VoIP Blog - Tehrani.com

December 3, 2007

In my travels, one of the more knowledgeable players I have run across in the space of telecom – and especially wireless communications is Oswin Eleonora (Oz) the Senior VP Sales and Marketing North America for Acision. You may recall I wrote about Oz and Acision back in July of this year.

 

I had a chance to pick his brain again regarding Verizon’s open network announcement, the iPhone, the future of wireless, the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), Android, CDMA, GSM and more.

 

How will service providers differentiate themselves in the upcoming years as networks become more commoditized? Oz has the answer. Who will win the wireless service provider wars? Oz will tell you. Where do we stand with regards to municipal WiFi? Again, Oz will tell you. What won’t he tell you? Perhaps the only thing is how a man with 40+ year-old fingers like me can effectively use the little Apple iPhone keyboard.

 

Enjoy the podcast. :)

December 3, 2007

Recently I picked up a titanium watch. In fact I now am the proud owner of two titanium watches. I just love the stuff… More durable than steel and much lighter. What if everything in the world was made out of titanium…? We would throw things out less and save lots of money on fuel.

 

Of course titanium is a lot more expensive than other metals so don’t expect to see your next phone made out of it.

 

Still, durability in the office is important – and especially the call center where headsets have become more durable over the years.

 

Did you know that headset vendors are beginning to catch on to the trend of durability in headset design and some of these vendors are using advanced materials such as Tephlon (and you thought it was just for cooking).

 

I was learning about headset technology advancements in an article by TMCnet’s Stefania Viscusi from the headset channel. While it doesn’t seem like there are any titanium headsets on the market yet (some have the name titanium but don’t seem to have any of the exotic metal in them), the holidays are around the corner and there is no telling what is on the manufacturer’s new offering list.

December 3, 2007

I am obviously in the majority in my thinking that a meeting without a laptop or Blackberry is a wasted meeting. How often have you been in a one-hour meeting where thirty or more minutes did not even pertain to you? You are supposed to just sit quietly in the room and shut up and do nothing.

 

When you leave the meeting and your top customer wonders why you weren’t available for thirty minutes, you tell them it is because you were doing nothing for the last thirty minutes in a room full of people who spoke about things that didn’t really concern you.

 

If you are of the anti-productivity variety and your response is “You shouldn’t have been in the meeting in the first place” – you missed the point. Many times you need to be aware of the conversations around you so you can interject at the appropriate time. At other times your opinion is needed to make sure the meeting goes in the right direction.

 

Yes it is annoying to have people with laptops in meetings but if your organization thinks that laptopless meetings are the future, please point yourselves out so I can buy stock in you competition.

 

 

For an opposing and IMHO wrong opinion please check out:

 

Adaptive Path Blog: My personal war against Crackberry

43 Folders: 43F Podcast: The Myth of Multi-tasking

December 3, 2007

If there is one thing Avaya is doing exceedingly well it is courting developers. Out of all the PBX vendors, Avaya has decided they will be the leader in this space. Cisco and Inter-Tel (now Mitel U.S.) have also done an admirable job but no one has matched the six thousand plus members in the Avaya DevConnect program.

 

Why is this important you ask? In the computer industry the size of the developer program is what determined the success of a vendor. The reason IBM and Apple became standards was because of the massive developer communities supporting each. OS/2 died a horrible and painful death because application developers decided it was better to write programs for Windows.

 

The enterprise communications market is beginning to mirror the PC market of the eighties and nineties. Standards like SIP and technologies like VoIP mean that vendors will have to compete on an even playing field in the future. Why? PBXs like PCs are becoming commoditized.

 

It will be tougher and tougher to lock customers in as phones work across platforms and PBXs interoperate. The best way to ensure customers need to purchase from you is to make sure that you have as many third-party developers as possible on your platform -- programming their little hearts out.

 

This is the best way in my opinion to distinguish yourself in a crowded field. What is most surprising to me is that Avaya is doing something most other PBX companies don’t even realize is important. It is unclear why other PBX manufacturers don’t see the future.

 

TMC’s Erik Linask was at the recent Avaya DevConnect conference and had a chance to write up an in-depth article I linked to last week. In addition, he has a new article titled Avaya Driving New Era of Business Communications which is also a must-read.

December 3, 2007

Recently a dinosaur mummy was found in the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota and while a dinosaur mummy has no skin – just rock, it has given scientists a fantastic look at what dinosaurs look like in real life. The 65 million year-old animal was 25 feet in length and of the duck-billed variety.

 

Scientists were able to discern scales of various sizes and even fleshy pads of skins on the hands which lead them to believe the creature generally walked on two and not four legs.

 

The mummy actually has another mummy inside it as a crocodile began eating the creature and died during the act.

 

Scientists are upset that television documentaries and books are being produced about the discovery without the traditional peer review that should take place. It is not surprising that the need to instantaneously report on news that has changed journalism and virtually all facets of the media is now beginning to change the way science works. It would seem to me those scientists better get comfortable with wikis and videoconferencing if they want to continue peer reviewing discoveries before the public is made aware of the details.

 

See Also:

 

Washington Post: Scientists Get Rare Look at Dinosaur Soft Tissue, also photo credit

Space Daily: Dinosaur From Sahara Ate Like A Mesozoic Cow

December 3, 2007

Like flash floods, Flash phones will soon be overtaking the market in a rapid fashion as more and more developers realize Flash gives them the ability to so much more than other programming environments. TechCrunch has an overview of a new company in this space called TringMe. Currently the Indian-based organization is looking to license its technology to VoIP providers. There is a demo on the Tringme website which is not so impressive at the moment but it shows what a Flash phone could be.

 

Why does a Flash phone make sense? Well it allows the phone to run on multiple platforms without the need to develop to each environment. In addition it allows one to utilize IP communications without having to download software. In so many organizations, security procedures do not allow downloads of software but running Flash programs is fine.

 

One last benefit of not downloading software is there is just so much junk on people’s computers that they slow down to intolerable levels after a while. I blame the “antis,” you know, anti-spam, anti-spyware, anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-Trojans, anti-phishing, anti-adware, etc.

 

This is why we will see more Flash phones in the future. Also, keep in mind that Communigate (Community) is doing some amazing things with Flash-based unified communications.