23
"The evolution of Ethernet to a carrier class technology":
http://www.netevents.tv/docuplayer.asp?docid=1
Case study: Mass collaboration in Healthcare:
http://www.netevents.tv/docuplayer.asp?docid=20
OR register for the upcoming webcast on "Carrier Ethernet for Business":
http://www.netevents.tv/register_wc.asp?wcid=6
(To be broadcast from 10am ET on Wednesday, September 19th)
Source: Business Wire (Business Wire India)