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November 6, 2007

Recently it is has been a mixed ride for communications companies as those relying on tier-one service providers for the majority of their growth have been battered. Case in point is Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent who each have lost over $15 billion in market capitalization in the last three months alone.

 

On the other hand companies like Cbeyond and ShoreTel have been fantastically well as they focus on the small business market exclusively.

 

Enter Nortel, who has a mix of products in its portfolio serving enterprise customers as well as service providers in the wireless and wired spaces. The company’s shares have been decelerating since early in 2004.

 

So Nortel’s prospects for beating earnings this quarter were less than clear. Would they have a great quarter like so many technology names with worldwide exposure or would they have a terrible quarter like both Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent?

 

Well the results are in and the news is very good as the Toronto-based company said it had net income of $27 million or 5 cents per share in the third quarter. This compares to a net loss of $37 million, or 7 cents a share, in the second quarter and a loss of $63 million, or 14 cents, a year ago.

 

The news was enough to make the company’s stock pop 18% today.

 

Similar to its rivals, the company did see sales fall 8% from last year but thanks to cost-cutting, profits increased.

 

Some of the areas of growth are 4G networks, Metro Ethernet, WiMAX, unified communications and telepresence. According to a conversation I had with Joel Hackney, President of the Nortel Enterprise business, customers are responding to the company’s telepresence solutions because it is open, working with equipment from other manufacturers. Hackney contrasted this to Cisco’s solutions which require all-Cisco equipment.

 

Probably the most important takeaway from the day’s news is the company is furiously investing in R&D and sales personnel to move product. In addition, Nortel has regained positive financial momentum.

 

In the future, Nortel is betting big on the enterprise space and Hackney says CIO relationships remain strong and the company gives 40% greater value than Cisco. He says data and applications growth are accelerating. You may recall I suggested Alcatel-Lucent refocus on the enterprise space back on September 13 of this year.

 

Nortel has been known as a strong technology company for many years and in the last few years they were weakened by poor financial performance. This strong quarter coupled with close ties to Microsoft and IBM in the unified communications space has really turned the prospects of the company around and if Nortel is able to execute on its ambitious growth plans it could soon become a consistently fast-growing communications equipment manufacturer once again.

November 6, 2007

What are some of the interesting things happening in the wide world of communications today? For one, Excel telecommunications and Allworx have partnered to provide SMBs with SIP trunking and a PBX solution respectively (check out the SIP Trunking channel for more news on this segment).

 

The SMB space seems to be brimming with choice as Cisco too has decided to focus more energy on this are with a series of new additions and upgrades to the company’s product line.

 

In a more patriotic move, ReCellular has launched a program allowing people to donate their old cell phones so the proceeds can be used to provide calling cards for US troops around the world.

 

Moving to the software world, Aspect Software has moved up on the Software 500 list at 76 overall – a nice 6 place increase from the prior year.

 

Moving right along into the service provider market, Pactolus Communications has recently announced a quarter million session benchmark translating into upwards of 8-10 million subscribers served on an ongoing basis.

 

From their lets discuss the consumer market where Packet8 has done something new by updating the firmware on its Tango Video Terminal Adapter in order to allow it to also be a digital picture frame when not engaged in an IP communications call.

 

Priced at $99 after mail-in rebate this is one of the greatest IP communications values around. Having recently spent around $700 myself for two digital picture frames n the past few months I can tell you this price is good.

 

As always, the TMC team is diligently writing more articles for your perusal so check back often for more exciting developments.

November 6, 2007

You are likely familiar with Alexa, a division of Amazon that measures website traffic. I have written about the site a number of times before. A while back I discovered a site called Quantcast which is becoming a well respected third-party way to measure web traffic in an accurate manner. Currently Quantcast allows you to see how many unique visitors any site has. If a site has enough traffic you can find an incredible wealth of information about it from its visitor’s household income to education level. You can also find the top subdomains, sites with a similar audience and gender.

 

Here is the site’s FAQ which can answer your questions about how this is done.

 

If you so choose you may have your site Quantified which means your international traffic can be measured as well. How is this additional measuring done? You basically put code on all your pages which tracks visits.

 

I am proud to say that Quantcast says the US reach for TMCnet is 711,127 people – this roughly translates to just under 2 million visitors in total as TMCnet has about 60% of its visitors from outside the US. (711,127/0.4=1.77 million visitors)

 

What may surprise you however is just how TMCnet ranks in comparison to all the other sites covering communications. Here are the latest numbers from across the industry.

 

And yes, US Reach means how many people visit the site in a month.

 

 

And yes, the numbers above represent how many people visit these sites each month.

 

Oh and once again – thanks for making TMCnet the best read site in communications. Based on these numbers TMCnet actually has more traffic than all other competitive sites combined! Thanks again for making this so.

November 6, 2007

Think of it as an iPhone but with more of it to love. ;)

 

Sure you love your iPhone, iPod and other Apple devices but something is missing. You want a single device which gives you the power of the MacBook with the portability of an iPhone but you just don’t know where to turn. Perhaps you could buy an iPhone and iPod and put one in each hand. Or you could use a laptop while you use your iPhone.

 

If only – if only, Apple was working on a Tablet PC – something with the power of an iPhone – the great and intuitive interface, coupled with a powerful dual-core processor and a huge screen, allowing web browsing of the most sophisticated pages with ease.

 

Wouldn’t it just be nifty? Divine? Exciting? Delightful?

 

Could you imagine if such a thing existed?? I could. If Apple were to roll such a thing out there would be lines forming at Apple stores many weeks in advance. Fans would certainly give up food and relieving themselves for a chance to get one of these devices early.

 

So for the Apple faithful, now is a time to start packing your tents, food rations and certainly some warm clothes and maybe an umbrella. Why you ask? Because it looks like – get ready for another trip to rumorville, that Apple may be working on such a device.

 

Where do you get one and when? Well it is a bit early to say for sure but CNET’s Crave Blog has the details and some interesting product sketches for you to lust over.

November 6, 2007

Whether or not Google is coming out with a phone in addition to its work in the Open Handset Alliance is unknown. What is known is the speculation may never cease and the rumors will continue to swirl. It seems however Google has built phone prototypes so perhaps Tom Keating was correct in his recent post on the matter. In addition, engadget (really Forbes) has some thoughts on what this device might look like.