« December 10, 2007 | Main | December 12, 2007 »
NextPoint Analysis
December 11, 2007
If you meet David Walsh a partner with One Equity Partners, you immediately think banker. For those of you who may not frequent the tiny (and blisteringly cold when I was there) island of Manhattan, banker generally means investment banker. At a telecom conference you can always pick out the bankers because they dress nicer than most telecom types.I recently had a chance to meet with Walsh and discuss the formation of NextPoint with him. Generally the “money people” are shielded from the communications and technology media as there are generally more technical people who are better at communicating with the “trade” media. So I was surprised when I was offered the opportunity to sit down with Walsh and discuss the formation of NextPoint.
To give you an idea of why David Walsh is different from most bankers, just look to his mini biography posted on the NextPoint website.
David A. Walsh assumes the role of Chairman of NextPoint. Having served on the board of NexTone since June 2005, he is a Partner with One Equity Partners (OEP), the private equity arm of JP Morgan Chase, and he is also Chairman of Vercuity and sits on the board of Last Mile Connections. Mr. Walsh was Chairman of WestCom, prior to the sale of WestCom in 2007. Before joining OEP, he served as President and COO of Global Crossing Ltd., and was Co-founder, CEO and President of IXnet, IPC Communications and Voyager Networks. Mr. Walsh also held various technology positions at the New York Commodities Exchange, Garban, Garvin Guybutler and Drexel Burnham Lambert Trading.
Walsh seemed extremely happy about the new combined company as it brings together the best of a session border control company in NexTone and an FMC company in Reef Point.
Both companies received investments from One Equity Partners so Walsh is familiar with them. He explained that when they invested in NexTone there were over ten SBC competitors and now they really only see Acme Packet as a competitor.
Walsh told me that if a carrier needs a converged access product, only NextPoint can offer a solution in a reasonable amount if time. In addition, NexTone has been expanding its sales organization for some time Reef Point products can now easily be cross-sold to customers.He tells me that the customers of each company were generally in the market for products from the formerly separate entities. With this merger, it is now possible to give a migration path to all customers looking to grow their next generation networks.
Future acquisitions are a possibility and organic growth will be quite substantial according to Walsh as he says sessions are going off the chart. He sees a huge market with limited competition and thinks the new company is in a spectacular position.
As I walk away from the meeting I am certainly enthused about the market position the new company plays in and I am impressed by Walsh who obviously is a cut above a traditional investment banker.
So will NextPoint be the next blockbuster company in the market – a darling of the communications and financial media? It is unclear at this point. What is clear is that the new company has the potential to grow quickly as it plays in a rapidly accelerating space with limited competition. Let’s give it some time and see what Walsh and company can do with this new entity.
Link this |
Email this |
Leave comment
Trackback URL: NextPoint Analysis
Technorati
Del.icio.us
BoingBoing
Slashdot
Digg
Spurl
Furl
Star Wars Everywhere
December 11, 2007
Should we be alarmed with the amount of Star Wars content on Tom Keating’s blog? I am not sure. As a huge fan of the Star Wars trilogy (quadrilogy?, quintilogy?, sextilogy?) movies I guess I am OK with it but what happened all of a sudden? Did George Lucas realize the price of jet and yacht fuel has just tripled and subsequently started licensing like crazy? ;)
Here is Tom’s most recent post – an R2-D2 DLP video projector and here is an R2-D2 phone that Tom beat me to writing about.
Here is a Philips VoIP phone that I am sure Darth Vader would have used. Oh and if you haven’t seen this YouTube spoof of Star Wars using a desk phone, you should check this out.
Link this |
Email this |
Leave comment
Trackback URL: Star Wars Everywhere
Technorati
Del.icio.us
BoingBoing
Slashdot
Digg
Spurl
Furl
Genesys Buys Informiam
December 11, 2007
Genesys– once called Genesys Labs is one of the companies at the head of the CTI (computer-telephony-integration) revolution of the nineties. Often referred to as a middleware company, Genesys always seemed to fight the designation. In reality, Genesys was just so good at connecting call centers consisting of disparate equipment; they never entirely shook this “middleware” reputation.
Eventually acquired by Alcatel and later merged with Lucent to form Alcatel-Lucent the company became a smaller part of a large parent.
Until today, the Genesys division has been quiet for a company of its size. This is not unusual in such situations but today the company made an acquisition which may signal more moves to come.
Genesys purchased Informiam a company focusing on reporting and analytics. The company takes real time analytics and converts it to actionable information which in turn enables the company’s “dynamic contact center vision.”
It is likely this move is partially in response to the Aspect PerformanceEdge announcement from September of this year.
I would think that if the company has enough clout to get its giant parent to condone this purchase, they will likely be doing more than just purchasing a single company. I feel we will be seeing more breaking news from Genesys in the upcoming quarters and years.
For more on this news be sure to listen to this Genesys conference call from earlier today as well as the presentation in PDF.
Link this |
Email this |
Leave comment
Trackback URL: Genesys Buys Informiam
Technorati
Del.icio.us
BoingBoing
Slashdot
Digg
Spurl
Furl
Security: The Best IP Topping of All
December 11, 2007
The Internet Protocol is one of the largest enablers of the last decade. It allows communications to take place wherever there is broadband connectivity. Voice over IP, video over IP, fax over IP… Just about everything runs over IP it seems. But this is old news – right? We have all tried Skype and heard countless Vonage WooHoo ads by now.I would imagine most people probably won’t get excited about this field until they are able to order -- and receive -- pizza over IP. But don’t think there is nothing exciting happening in the internet protocol world these days. In fact, the latest excitement in the space could just be IP security.
You see, now that the world is enjoying an IP party by migrating phones calls and security cameras to internet protocol, we have an uninvited guest. Who you ask? Hackers and other “evil doers” who want to tap into our phone calls in order to harvest things like PIN numbers and other confidential nuggets which can be ferreted out of phone calls.
One of the premium names in the VoIP security market is Acme Packet. The company was one of the few to grow rapidly during the telecom bubble blow up. How did they accomplish this you ask?
Acme did a few very smart things. They focused on developing session border control (SBC) products that worked well and added lots of features while simultaneously inking deals with tier-one equipment providers to resell their products.
Even though the company was not first in the market they were able to ride the coattails of the large equipment carriers to the point where they rapidly made a great name themselves. In the process, they wiped a number of their former competitors away.
Now a public company, APKT is looking for ways to grow beyond the service provider market they continue to excel in.
One area which is in need of their services but may not even know it yet is the contact center space – especially hosted centers.
I was wondering how the company could help in this area and thankfully I had a chance to discuss this very question with Kevin Mitchell who is the Director, Solutions Marketing for the company.
Perhaps most importantly the company ensures that networks and services are still up… They make sure malicious or even non-malicious overload events do not harm service for legitimate callers. In addition, Acme Packet focuses on providing proper encryption for appropriate calls.
The company’s solutions are able to secure users over the open internet. Acme’s SBC takes care of encryption between home agents and the data canter. The calls are tunneled through IPSEC and Mitchell tells me neither the signaling nor media can be intercepted.
In order to ensure security is enforced the company employs topology hiding and a dynamic trust model with behavioral learning on endpoint network resource requests. This is in addition to simpler methods like access control lists.
As you might imagine, today’s SBCs can help not only in the call center and service provider network but the large enterprise as well.
In the end, IP communications security is crucial as it becomes more pervasive. Hackers and people looking for security holes can find gold in unencrypted VoIP calls. Adding SBCs into the mix makes infinite sense.
Another benefit of using an SBC in the call center space is the fact that monitoring and recording can be done more easily as CALEA requires this functionality be built into SBCs for law enforcement purposes. This is nice side benefit of a government initiative being used for the good of another industry.
Mitchell tells me the company has been playing in the large enterprise and call center space for about a year and a half. As the volume of IP communications traffic grows, it is essential that companies begin a dialogue with SBC providers such as Acme Packet so as to ensure their communications are secure.
As VoIP and SIP become more popular, it is only a matter of time before hackers throw more resources at the telephony space. Obviously it is always best to be ahead of such a curve. After all, now is the time to get your house in order as one day soon you will be dealing with how to get that pepperoni pie over your network pipes.
Link this |
Email this |
Leave comment
Trackback URL: Security: The Best IP Topping of All
Technorati
Del.icio.us
BoingBoing
Slashdot
Digg
Spurl
Furl
Dell Latitude XT Vs. Commenters
December 11, 2007
Perhaps Dell should get an award for superior CRM in launching a new tablet computer, the Latitude XT. After all, the company released the news on its blog and allowed potential customers to absolutely skewer it. The reason the company is being marinated and ready to grill has to do with the price of the new portable computer which many commenters say is a full $1,000 more than the competition.
Here is an excerpt from commenter named Manifold:
I'd like to add a few more question and exclamation marks there, but I'll refrain.Dell, you've come all this way, after continual delays and disappointments, and after so much smack talk (the whole sawing tablets in half business), you end the race by just shooting yourself in the foot.$2500 STARTING price...What's that gonna get me?A 1GHz single core processor, a gig of RAM, 40GB 4200 RPM HDD, 802.11a/g, MAYBE bluetooth...I have a Dell 700M with 1.6GHz Pentium, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, 802.11 a/g, and I bought it 3 years ago for $999 (worth about $500 today). Are you telling me that 3 years later you're putting worse specs in a machine, and charging $2000 premium for tablet functionality?Give me a BREAK.This is on the heals of Toshiba, who announced today a tablet that is not only has better base and fully loaded specs, has pen and touch capabilities as well, but also is a full GRAND cheaper.Let me say it again just to emphasize: One THOUSAND dollars cheaper. It's slightly larger, and of course doesn't have multitouch, but is that extra cubic inch of volume and half pound of weight worth a thousand dollars to me Dell?
I think it is admirable that Dell is allowing its website to be a forum for all of this criticism. This is certainly better than allowing this content to live somewhere where its competition can brand around the messaging.
In short, this sort of interaction between companies and potential customers is what the internet is all about.
Other companies should learn from Dell.
So at the end of the day the question worth asking is doesn’t negative publicity help a company? Perhaps it does as Dell is getting a lot of internet ink due to this interaction. In the end, perhaps commenter Jim says it best:
“I thought only Apple could get away with a 50% premium over the competition.”
Link this |
Email this |
Leave comment
Trackback URL: Dell Latitude XT Vs. Commenters
Technorati
Del.icio.us
BoingBoing
Slashdot
Digg
Spurl
Furl
