Two of the biggest players in the IT market have announced the formation of the Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA). What this means (supposedly) is the acceleration of the transformation of voice, video and data communications. Whoopee, but what does it mean for education? It’s hard to tell because the substance seems to get lost in a press release riddled with acronyms and management babble, such as ‘fully-leveraged-pain-points, QoE, LOBs, BDMs, TCO and network-centric silos of communication’.

We assume they mean that there will be some benefits to the end customer, some simplification of communication channels, and possibly even the holy grail of all business – potential cost savings. ICA will deliver all of these and more says Tony Burrows, Nortel’s Head of Education, but if he wants to sell this into the market he is going to have to find someone who can translate the jargon into English.

·   www.nortel.com

·   www.microsoft.com/emea/education