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P2P Identity Theft
September 7, 2007
Boy are those hackers are creative is all I could think when I learned a person used LimeWire to steal personal information such as tax returns from people’s computers. The hacker subsequently used this information to commit identity theft. Thankfully law enforcement including the secret service helped solve this case and as you might imagine it is very difficult to solve a case of identity theft via p2p file-sharing network.
Having your identity stolen in this manner is a really tough crime to solve and if you have a computer that others use, you may want to make sure that LimeWire and other file sharing software is not installed. If it is be sure to set it to only share files in directories that do not contain your confidential information such as passwords and tax returns.
Good luck and may the p2p firewall be with you. ;)
Here is more from the Seattle Times.
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Surf Communications
September 7, 2007
I recently had the opportunity to ask Ilan Weizman of Surf Communications Solutions about the evolution of the IP communications space and the direction his company is taking.
Surf develops a suite of hardware and software products that drives a wide variety of applications for high-capacity distribution of voice and video. These applications are predominantly developed by media gateway, media server and IMS equipment manufacturers in the telecommunications infrastructure field.
RT: Please outline your new corporate initiatives.
IW: The newest initiative at Surf relates to our interactive live TV service for mobile devices. We believe this service has the potential to become the first multimedia killer application, opening the door for a multitude of others. The successful deployment of this service is dependent on overcoming technological and commercial challenges, which at the moment are preventing this service from taking off. Our goal is to provide the requisite infrastructure hardware platforms and multimedia processing tools to enable our customers to develop related applications and make this type of service a reality.
RT: How is IP communications changing your company’s strategy?
IW: No change — IP communications has always been our business. As a matter of fact, we consider ourselves convergence experts!
RT: What is the biggest request coming from your customer base?
IW: Our customers are voicing requests for Video over IP (VoIP) for all kinds of terminals.
RT: How are you answering their demands?
IW: For quite some time now Surf has believed that the future of telecom applications lies in video. As a result, we are ready with video support, including 3G-324M, IP Video, Video Conferencing, and Video for CTI applications. These capabilities have already been successfully implemented in many customer applications (see our Web site for a list of press releases detailing such customer success stories). We are happy to share this video expertise to help our customers build outstanding, feature-rich video applications.
RT: What do you think the future of the market is?
IW: We believe that it will continue to grow, as per the IMS architecture.
RT: How does the growth rate in the U.S. compare to the rest of the world?
IW: The U.S. appears to be growing at a more conservative rate than the rest of the world. However, this seems to be changing now that Cingular has started to push consumer-based demands for mobile content. Once the service providers start providing the infrastructure the opportunities will skyrocket.
RT: What do you think of Google and Apple entering the telecom market?
IW: These moves simply bear witness to the importance of convergence and the wide-reaching penetration of mobile content as a driver.
RT: How about Microsoft?
IW: Are they really a serious player? We noticed their “VoIP for enterprise” ad on your Web site, so I guess they are making an effort.
RT: How will wireless technologies change our market?
IW: Fixed Mobile Convergence is already here.
RT: What sorts of things will we be hearing about during your presentation at ITEXPO?
IW: The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a next generation networking architecture for telecom operators, which includes (among other components) a media gateway, a media resource function processor (MRFP), and a session border controller (SBC). Now, instead of using three different boxes to fulfill each of these requirements, developers can use building blocks and components to handle all three functions, enabling TEMs (Telecom Equipment Manufacturers) to build a single box to fulfill all of these IMS functions. The goal here is to lower the total cost of ownership and increase operators’ and service providers’ revenue by providing more services and functions that they in turn can offer their customers. The session will focus on development strategies to optimize IMS components and address integration opportunities with emerging platforms.
RT: Why is your presentation a “Can’t Miss?”
IW: Voice traffic over IP is now considered a commodity, so operator revenues are naturally dropping. Our presentation will demonstrate how telecom operators and service providers can actually increase their revenues by utilizing the precepts of the IMS architecture, and employing a “mix-and-match” best-of-breeds approach to develop exciting new services for customers.
RT: What do you want the industry to know about your company?
IW: Surf, a market-proven company since 1996, is positioned as an expert in mobile video transcoding technologies. Surf’s customers can significantly reduce time-to-market while supporting market demands for true convergence of all media types: audio/voice, video, and data (fax/modem), over all networks: IP, mobile, wireline, and wireless. Our unique architecture, wherein all media types are processed simultaneously on a single DSP and wherein up to eight DSPs can be mixed and matched on a single resource board, has been pre-integrated with leading hardware manufacturers to provide customers with an excellent way to create and deploy feature-rich telecom applications for increased ARPU.
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Quintum News
September 7, 2007
The number of new announcements being released at ITEXPO next week will likely be a show record if the early buzz is any indication. For example, today I learned Quintum; the Microsoft Certified VoIP gateway company will be making news in Los Angeles next week with upgrades across their product line. For example the Tenor product will now get auto-discovery and auto-provisioning as well. These are great features enabling rapid deployment.For more, here is a link to the show news page and the first ITEXPO show daily. You can see me in Los Angeles next week and Quintum in booth number 519.
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TeamQuest
September 7, 2007
I recently had the opportunity to speak with TeamQuest Corporation’s director of communications, Keith Hanna, about the IP communications space, SIP and the overall direction of the company.TeamQuest Corporation is a provider of IT Service Optimization, specializing in Capacity Management software. TeamQuest helps IT organizations consistently meet service levels while minimizing costs and mitigating risks.
RT: Please outline your new corporate initiatives.
KH: TeamQuest Corporation is the global leader in IT service optimization, specializing in Capacity Management software that helps IT organizations consistently meet service levels while minimizing costs and mitigating risks.
The company recently announced TeamQuest Performance Software Release 10 — the next evolution in enterprise-class Capacity Management software.
TeamQuest is focused on delivering software that meets the changing needs of the data center. The company is currently focused on extending its capabilities in the virtualized environment as well as providing TeamQuest software users with the ability to enjoy easy to use enterprise-class tools for investigating IT service performance.
Two new products, IT Service Reporter and IT Service Analyzer, are rich Web applications that provide a desktop-quality user interface accessible from a browser.
Release 10 also introduces the concept of IT Resources which facilitate customized views of IT infrastructure. IT Resources define relationships between hardware and software components, allowing users to view infrastructure components by tier, platforms, location, or in terms of the IT Services they support.
RT: How is IP communications changing your company’s strategy?
KH: TeamQuest’s role in the IP communications market will become increasingly critical to enterprise and telecom providers to ensure the underlying computing infrastructure of these systems, and the services delivered by IP communications are optimized.
As IP communications continues to proliferate, so will the enterprise and customer-facing applications that rely on optimized computing. Application architectures such as Services Oriented Architectures (SOA) and the emerging IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) are reliant on IP communications.
RT: How has SIP changed communications?
KH: The telecommunications market took more than 100 years to mature, yet almost overnight the Internet, IP communications and now Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) have turned the industry on its head. Of course, without the Internet and IP communications, SIP has no value. Coupled with IP communications, SIP can enable almost anyone to become a telephone company. With SIP-based software and SIP-compliant telephone devices, a large-scale, widely distributed, and feature-rich telecommunications network can be architected over the Internet.
RT: What is the biggest request coming from your customer base?
KH: Scalability and automation are the most common requests from our customer base. Our customers want scalable Capacity Management tools to gain a strategic advantage against the competition.
RT: How are you answering their demands?
KH: We work with our clients, engaging them at most points throughout the development of our software releases. In fact, Release 10 shows how we listened to our partners in providing a strategic, scalable Capacity Management tool. Our two new products, IT Service Reporter and IT Service Analyzer are summarized below:
TeamQuest IT Service Reporter provides an intuitive, flexible, and highly interactive, drag-and-drop interface for easy creation and customization of management reports. Include corporate logos, explanatory text, and the most appropriate charts for different audiences.
TeamQuest IT Service Analyzer provides an easy to use enterprise-class tool for investigating IT service performance, even in highly distributed heterogeneous environments.
In addition to the two new products, Release 10 also provides improved predictive modeling support for virtualized environments, improvements to zSeries analysis, and much more.
RT: What do you think the future of the market is?
KH: TeamQuest can’t predict where the market is headed, but we believe that the ability to consistently deliver services to the customer is very important because that is an area where companies can gain a competitive advantage.
RT: What do you think of Google and Apple entering the telecom market?
KH: It adds non-traditional elements to the environment. Their results in telecom may enable other peripheral players to enter the market, which could result in diversification of market segments, technologies and applications.
RT: How about Microsoft?
KH: Microsoft’s size alone can cause waves in the market. Microsoft’s sheer force may cause the industry to shift in its direction.
RT: How will wireless technologies change our market?
KH: Successful proliferation of WiMAX and municipal WiFi systems will further extend the reach of broadband technologies and the Internet. This will continue to accelerate IP communications and associated applications, placing an emphasis on ensuring quality services are delivered to customers.
RT: How will communications evolve over the next five years?
KH: The decline of wired services and migration to wireless will result in more mobile workforce. This would cause decentralizing of the workforce through increased deployment of work-at-home and other similar actions.
RT: What sorts of things will we be hearing about during your presentation at ITEXPO?
KH: Next-generation technologies such as SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture), IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) and SDF (Service Delivery Frameworks) foist rapid change onto many parts of the telecom industry, including its core architecture.
These technologies demand more attention from Capacity Management early in the service implementation process when designing and scaling the IT infrastructure to support various and multiplying service types, and to maintain the service quality necessary to attract and retain rapid subscriber adoption.
For example, the prospect of supporting extreme transaction processing alone suggests that some kind of optimization strategy is necessary in the datacenter.
Carriers need to plan ahead to optimize the underlying server computing infrastructure for SOA and IMS in the face of rapid subscriber adoption and extreme transaction processing. What good is it to rapidly deploy new service applications and turn up many new customers if the underlying systems cannot support the accelerating processing load?
RT: Why is your presentation a “Can’t Miss?”
KH: Attendees must see the bigger picture. Network management needs to become “enterprise” management. There is a tremendous amount of technology to understand and many “moving parts” to go wrong. Yes, the network is important, but with the advent of virtualized servers, grid computing and a more mobile workforce, workload volumes can quickly shift locations which can make effective network management challenging.
I see the need for network management to converge with the other IT management disciplines to become “enterprise” management.
RT: What do you want the industry to know about your company?
KH: Many leading telecom service providers and Fortune 500 enterprises have selected TeamQuest and its data and analysis software to optimize their environments.
Customers use TeamQuest’s software platform to optimize the performance and capacity of their open system servers and mainframe servers. TeamQuest offers an innovative Analytical Modeling technology capable of complex “What-If” analyses of future IT systems performance.
Many network operators and service providers use TeamQuest software to make informed decisions as to how growth will affect their operations, helping them mitigate the risks associated with mission critical decisions.
RT: Please make one surprising prediction we will see in five years.
KH: Technology will be developed, and deployment started, that delivers high-speed wireless access to rural areas; thereby exploding internet use and changing the way companies and governments do business and improving people communications, collaborations.
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Nice Systems
September 7, 2007
Brian Spraetz, Senior Product Marketing Manager NICE Systems Inc., recently sat down with me (virtually over e-mail :) )to discuss IP communications and NICE’s upcoming presentation at ITEXPO.NICE Systems is the leading provider of Insight from Interactions, offering comprehensive performance management and interaction analytics solutions for the enterprise and public safety and security markets. Read more about the company here.
RT: Please outline your new corporate initiatives.
BS: We recently introduced the NICE SmartCenter solution to the market. This innovative offering is geared towards achieving and maintaining high levels of performance across the enterprise, especially in the contact center. A central SmartCenter technology is its interaction analytics capabilities that allow businesses to extract valuable business insights from unstructured recorded interactions such as conversations and screen activity. These insights help an organization to improve decision-making and strategic planning efforts.
RT: How is IP communications changing your company’s strategy?
BS: The rise in popularity of IP as a communications medium has opened new possibilities for capturing interactions across the enterprise. With previous telephony technologies, extending capture resources to small offices and branches was not feasible due to cost and support concerns. IP telephony allows for the centralization of capture resources, which lowers support costs, while making it cost-effective to extend the reach of capture capabilities to remote and branch offices.
RT: How has SIP changed communications?
BS: We utilize SIP-based communications within our own solution for command and control purposes. However, its usefulness as an industry standard has been limited by the various ‘flavors’ of SIP that exist across different vendors. If SIP can become a true standard for IP communications it offers a great deal of promise in simplifying much of the complexity involved in integration efforts between solutions and infrastructure.
RT: What is the biggest request coming from your customer base?
BS: Our customers are requesting that our IP interaction capture solutions have the same levels of functionality and robustness that is found in our traditional TDM products. They are also asking for a seamless transition from traditional to IP interaction capture methods, and want a solution that works across the wide range of IP telephony vendors and environments.
RT: How are you answering their demands?
BS: Our IP products have the same, and in some cases even greater, scalability, reliability and redundancy than our traditional TDM line. Plus, the two types can be intermixed within the same deployment easing migration planning and rollout. We support all major IP telephony vendor environments and also offer our own network-ready IP capture device capable of bring ‘active IP’ capture to environments that do not support that mode.
RT: What do you think the future of the market is?
BS: The IP telephony market will continue to grow as companies expand and replace aging TDM-based infrastructures. The ability to extend traditional telephony functionality into remote offices and branches also serves as a big driver for continued market expansion.
RT: How does the U.S. growth rate compare to the rest of the world?
BS: We have seen the U.S. market increase dramatically over the last couple of years. Prior to that, most major IP telephony deployments were occurring outside of the U.S.
RT: What do you think of Google and Apple entering the telecom market?
How about Microsoft?
BS: I think that anything that brings IP telephony ‘mainstream’ is good.
RT: What sorts of things will we be hearing about during your presentation at ITEXPO?
BS: I am on a panel that is discussing the benefits and challenges surrounding call recording in an IP environment. I expect the issues I raised earlier, migration, cross-vendor support and reliability will likely be raised and addressed by the panel.
RT: Why is your presentation a “Can’t Miss?”
BS: Having a plan to move interaction capture capabilities from traditional TDM to VoIP environments is no longer an option. If your organization is in the process of converting or actively planning a conversion it is very important to understand the issues and options available in the market, and to learn from the successes and struggles of companies that have been there already.
RT: What do you want the industry to know about your company?
BS: NICE has long been a believer in the benefits and advantages offered by IP telephony. In fact, we hold multiple patents on VoIP recording methods that were filed many years before the technology took off.
RT: Please make one surprising prediction we will see in 5 years.
BS: The traditional TDM switch vendors will no longer exist. They will have been acquired by new players in the market or have shrunken to irrelevance.
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NeoPhonetics
September 7, 2007
I recently had the opportunity to ask NeoPhonetics executives about open source/open standards-based on IP communications, cost effective PBX platforms, and more.NeoPhonetics designs, implements and supports custom VoIP telephone systems for enterprises with a specialty in open source Asterisk installations. As I mentioned a few days ago, the interest in open source systems is growing nicely as evidenced how rapidly TMC’s fonality’s training session sold out.
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Please outline your new corporate initiatives.
NeoPhonetics continues to focus on the proliferation of open source/open standards based on IP communications through the use of improved multi-vendor VoIP management platforms and location based management services. Our unified management system for Asterisk provides enterprise grade, fully redundant and distributed PBX architecture and centralized management and monitoring of an Asterisk PBX system to many business locations. The ease of use this new system enables rapid deployment by resellers and integrators. It also allows large organizations the ability to realize the flexibility and cost advantages many small and medium-sized businesses have already obtained from Asterisk deployments.
How is IP communications changing your company’s strategy?
With the rapid evolution of additional features and interoperable VoIP products, NeoPhonetics is focusing on deploying cost-effective and easy-to-use redundant IP communication platforms so that enterprises have the financial and system flexibility to make use of these new technologies.
How has SIP changed communications?
SIP fundamentally enables cross platform integrations, provided the SIP stack is consistent with the published open standards.
What is the biggest request coming from your customer base?
Our customers want a cost effective PBX platform, common sense management tools that enable non-technical administration of their PBX systems and advanced customized integrated features for targeted business units.
How are you answering their demands?
The Asterisk platform along with the NeoPhonetics Unified Management System is uniquely capable of delivering cost-effective VoIP PBX functionality and targeted customized advanced features.
What do you think the future of the market is?
We believe the future of the market is in customized, flexible and incremental deployment of VoIP PBX systems rather than wholesale VoIP adoption on an enterprise-wide basis. Again, Asterisk uniquely enables integration with legacy systems and evolving VoIP solutions because of its robust feature set.
How does the growth rate in the U.S. compare to the rest of the world?
We are not able to compare total VoIP adoption rates because our size of the VoIP market is a small subset of it. We see more Asterisk-based activity in Eastern Europe and Asia than in other parts of the world but Asterisk adoption in the U.S. seems to have been growing at an increasing rate for the past two years.
What do you think of Google and Apple entering the telecom market?
Both Google and Apple have demonstrated success in a wide variety of technology applications. We see their emergence in VoIP as indicative in the short term of how quickly this market is growing, as well as a long-term competitive concern.
How about Microsoft?
As a leader in open source, Linux-based Asterisk systems, we believe Microsoft’s move into unified communications will be primarily complimentary of our efforts because they are increasing VoIP adoption but are not likely to compete directly for open source Asterisk PBX customers.
How will wireless technologies change our market?
Wireless technologies are likely to exaggerate two trends we are seeing in the market today: The explosion of additional VoIP adoption with the development of wireless VoIP products and an increase in skepticism about new telecommunications technologies as first generation wireless products do not meet customer expectations.
How will communications evolve over the next five years?
Telecommunications technology will become far easier to manage, far less expensive to implement, and far more customized for each customer’s individual needs. As custom applications proliferate, telecommunications management will provide a unique competitive advantage for firms that make modest investments that are driven by their unique needs for integrated internal and external communications.
Why is your presentation a “Can’t Miss?”
Anyone who is selling or initiating a VoIP deployment for a customer will want a comprehensive, practical list of technical and business process steps to consider as they roll out VoIP. We pride ourselves at NeoPhonetics in providing real examples of the challenges actual customers face in the selection and implementation process so you will get a maximum amount of real world information with a minimum of marketing spin from our presentation.
What do you want the industry to know about your company?
We have products that substantially increase the speed and ease of configuring Asterisk and managing and monitoring an Asterisk PBX for any size business, and we hope we can work with other integrators that are looking for these same tools.
Please make one surprising prediction we will see in 5 years.
The interoperability of PBX platforms and the ease of customization will result in the proliferation of industry-specific and even company-specific telecommunications solutions.
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Business Solutions magazine
September 7, 2007
I recently had the opportunity to ask Jay McCall, VoIP and Wireless Editor with Business Solutions magazine, about the evolution of SIP-based communications, the future of the market and more.
Business Solutions magazine is a publication geared toward executives of IT channel companies such as VARs, integrators, and solution providers.
RT: How is IP communications changing your company’s strategy?
We are currently evaluating an Asterisk-based IP system at one of our branch facilities.
RT: What pains does your company solve for customers?
Business Solutions magazine helps our customers increase awareness in the channel.
RT: How has SIP changed communications?
It has changed very little so far, but will likely change how we communicate within the next 12 to 24 months.
RT: How do you think the future of the market looks?
SIP and VoIP are the future.
RT: How does the growth rate in the U.S. compare to the rest of the world?
Because of the U.S. has a reliable traditional telephone infrastructure we have been slower to adopt wireless and VoIP technologies compared with Japan, China, and other countries.
RT: What do you think of Google and Apple entering the telecom market?
The more players, the better it is for businesses and consumers. Competition brings the price down and the features and functions up.
RT: How about Microsoft?
We are very curious how this will affect current partners such as Objectworld.
RT: How will open source technologies change our market?
We’re looking into it right now.
RT: What are your thoughts regarding hosted solutions?
There are mixed feeling about hosted solutions. We have spoken with a number of VARs and vendors that are passionate about either one side or the other. Hosted will definitely have its niche, most likely with small businesses with fewer than 25 employees per office.
RT: How will communications evolve over the next five years?
Voice peering will increase and we will see advertisements appear on phone displays. Companies will allow this in exchange for reduced/free calling plans.
RT: What will the industry see at your booth at ITEXPO?
The industry will see examples of VARs that are successful selling VoIP technologies by providing total solutions and services.
RT: Why is your booth a “Can’t Miss?”
VARs, integrators, and other channel companies interested in learning about what their peers are doing to grow their businesses will want to see our booth.
RT: What do you want the industry to know about your company?
We have been serving the channel since our inception 17 years ago, and we continue to keep a pulse on the technologies and services that help true VARs distinguish themselves from box movers.
RT: What’s next for communications?
Peer-to-peer calling and video over IP.
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Free Phone Numbers
September 7, 2007
DIDXchange will give away 500 free Ohio USA DID phone numbers (for 3 months) to one winner at 6:00 pm on the 11th of September. If you have a SIP solution and need this jumpstart for your business, leave your business card in the drawing box at booth 134 at ITEXPO next week in LA. According to the company’s blog there may also be free hugs given away.
Hey, whatever it takes to attract people to your booth as long as it’s legal works for me. ;)
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SIP Trunking Overview
September 7, 2007
I am looking forward to listening to Alan Percy’s panel on SIP trunking which takes place next week at ITEXPO. Alan has been a fixture at many TMC events over the years and I am waiting semi-patiently to hear what he has to say. IMHO, most companies need SIP trunking so if you aren’t up to speed come to the conference and learn what you need to know quickly with your peers.
Here is more from Alan’s SIP blog.
Here is more from Alan’s SIP blog.
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Dan York Available
September 7, 2007
Sadly, Dan York was restructured out of a job at Mitel. After the acquisition of Inter-Tel there is obviously some overlap. Dan was part of the overlap and as a result is a great talent looking for an opportunity. For more, see his blog entry on the topic here.
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