Greg Galitzine : Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog
Greg Galitzine

ITEXPO

Education is Key to Growth of SIP Trunking

September 16, 2008

Joel Maloff is Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at BandTel.   He's pulling double duty this week at ITEXPO, speaking both in the Ingate SIP Trunking seminar as well as in the TMC University session entitled Best Practices in VoIP Security.   The fact that Maloff is speaking at a conference designed to educate attendees fits right in with the general theme of education that is playing a major role in his life these days.   Maloff, who is tasked with driving BandTel's strategic focus and message, is spearheading a more aggressive campaign built on proactive education to help customers understand how Band Tel can help them achieve their goals.   But it's not just end users that need education. Maloff told TMCnet that the reseller community is in need of education too, to better understand how they can embrace a recurring revenue stream. Resellers and VARs are interested in selling product, he said. BandTel offers them an opportunity to establish a recurring revenue stream via their various programs.   Consultants who advise end users also need to be educated about the various options provided by SIP Trunking.   Among the bigger challenges facing the industry, Maloff believes that the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) being spread by certain providers will eventually fall away as more pure SIP Trunking deployments underscore the value propositions and customers begin to understand how they can leverage SIP Trunking.

Simple Signal Does V-Mail to Text

September 16, 2008

I had the pleasure of meeting with Simple Signal executives who caught me up on what the company has been up to lately. SimpleSignal is exhibiting at this week's ITEXPO at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Stop by and see them in booth 642.   Among the things we discussed,  was the exciting news of a new voicemail-to-text service called SimpleScribe that's designed to let small and medium businesses (SMBs) more easily manage their voicemail messages by reading them. Built on GotVoice technology, a white label version of the SimpleScribe voicemail-to-text service is immediately available for channel partners.   The new SimpleScribe service converts voice messages into text and delivers them via e-mail.

Connect With Avaya Networking Event On Tap

September 15, 2008

Monday morning, it must be Los Angeles...   ITEXPO preparation is full swing here at the LA Convention Center, as the exhibit hall floor is being layed out and the trucks are getting set to roll in.   While there are no activities scheduled at the convention center for attendees until tomorrow, Avaya is putting together a networking/informational event tonight at the nearby Westin Bonaventure Hotel, at the Bonaventure Brewing Company.   The "Technology on Tap - Connect with Avaya" event is open to all ITEXPO attendees and will feature great information from Avaya and their partners, followed by a networking reception at the Bonaventure Brewing Company. The event is scheduled for Monday September 15th (today) from 7:00pm until 9:30pm.   To reserve your spot at this free and informative event, please register here.   See you at the Westin!

In Town for ITEXPO

September 14, 2008

I've just arrived in Los Angeles with an advance platoon of my TMC colleagues ahead of ITEXPO West 2008, which runs from Tuesday September 16-Thursday September 19.   I'm really looking forward to the show this year. The meetings I have on tap promise to be chock full of new product information, which I can't wait to share with my readers.   Furthermore, I'm really excited by our keynote lineup which will feature a whole series of insightful speeches from industry leaders including Skype, Microsoft, Sonus, AudioCodes, BroadSoft and 8x8. Indeed when you factor in keynotes from Avaya, Cisco and Texas Instruments at the collocated Communications Developer, it's a speaker lineup that is really tough to beat.   But before we get to that stage, we need to lay the groundwork, so my co-workers and I are in town early today to make sure that everything goes smoothly as the conference rooms, exhibit hall and all the other elements of the show come together as planned.   It promises to be quite an interesting and exciting week, so if you haven't finalized your plans to attend yet, I urge you to take advantage of our online registration for the show. If you register online you can avoid the $50 onsite registration fee.

ITEXPO: Well On Its Way!

July 21, 2008

By any stretch of the imagination, 90% is considered a good number, with the obvious implication that 90% is WELL ON ITS WAY to 100%.   For example, in Butte County, CA,. a series of fires started by lightning strikes are reportedly 90% contained. The upshot is that the fire department is well on its way toa successful resolution of the situation.   NBC Sports sales issued a release saying that ad sales for NBC's family of networks are 90 percent sold out of their Summer Olympics inventory. Apparently there was great concern that they would fall short of their goals, but now it appears they are well on their way to 100%.
    Likewise, Rich Tehrani blogged today that ITEXPO has sold out 90% of its Exhibit Hall capacity, and there are still two months to go before the event.   Looks like ITEXPO is well on its way to becoming another successful show!    

Communications Developer Conference Coming To Los Angeles

March 28, 2008

I just confirmed that Communications Developer Conference will be making a triumphant return to Los Angeles this September 16–18.   The event will be co-located with Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO at the Los Angeles Convention Center.   The final details are being ironed out as I write this and the event Web site will be up in the next couple of days, so stay tuned.   Also, since I tend to be involved in the conference planning portion of TMC’s events, please drop me a line if you are interested in participating in the conference program. 

Speaking proposals should be sent to [email protected] and mention Communications Developer in the subject line.   We’re looking for presentations on the following topics:
  • Application development
  • Enabling technologies
  • Open Source Design Considerations
  • Developing Wireless VoIP Solutions
  • Developing for Wireless, and more.
  A more detailed call for papers will be available in the next day or two.   It looks like our fall events are shaping up to be as successful as ever. Drop me a line if you want to be part of the industry’s fastest growing events.    

Jon Arnold ITEXPO Interviews

February 1, 2008

Jon Arnold ITEXPO Interviews

February 1, 2008

Nortel Keynote at ITEXPO

January 25, 2008

Tony Rybczynski, director of strategic enterprise technologies at Nortel, delivered a keynote at ITEXPO yesterday stressing a converging world and a tectonic shift occurring in the market.   Tony began by suggesting the show change the meaning of the acronym ITEXPO to “In-transition Technology EXPO, to better reflect the current state of the shift currently happening in the IP communications industry.   As Rybczynski noted, “The industry is moving to software and we are in the midst of a fundamental transformation.”   Regarding most enterprise workers, “they will only buy one more phone. Your next phone is your last one,” Rybczynski said.   He spoke about the concept of “Hyperconectivity,” the idea that anything that can be connected and would benefit from being connected will be connected.   He cited examples of various types of connectivity (person to person; person to machine; machine to machine) and in support of the last type, he said that 98% of CPUs are going into things other than PCs. To illustrate that point Rybczynski pointed out certain examples such as rodent raps that can send a signal when they’ve caught a mouse, wireless beacons on children’s backpacks for safety, and RFID tags that contain additional consumer information.   Rybczynski addressed the challenges and opportunities that hyperconnectivity brings:   Challenge Opportunity Decreased personal and group productivity Rich collaboration across devices, networks, and modes of operations Human delays in business processes Accelerated business processes Poor asset utilization Energy efficiencies; Real time asset tracking; Enhanced security and compliance 10–100x more endpoints and more real time applications Simplified networking with real time reliability and performance   Perhaps the key takeaway from the keynote was this: There is a need to simplify and scale networks, while increasing reliability in order to accommodate more connected users and devices more rich media traffic and more real time demands.   “Worlds are converging,” Rybczynski said. “Synergy matters.”      

SIP Trunking Sessions Strike a Chord at ITEXPO

January 24, 2008

SIP trunking is proving itself as a way to reduce communications costs – fast. SIP trunks are currently being used by banks, hospitals and most every type of business, across every industry, to leverage the benefits of SIP and lower communications expenses.   Ingate Systems produces SIP-capable enterprise firewalls and SIParators (a piece of hardware that SIP-enables existing firewalls) for enterprises of all sizes. The company has been at the forefront of educating Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO attendees on how they can maximize the ROI from their IP PBX investments through a series of SIP Trunking Seminars since the Fall of 2006.   I had the chance to speak with Olle Westerberg CEO, Ingate, Steve Johnson, president of Ingate, Anne Coulombe, who handles SIP product marketing for Avaya’s Solutions Marketing Division, Sean Rivers, channel account manager at Bandwidth.com, and Joel Maloff, the newly installed director of marketing at Bandtel.   I asked Westerberg to describe a bit about the seminar series.   “We're running our fourth set of SIP trunking seminars,” Westerberg said.
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