Microsoft pushes ahead with Skype-Lync integration

Microsoft pushes ahead with Skype-Lync integration
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IDG News Service – Microsoft will demonstrate on Tuesday how Lync and Skype users will be able to communicate via video conferencing, the next
stage of the integration between its enterprise unified communications server and its consumer IM and IP telephony network.

The new integration will be shown at the Lync Conference, which runs through Thursday in Las Vegas and will be attended by
almost 2,000 customers and partners, according to Microsoft.

The company will also announce a Lync app for Android tablets, integration between Lync and Cisco’s Tandberg high-end telepresence
systems and telephony capabilities for Lync Online, the product’s public cloud-hosted version.

In aggregate, the announcements underscore Microsoft’s vision to move “from unified to universal communications,” said Giovanni
Mezgec, general manager of enterprise product marketing for Skype at Microsoft.

This means that Microsoft intends to give its customers a set of interoperable IM, audio communications, video conferencing,
online meetings and IP telephony tools for their personal and work lives.

With this approach, Microsoft hopes to get an edge over rivals in the UC market like Cisco, Avaya, IBM, Siemens, Google, Alcatel-Lucent,
Mitel and ShoreTel.

In mid-2013, Microsoft delivered the first phase of the Lync-Skype integration, making it possible for Lync and Skype users
to contact each other, engage in IM sessions and communicate via audio calls. Skype, which Microsoft bought in 2011 for $ 8.5
billion, is used by about 300 million people worldwide, while Lync is used by more than 90 percent of the Fortune 100, according
to the company.

The video conferencing compatibility, which is now in early beta testing, “will enable new cool scenarios,” he said. For example,
a company whose call center and customer support staffers use Lync could communicate with customers using Skype using video.

Meanwhile, Microsoft plans to start beta testing the integration with the Cisco Tandberg telepresence systems soon after this
week’s conference ends, he said, adding that Microsoft is doing the work using open standards and available Cisco APIs.

The Lync app for Android tablets is due this summer. There are already Lync apps for Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, Android
smartphones, Mac OS computers and Windows 8.

Finally, it’s not clear when Microsoft expects to deliver the native IP telephony capability for Lync Online, a much-requested
feature that Lync Server hosted on-premises or in private clouds already has.

Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology
breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Netflash

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Fear of slowing growth pushes down global markets

Trader Gregory Rowe, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday, Jan. 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Trader Gregory Rowe, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday, Jan. 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Traders Thomas Donato, left, and Ronald Madarasz work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday, Jan. 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

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Fear is back in the market. Investors are fretting about China’s growth, a plunge in Argentina’s peso and the profit outlook for U.S. companies.

Those worries have converged to set off a two-day rout in global markets, and have sent the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 260 points Friday, its biggest daily point decline since June 20, 2013.

Investors are dumping risky assets like stocks and currencies in countries with troubled governments. They are buying safer ones like bonds and the Japanese yen

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average was down 237 points, or 1.5 percent, to 15,960 as of 2:40 p.m. Eastern time Friday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 28 points, or 1.5 percent, to 1,800. The Nasdaq composite was down 72 points, or 1.7 percent, at 4,146.

FLIGHT FROM RISK: The downturn began Thursday following signs that manufacturing was contracting in China, a major importer of raw materials and a key driver of global economic growth. The values of currencies in several emerging markets have dropped. Those markets include Turkey, Russia, South Africa and Argentina.

“All of that is making the market very sensitive and very vulnerable to growth expectations in emerging markets,” said with Anastasia Amoroso, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds.

DOW DOWNER: The Dow has fallen every day this week, leaving it down 3.1 percent. That decline is the Dow’s worst weekly performance since mid-May 2012. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is down 2.2 percent since last Friday. That’s the index’s worst weekly slide since November 2012.

SMALL CAPS HIT HARD: In another sign that investors are avoiding risk, stocks of smaller companies had even larger declines than broader U.S. market. The Russell 2000 index of small-company stocks fell 2.6 percent, compared with the Dow’s decline of 1.6 percent.

BIGGEST LOSERS: Railroad operator Kansas City Southern fell the most in the S&P 500 index, plunging $ 18.43, or 16 percent, to $ 98.85 after its earnings fell short of what analysts’ forecasts. Tool seller W.W. Grainger Inc. dropped $ 12, or 5 percent, to $ 244.66 after reporting income that also disappointed investors. Engine-maker Cummins Inc. fell $ 5.16, or 4 percent, to $ 126.88.

BROAD DECLINES: Declining U.S. stocks outnumbered rising ones 6-to-1 on the New York Stock Exchange. All 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 fell. Utilities, telecommunication services and consumer staples stocks fell the least. Traders tend to buy those stocks when they want relatively stable, lower-risk stocks that pay high dividends.

SEATTLE’S BEST: Two leading companies from Seattle, Microsoft and Starbucks, were among the bright spots in an otherwise gloomy market. The software maker rose 86 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $ 36.92. Its quarterly revenue and earnings beat Wall Street expectations because of strong sales of its new Xbox One console and Surface tablet. Starbucks, meanwhile, was the third-biggest gainer in the S&P 500 index. It rose $ 2.24, or 3 percent, to $ 75.63, because its quarterly earnings benefited from lower coffee costs and growing global sales.

EUROPE AND ASIA: The worries about emerging markets also sent overseas markets lower. Japan’s yen surged, which hurts the prospects for Japan’s export-driven economy. The Nikkei 225 fell 1.9 percent. France’s CAC-40 index fell 2.8 percent and Germany’s DAX lost 2.5 percent.

TREASURIES AND COMMODITIES: Bond prices rose as investors moved money into lower-risk assets. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note declined to 2.74 percent from 2.78 percent late Thursday.

Associated Press

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Fear of slowing growth pushes down global markets

GOP Pushes "Red to the Roots" Takeover in South Carolina

South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore shares some striking political data when visiting local party meetings: In a state where the GOP holds most statewide offices and congressional and state legislative seats, Democrats still hold the counties. Democrats also outnumber Republicans as sheriffs, coroners and auditors.

But that could change in 2014. Moore says his goal in next year’s elections is to flip the local offices to Republican control, completing a transformation that started nearly 50 years ago when then-Democrat Sen. Strom Thurmond went on statewide television and announced he was switching to the GOP — in a state so heavily Democratic that it didn’t even list party affiliations in its legislative manual.

The same transformation is occurring elsewhere in the South, in places where Republicans often didn’t put up candidates because Democrats had such a lock on the electorate.

Focus on local races is the next logical step, Moore said, because most Republican statewide offices, the two U.S. Senate seats, six of its seven U.S. House members and 106 of the 170 seats in the Legislature appear safely in the GOP control.

That means the party can afford to spend resources further down the ballot on the program it calls “Red to the Roots.”

“Local decisions have more impact than federal decisions or state decisions,” Moore said. “We want to have an impact on things like property taxes and schools.”

In South Carolina, counties have a lot of power. Only 35 percent of the state’s population lives in cities or towns, leaving 65 percent to live in unincorporated areas run by counties. The counties also set property taxes — the revenue generator for schools — and some counties even get a say in who gets on local school boards. Cities have relatively little power.

The template for Moore’s plan can be found in Lancaster County, a place that after Reconstruction didn’t send a Republican to the Statehouse until 1993 and gave Bill Clinton a nearly 7 percentage point win in the 1996 presidential election. In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won Lancaster County by nearly 18 percentage points.

The transformation is part demographics. Since 1990, the county has grown 48 percent to nearly 80,000 people. Much of that growth has spilled over from neighboring Charlotte, N.C., many of them moving to South Carolina looking for lower taxes and receptive to the Republicans’ message.

However, the change was due in part to Lancaster County Republican Party Chairwoman Sandy McGarry’s efforts.

First she identified Democratic office holders who seemed compatible to the Republicans’ platform. She took a computer presentation to them, full of population statistics and voting results down to the precinct level to show the Republican trend. Then she asked them to switch parties, and brandished her stick — a solid Republican challenger in the next election that could take advantage of the trends in her presentation.

It’s more than just numbers, McGarry said.

“They have got to be conservative. We’re just not asking anyone to switch,” she said.

The presentation convinced Sheriff Barry Faile, who switched parties this summer. McGarry’s efforts also helped get three new Republicans elected to the County Council, giving the GOP a majority for the first time in recent memory.

Democrats aren’t ready to give up their last power base. They also plan to emphasize races on the lower end of the ticket, reminding voters that a lot of these Democrats are faithful public servants who do a good job, state Democratic Party Executive Director Amanda Loveday said.

They also are emphasizing that they are a party with a much less rigid ideology that allows disagreement, saying Republicans are much more likely to force their members into taking sides publicly on an issue that they might disagree with privately.

“We’re a big tent party. You don’t have to have a straight-line view on every issue,” said Loveday.

The push to get Republicans in local offices is spreading to other Southern states, especially places like Tennessee.

“The last bastion for the Democrats is at the local level,” Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Chris Devaney said.

Unlike South Carolina, many states in the South elect judges at the polls, which makes it even more important to get Republican control, said Devaney, who is working to Tennessee’s counties to hold primaries that list party affiliation.

“Some of these judicial posts are way down on the ballot. At least if you give them a party label, they will have a general idea what their judicial philosophy is,” he said.

In South Carolina’s Lancaster County, the Republican trailblazer is state Sen. Greg Gregory, who decided to join the GOP in college in the 1980s because of Ronald Reagan. He ran in 1992, recalling how as he went to rural parts of the county, voters would needle him by telling a story that in the 1932 presidential election in the midst of the Great Depression that Democrat Franklin Roosevelt got 10,000 votes and Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover received two votes.

“They joked they were still looking for those two people,” Gregory said.

South Carolina currently has 21 Republican sheriffs and coroners and 19 Republican treasurers in its 46 counties. The GOP also has a majority in 21 of the state’s 45 partisan county councils. They think they can get majorities in all those offices and councils next year, which would end a takeover that started back when Republicans grimly joked they held “defeat parties” on Election Night because that was what was going to happen to their candidates.

“It’s real simple,” Moore said. “Anyone paying attention knows this is a conservative state and is likely to stay that way. It’s a matter of being on the right side.”

© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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GOP Pushes "Red to the Roots" Takeover in South Carolina

Obamacare Kegstand: Colorado Marketplace Pushes ‘Brosurance’

Obamacare Kegstand: Colorado Marketplace Pushes ‘Brosurance’
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You wanna be cool, don’t you?

Adan Salazar
Infowars.com
October 23, 2013

Nothing says health insurance like doing a keg stand.

This must have been the conclusion reached by the ad department folks at Colorado’s health insurance marketplace, Connect for Health Colorado.

In a last-ditch effort to garner some much-needed street cred with the nation’s twenty-somethings, Colorado’s marketplace has decided that featuring an image of frat boys performing a keg stand will somehow entice young people into buying health insurance.

“Brosurance,” an ad states. “Keg stands are crazy. Not having health insurance is crazier. Don’t tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills. We got it covered. Now you can too. Thanks obamacare!”

“We were really trying to come up with something fun and creative that would cut through the clutter on social media and create awareness,” Adam Fox, the director of strategic engagement for the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, told the Los Angeles Times, ignoring the fact his “creative” ad campaign is predicated on a 1993 ad for milk.

“We wanted to inject a little bit of humor and have it be fun and have it catch some attention — and sometimes you have to push the envelope a little bit to do that. The idea is really to help those populations realize they have some options,” Fox said.

“Brosurance is the rage today! Regardless of who you are, we want you to #GetCoveredCO!” a tweet from Colorado Health Op pitches.

The ad is one of a slew of new social media spots designed to provoke young and healthy people into signing up for insurance, a key market the federal government says is essential to lowering premiums for everyone across the board.

However, even if someone figures out a decent way to tap into the wallets of college students – who, with student loan repayments, are likely already strapped for cash – it’s highly unlikely anyone’s premium will lower.

As we reported earlier, a hidden spreadsheet found on healthcare.gov, which at one time was available publicly but has since been buried, displays premium rates for every state and county across America, and they don’t seem to be getting any lower.

It’s probably also unfair to target the college crowd with such a superb ad campaign, a section of the population we have demonstrated will sign up for just about anything as long as it’s presented as a means of supporting Obama or his healthcare initiative.

Earlier this month, Infowars had little difficulty getting 14 out of 20 college students at the University of Texas to sign a petition requesting the City of Austin implement a mandatory helmet ordinance for people walking down the street, a measure marketed as a means to “help keep insurance costs down.”

The fictional narrative of “the more people sign up, the lower costs will be for everyone,” is delusional at best, and makes the marketing of health insurance as a trendy, cool and hip thing that you can laugh about with your beer buddies truly laughable.

The stench of desperation is pungent.

This article was posted: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 at 10:23 am

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Kerry Pushes For Attack On Syria: "We Will Not Repeat" The Iraq Experience

SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: Our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack. And I will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment. Accordingly, we have taken unprecedented steps to declassify and make facts available to people who can judge for themselves.

But still, in order to protect sources and methods, some of what we know will only be released to members of Congress, the representatives of the American people. That means that some things we do know, we can’t talk about publicly.

A transcript of Secretary Kerry’s remarks can be accessed here.

RealClearPolitics Video Log

Kerry Pushes For Attack On Syria: "We Will Not Repeat" The Iraq Experience

Obama Pushes For World War 3 With Proxy Wars, Vicious Relations

Anthony Gucciardi
Prison Planet.com
August 15, 2013

Barack Obama is pushing harder than ever to fuel hot proxy wars against Putin’s Russia, publicly comparing him to Hitler and Stalin on national television, and pushing relations to the brink of full scale war.

When we really look at what’s going on, really looking at the way Obama and his handlers are pushing such outlandish and venomous attacks on every front against the slightest possibility of enhanced foreign relations, we come to the realization that Obama is intentionally generating the spirit of conflict between Russia and the United States. And, while we were discussing this months ago, it’s now being highlighted in the Russian media and internationally as a blatant reality.

First and foremost we need to examine the ‘hottest’ form of instigation that is currently ongoing from the Obama administration, and that is the Sryian proxy war that virtually no one knows about. As I’ve reported in the past, Obama is of course funding the Syrian rebels who run around in the streets beheading the Christians and innocents in general bloodlust. Well, that’s bad enough, but it just so happens that Russia is aiding and supporting the opposing side in the war for Syria — Assad’s forces.

HOT WAR WITH RUSSIA

The Russian media is extremely open about this glaring danger, with RT reporting in the article ‘US is involved in ‘Hot War’ with Russia‘ how the hot war in Syrian is truly raging on. Even Yahoo News has detailed this scenario, with one piece entitled ‘By arming Syria rebels, US drawn into proxy war‘. From the Yahoo report:

“Arming the rebels is bound to heighten U.S. tensions with Russia, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad. It could further escalate a brutal, if deadlocked, civil war that has killed nearly 93,000 people and displaced millions, with no end in sight. “

So what you have here is a true proxy war, except it may actually be much worse. You see Russia’s involvement with the Syria conflict is potentially much deeper than just the funding of Assad’s army, which is the current government military within Syria. If you remember the Israeli strike on Russian missile compounds within Syria, which I originally was reporting on amid a mainstream media blackout, there is now military action that may be directly killing Russian troops.

And it is no coincidence that Putin ordered an immediate ‘combat readiness’ exercise for 160,000 troops and an arsenal of military machines following the Israeli strike on the Russia missile compound (originally denied by Israel until it was leaked by US intelligence weeks later). This exercise included everything from naval ships to strategic bombers, but as always it was not worthy of appearing in mainstream news reports. At the time, the media was simply too busy reporting on what George Zimmerman was doing that day.

Another hardcore example of Obama’s out of control taunting of Putin and Russia at large is evidenced in the recent Jay Leno interview, where both Obama and Jay begin heavily demonizing Russia following the nation’s decision to allow NSA whistleblower and hero Edward Snowden into the country. We’re talking about the kind of incendiary wording that does not just equate to political pebbles being thrown across the pond, but a full on attack like nothing I’ve seen before from Obama. In the segment, which CBS News has posted up, Jay and Obama bash Putin for ’rounding up the gays’ as if he were Hitler or Stalin.

Meanwhile, the United States has submerged into a spy grid that only Stalin could dream of.

But it’s essential that we understand the true severity of this and how hard Obama continues to throw coal into this raging Syrian proxy war. We’re talking about a president that back in 2012 issued a ‘secret order’ to begin funding and arming the barbaric Syrian rebels without any form of oversight or approval — without any form of public announcement or justification. And the media just goes with it, accepting the funding as if it were a part of life.

We can go back to present day to see further evidence of this, however, going beyond the 2012 Reuters report and into a sneak peek that shows just how desperately Obama wants to fund these Sryian rebels. Even in the face of resistance from Congress and policymakers at large, Obama is pushing through the funding one way or another. And with the funding set to end for this year in September, he is on a burning mission to get it instituted once again, and it doesn’t matter that the Washington Times has put out articles showing how these Syrian rebels behead Christians and their families.

Yet people think Obama actually cares about them and their families.

The fact is that the classified arming of the rebels is entirely an Obama administration (and handlers) program, and not even the other politicians really have any idea what’s going on. Senator Ron Wyden explained to the Daily Star:

“Increasingly, I believe senators on both sides of the aisle want more information about what the end game is here,” said Democrat Senator Ron Wyden.

And so do I, so do those seeking truth, so does everyone that actually knows about what’s going on here. What is Obama’s end game? The reality of the situation here is that Obama is not playing games when he goes on Jay Leno and compares Putin to Hitler, he is not playing games when he arms Syrian rebels who are massacring Christians and the Russian-supported troops, and he is not playing games when he pretends all of this isn’t really happening.

This post originally appeared at Story Leak

Related posts:

1. Putin and Obama set to spar over Syria arms at G8


2. Obama, CIA Arming Syrian Rebels With Missiles Following ‘Secret Order’


3. Syria: Putin backs Assad and berates west over proposal to arm rebels


4. Another NATO Proxy War Begins, Rebels Attack Military Base in Syria


5. US-Russia Relations Bigger Than Snowden Affair Says Putin

This article was posted: Thursday, August 15, 2013 at 4:52 am

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Obama Pushes For World War 3 With Proxy Wars, Vicious Relations

Britain"s Cameron pushes peace in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) – The chance to end 12 years of grinding war in Afghanistan should be seized by those committed to peace, British Prime Minister David Cameron said in Kabul on Saturday.

Reuters: Top News

Britain"s Cameron pushes peace in Afghanistan

Kansas Governor Pushes Back After Holder Calls Pro-Gun Law Unconstitutional

Eric Lach May 3, 2013, 5:43 PM

Remember all those gun nullification bills that cropped up back in January? Last month, Kansas went ahead and passed one. Senate Bill 102, also known as the Second Amendment Protection Act, became effective in Kansas on April 25. And it has led to a high-level back and forth between Attorney General Eric Holder and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R).

Kansas’ Second Amendment Protection Act declares, among other things, that firearms manufactured and owned in Kansas that do not cross state lines are not subject to any federal laws. It also makes it unlawful for government agents to try to enforce federal laws on firearms made and kept within state lines.

The day after the measure went into effect, Holder sent a letter to Brownback.

“In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, [Senate Bill] 102 directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional,” Holder wrote in his letter. “Federal officers who are responsible for enforcing federal laws and regulations in order to maintain public safety cannot be forced to choose between the risk of a criminal prosecution by a state and the continued performance of their federal duties.”

Citing the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, Holder said that Kansas could not prevent federal employees and officials from carrying out their official responsibilities. The attorney general told Brownback that federal agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would continue to enforce federal laws and regulations. Holder also warned that the government would take “all appropriate action, including litigation if necessary, to prevent the State of Kansas from interfering with the activities of federal officials enforcing federal law.”

On Thursday, Brownback responded.

“The state’s Second Amendment Protection Act, which expressly restates our commitment to these rights, was approved by wide, bi-partisan margins in the Kansas Legislature,” Brownback wrote to Holder, citing the bill’s passage margin in the state Senate (35-4) and state House of Representatives (96-24). “The people of Kansas have clearly expressed their sovereign will. It is my hope that upon further review, you will see their right to do so.”

The same day, Kansas’ Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who was one of Senate Bill 102’s co-authors, issued a much more aggressive statement responding to Holder’s letter.

“Holder’s understanding of the United State Constitution is incorrect,” Kobach said in the statement, obtained by Propublica. “As one of the co-authors of [Senate Bill] 102 and as a former professor of constitutional law, I ensured that it was drafted to withstand any legal challenge.”

Kobach accused Holder of making a “simplistic and incorrect claim” in his letter to Brownback.

“[Holder] rests his claim on the Supremacy Clause of Article VI,” Kobach said. “However, what he fails to mention is the basic constitutional rule that a federal law that exceeds Congress’s power has absolutely no ability to preempt a contrary state law.”

In his defense of the Second Amendment Protection Act, Kobach went far beyond it. He argued that over the “past 80 years,” Congress has used the interstate commerce power to regulate numerous subjects “that have nothing to do with interstate commerce—including firearms.” He also brought up the “Fast and Furious” ATF gun walking scandal, “the executive amnesty for illegal aliens the DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano launched in June 2012,” and accused the Obama administration of “repeatedly” violating the constitution over the past four-and-a-half years.

“With respect to any litigation,” Kobach said, “we will happily meet Mr. Holder in court.”

(h/t Propublica)

  Eric Holder Letter To Sam Brownback

2nd Amendment, Gun Rights

Eric Lach

Eric Lach is a reporter for TPM. From 2010 to 2011, he was a news writer in charge of the website’s front page. He has previously written for The Daily, NewYorker.com, GlobalPost and other publications. He can be reached at ericl(at)talkingpointsmemo.com

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Kansas Governor Pushes Back After Holder Calls Pro-Gun Law Unconstitutional