Greg Galitzine : Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog
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TMCnet Blogger Family Grows

April 27, 2009

Today I'm proud to welcome our latest TMCnet blogger, Chuck Rutledge who will be sharing his insights and opinions via his new "Now Market It" blog.   I've known Chuck for over a decade, and he has always been a fantastic resource for articles I was working on and he was always ready to present compelling content at the ITEXPO conferences. Most recently Chuck served as the VP of Corporate Marketing at NET, a leading provider of VoIP equipment to enterprise, service providers and the government, where he joined via the acquisition of Quintum Technologies. Chuck had been VP of Marketing and Business Development with Quintum since the firm's early start-up days.   Today he is Managing Director at Precise Insights, a high tech marketing consulting company.   Please join me in welcoming Chuck to our family of TMCnet bloggers, a family that continues to grow with each passing week. In fact we are fast approaching the 50-contributor milestone on our blogs page.   If you are interested in reaching a diverse, highly technical, highly knowledgeable audience of up to 2 million people per month, drop me a line to ggalitzine (at) tmcnet.com and we can discuss setting up a blog for you too.

The Web: The Best is Yet to Come

April 23, 2009

If you think the Internet's a crowded place today, guess what? One of the Internets founders (insert Al Gore jokes here) Tim Berners-Lee, keynoting at the 18th Annual World Wide Web conference in Madrid this week, believes that the best of the Internet is yet to come.   "The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past," he said.   The ITU report, Measuring the Information Society, The ICT Development Index, finds that only 23% of the global population currently uses the Internet, as compared to over 60% of the world's population that is currently subscribing to mobile cellular phone services.   An article on Breitbart quotes Internet co-founder Vinton Cerf who says, "We will have more Internet, larger numbers of users, more mobile access, more speed, more things online and more appliances we can control over the Internet."   I for one, think we all can agree that the future of the Web is mobile. As smartphones proliferate and becomes less expensive; as next-generation wireless networks bring Internet access into every far-flung corner of the globe; as more people are able to get access to more information, we will see the truly transformational power of the Internet facilitate a freer exchange of ideas, resulting in new advances in technology, society, etc...   Now if only we can do away with e-Mail spam...

Manhattan School of Music Teaches the World

April 14, 2009

Back in a previous life (GG:BTMC) I worked on Manhattan's Upper West Side managing a stationery store that was an outgrowth of a successful private bookstore serving the needs of the students at Columbia University, Barnard College, and Manhattan School of Music (MSM).   It was a fun period of my life and I was treated to a pleasant reminder of that time by a news item that came across my desk today, namely that MSM was leveraging distance learning powered by Polycom's HD Telepresence solutions to extend their classrooms to the world. 
  MSM has reportedly been using distance learning since 1996, allowing approximately 1,700 students around the world to participate in classes, workshops, and clinics to help them master their craft. Currently they are using the Polycom HDX 8000 and HDX 9000 series room telepresence and VSX 8000 series video conferencing systems to reach their audience.   As the technology evolved so too did the opportunity to reach more students, more effectively.   According to composer/conductor Robert Sirota, president of MSM, "Our use of visual communication has changed the way we do music instruction at this school in a very profound way."

"It's effective because it quickly becomes invisible," added Sirota. "After 10 or 15 minutes of using the system, you're less and less aware that you're engaged in a high-tech video call. You're simply working.


Toddler's iPhone Obsession

April 10, 2009

Kara Swisher who writes for the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital, has a very interesting video showing a toddler's iPhone obsession, and frankly it made me think of a bunch of people I know and how they sometimes let their gadget obsessions get the best of them.   Of course I love a cool tech toy as much as anyone, but I'm a bit of a laggard when it comes to laying my hands on the latest and greatest.
 
Sometimes I think I'm just on a different schedule, that's all. For example I can't wait to accessorize my aging (banged up, with a cracked screen) KRZR with a new handset accessory, like the one from Novophone (pictured).
  There is something comforting about that retro look.   Maybe then I'll consider the iPhone. I wonder if they'll reissue it in the classic Princess form factor... They do have a deal with AT&T, don't they?


Attending HIMSS - Healthcare Meets IT

April 7, 2009

Just a quick note to say I'm in Chicago at the McCormick Center, attending the HIMSS conference, which covers IT in the Healthcare space.   I prearranged a bunch of meetings and I'll be jetting from booth to booth starting in about 15 minutes.   For those paying attention to all the nasty windy weather we've been experiencing (and flying in) I have to say today was a smoooooooth flight from the NY area out to O'Hare.   Let's hope tonight's flight back is the same.   Looking forward to my meetings, and I'll keep you updated as time allows.   In the meantime don't forget to stay up to speed on the latest healthcare and related news at our TMCnet Healthcare vertical site. If the intersection of healthcare and technology is your market - bookmark this site today!

Busy Week Inches to a Close

April 2, 2009

It's been quite a good week. The Dow is steadily rising (let's see what Friday brings: profit taking or Dow 8,000) and in less than 10 hours, it's wheels up for this Galitzine, heading home after a jam-packed week of IP communications at a couple of trade shows in Orlando and Las Vegas.   I've posted a few items already, covering some of the companies I met with and I have a few write-ups to go, but the bulk of the content will be coming to you in the form of videos posted to our TMC Newsroom. I can't remember such a busy schedule. I would say I met with well over 80 people this week, each with an interesting story to tell.   Truth be told the general feeling I walk away with after all these meetings is that innovation continues unabated, the economic malaise has to some degree spared a telecom sector that may have been prepared courtesy of the previous financial meltdown, and end users (you and me both) are growing ever more hungry for new apps - check that - new bandwidth hungry apps.   I'll be mostly out of pocket tomorrow as I'm flying back East across 3 time zones, but I look forward to hitting the ground running in short order.    

Skype Party - Rich's Photos

April 2, 2009

DIRECTV Tops for Would-Be TV Service Switchers... Really?

March 26, 2009

Seeking Alpha has an article titled, Who's Winning the Cable Service Provider Wars? that discusses a recent ChangeWave survey.   While some of the results make perfect sense, other results may surprise you as they did me.   ChangeWave surveyed 2,830 respondents and found that price is now the key issue when consumers decide to switch TV service providers. Given the state of the economy, that's not too surprising. Apparently 48% of respondents who plan to switch their cable, satellite or fiber-optic TV provider in the next six months say price is the primary reason.   Slightly more surprising, but perhaps understandable is the fact that when asked how satisfied they were with their current TV service provider, respondents overwhelmingly gave fiber-optic TV services high marks.   According to the research, Verizon's FiOS service tops the list in terms of having the highest percentage of customers who say they are Very or Somewhat Satisfied with their provider. AT&T's U-Verse service is second.

Flying Home, WIsh I Nabbed a "Demo Unit" From TI

March 6, 2009

I'm at DFW, waiting on my early flight back to the New York area.   As I mentioned in my last post, I learned this week that Sipera is up to some interesting things.   I also stopped by Texas Instruments on this trip, and in addition to getting a run down on their OMAP 4 strategy I learned  about some of the other things they just showcased at the Mobile World Congress show.   Robert Tolbert, platform marketing manager, OMAP platform business unit shared the company's recent news, and explained the company's activity in TI's quest to continue to improve user experience and the power properties of the devices that TI chips are deployed in.   Tolbert also discussed the company's recent announcement (with Samsung) of PicoDLP technology, which will be available in a Samsung handset soon,   After the briefing we took a tour of TI's Wireless Application Center (WAC), where I got to see the PicoDLP technology up close and personal. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a tiny projector, which can take your source video (as an example) and project it onto any nearby surface, such as a wall, or the back of an airplane seat. The quality is amazing, but to me the fact that this technology is available in a handset or a standalone device smaller than a deck of cards is pretty remarkable.   I almost wish I could have taken a "review copy" of the device to trial on my flight home today. It would be a great way to catch up on some of the movies I have yet to watch, or perhaps just review the video interviews that I conducted in Dallas this week.

F-f-flying to Dallas?

March 2, 2009

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