News Items and Articles
Nielson Norman Group Names CenturyLink Business in Top Ten of World's Best Intranets
Intranet team size as a percentage of company size is now more than double what it has been for the past three years and is at an all time high, according to usability expert Jakob Nielsen whose user-experience research firm Nielsen Norman Group today announced the winners of its 12th annual intranet design contest. In 2001, when Nielsen Norman conducted its first competition, the average intranet team size was 0.012% of company size. Today, the teams that designed and manage the world's top 10 intranets represent on average 0.074% of company size, a striking six times what team sizes were in 2001. This year's winning teams and their intranets are showcased in Nielsen Norman Group's new 431-page report "Intranet Design Annual 2012: The Year's 10 Best Intranets."
Cindy Humphrey Awarded 2011 DMA B-to-B Marketer of the Year
For Cindy Humphrey, VP-product and marketing at telecom company CenturyLink Business, an open attitude may be the secret sauce for effective B2B marketing these days. "My teams sat down and had an open-attitude conversation about experimentation; let's try this in a small area and see how it goes. When you do that, you end up with some success stories," said Humphrey, who was recently named by the Direct Marketing Association as its 2011 B-to-B Marketer of the Year. The award recognizes B2B marketers for their achievements, innovation and leadership.
The Evolution of the Telecom Carrier: CenturyLink and the Cloud
One carrier that has made a recent entry into the cloud services market is CenturyLink, by virtue of its $18.8B merger with Qwest, rapidly followed by its planned $2.5B acquisition of co-location and hosting provider Savvis. By these actions, CenturyLink has made it abundantly clear that it wants to transform itself from a rural provider of landline SMB and consumer telecom services to a major cloud and business network services provider.
With CenturyLink-Qwest merger done, No. 3 telco targets AT&T and Verizon
Upon the completion of the CenturyLink-Qwest merger, the combined companies made CenturyLink the third-largest telecom operator in the United States—behind AT&T and Verizon—in terms of access lines and high-speed Internet subscribers. Chris Ancell, president of CenturyLink's newly formed Business Markets Group, tells SearchTelecom.com how the completion of the merger has made the combined companies more competitive in selling IT services to enterprise and government customers.
Cindy Humphrey Touts TrendIT Tool in the New York Times.
Madison Avenue Turns Toward the Entrepreneurial
Madison Avenue will never be confused with Silicon Alley, much less Silicon Valley. But increasingly, agencies are trying to channel their inner entrepreneurs by pursuing ventures outside the realm of traditional advertising tasks.
Pieter Poll: Profit from IPv6 Migration Outreach
This is the second article in a two-part series on the telecom carrier's role in customers' IPv6 transition plans. Enterprises have very little appetite for an IPv6 migration today, but service providers shouldn't pull back on the IPv6 evangelizing. The opportunity for profiting with IPv6 transition services may not be apparent, but many carriers believe their efforts will pay off in the years to come as they use the IPv6 migration as a way to build stronger relationships with enterprise customers.
Cloud Computing Brings Sunny Skies for Qwest and Cisco
Qwest has implemented the Cisco Unified Service Delivery (USD) solution across its CyberCenters. Qwest CyberCentersSM provide a highly-secure, reliable, scalable foundation for the delivery of state-of-the-art hosting for mission-critical enterprise application services. Qwest VP of Product Management and National Network Services, Eric Bozich, talks about how Cisco Unified Service Delivery brings new flexibility to cloud service delivery.
Blake Wetzel, Qwest Vice President of Sales Named Channel Executive of the Year
Blake Wetzel, vice president of sales for the Qwest Business Partner Program (QBPP), has landed the title of Channel Executive of the Year 2011. Wetzel earned the designation after receiving the most votes in Channel Partners magazine's annual Channel Executive of the Year poll. Wetzel has held his current position for almost two years, worked for Qwest for 11 years and been in the indirect channel for four years. Wetzel said partners play "an increasingly important role" in the success of Qwest's Business Markets group and that he aims to strengthen the relationship between the company's direct and indirect sales teams.
Qwest E-Line offering delivers dedicated bandwidth
A new point-to-point Ethernet offering from Qwest dubbed iQ E-Line service provides customers with end-to-end dedicated bandwidth, said Eric Bozich, vice president of Qwest National Network Services in an interview with Connected Planet.
Video, telecom network management still challenge fixed line operators
Qwest Communications CTO Pieter Poll spoke with SearchTelecom.com about how the former "Baby Bell" is managing growing Internet traffic from its backbone to access networks.
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