December 2004 Archives

Om is right. A year without tragedy would indeed be a wonderful gift.

We should all take a few moments out of our lives and pay attention to those less fortunate who have suffered immensely in the aftermath of the massive earthquake and the tsunamis it spawned.

One of my colleagues at TMC has family in Sri Lanka. He was lucky enough to receive good news about the health and safety of his relatives. Many people were not so lucky.

As the death toll from this horrible tragedy rises past 55,000 (unfortunately that toll is expected to continue to rise), the need for assistance grows apace. Millions of people are affected in nearly a dozen countries across multiple continents. Beyond the immediate basic needs of food, shelter, water, etc., one has to realize that there will be many long-term consequences. Orphaned children, families in need of crisis counseling, wholly displaced communities, people trying to piece together some shred of a life that was changed suddenly and violently by nature’s wrath... The suffering will continue long after most people have forgotten about the unimaginable destruction of December 25/26.

The Red Cross and Red Crescent societies are collecting donations to help those affected by the crisis. Donations to the American Red Cross International Response Fund can be made by calling 1-800-HELP NOW.

Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) is also accepting donations.
888-392-0392
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

A very thorough list of organizations that are accepting donations to help the victims of this disaster can be found at The Command Post.

This latest crisis is no different than other tragedies. Hurricanes that ravage the Caribbean, earthquakes that devastate Armenia, mudslides in Brazil… We tend to forget how violent this planet can be sometimes. Natural disasters are most certainly a part of daily life worldwide. It is my hope that these few words might nudge some of you to take a moment out of your day and make a donation to help in the wake of this most recent tragedy. Every little bit helps.

ABI Research issued a “wake-up call” to a number of industry players this morning, suggesting that a merger or acquisition pairing an IM company and a VoIP company might result in a huge revenue opportunity.

According to Vamsi Sistla, director of broadband and residential entertainment technologies at ABI Research, “Millions of people use the big IM services. Some use their voice capabilities. But the experience is pretty horrible. You have to sit at a computer, use a microphone, and speak loudly. And it goes over the public Internet, so quality is poor and security is suspect.”

Regarding the large IM companies, Sistla continued, “Why aren’t they doing anything about it? They have an established presence: why don’t they buy out a Vonage, an Avaya or a Voiceglo, integrate their technology and start offering packages to existing and new subscribers? Isn’t that a huge revenue opportunity for them?”

The big IM companies may be waiting for the VoIP market to shake out before eyeing the survivors, or they may just have other priorities. “I’m not saying that Vonage or any of the others are ready for sale,” Sistla adds, “but there would be definite benefits to such an acquisition.”

ABI’s study Residential VoIP Markets: Cable, DSL, WiMAX, Hosted IP Telephony Subscribers and CPE lays out the drivers, barriers, and opportunities in the broadband VoIP market. Forecasts include subscribers, subscriber revenue, CPE shipments, and CPE revenue.

The Yankee Group today released results of a study that show IP telephony solution providers need to focus on the basic features that make IP telephony work in corporate environments. The Yankee Group IP Telephony YankeeBrandMonitor indicated that attributes such as stability, reliability, and quality outweighed "future" benefits, such as technology leader and innovator.

Cisco Systems and IBM ranked number one and number two, respectively, in the study for deployment preference in the next two years.

Buyers rated vendors on a seven-point scale, where 1 indicated definitely will not implement and 7 indicated definitely will implement. Cisco (5.4) and IBM (5.1) were the only two vendors to score higher than 5. Avaya, Siemens and SBC tied for third with a score of 4.7. Verizon, Accenture and Nortel tied for sixth at 4.5, and the only two IXCs in the study, AT&T and MCI, were ninth and tenth respectively with scores of 4.4 and 4.0.

"To gain customer confidence and become a leader, IP telephony solutions providers need to focus more on proving to their customers that the IP telephony solutions work today and focus less on marketing the futuristic benefits of IP telephony," says Zeus Kerravala, Yankee Group enterprise infrastructure vice president. "Cisco has taken an early leadership position in both IP telephony awareness and adoption preference. However, the market is still in the early-adopter phase, and there are many other solutions providers nipping at their heels."

According to a just released report from In-Stat/MDR, titled Business VoIP: An End-User’s Perspective, 2004, VoIP has made great strides among U.S. businesses as the percentage of companies using the technology grew from 3% to 12% over the past 12 months.

The research firm found that much higher rates of penetration are found within the larger business segments, forecasting that middle market VoIP penetration will be at 34% by year’s end, and at 43% in the large business segment.

The report examines current and future deployment plans for VoIP, covering such diverse topics as type of deployment (IP PBX or IP Centrex), service provider selection criteria, and vendor and service provider preferences. This report also contains forecasts by size of business for the number of firms that will use VoIP.

“There are many different ways that businesses are migrating to VoIP,” says In-Stat/MDR analyst Daryl Schoolar. “Each installation requires a certain amount of customization. For service providers this requires a more consultative customer approach than what they are used to with their traditional services.”

In-Stat/MDR's research also found that:
• Most firms will be using a mixture of voice communication services and technologies, not VoIP exclusively.
• Although large and medium-sized firms are the early adopters, vendors should not neglect smaller firms and should develop tailored solutions for them.
• Businesses currently show a preference for VoIP deployment to have some LAN-based element, such as an IP PBX, as opposed to a totally outsourced solution, such as IP Centrex. However, this preference seems to be diminishing for businesses that are planning to deploy VoIP.