May 2008 Archives

Speaking at IP Sizzles 2008

May 30, 2008 5:19 PM |

I am really looking forward to IP Sizzles 2008 -- formerly VoIP Sizzles 2008. What is it you ask? Well I am glad you did. IP Sizzles is an event put on by ABP which focuses on educating resellers on the the opportunities available in the IP communications space. It helps them maximize profit.

By attending the event you not only learn about the important technology in the industry but just as importantly you will learn about the solutions you should be selling while learning what works -- and what doesn't.

By coming to the show you can meet with companies such as Aastra Telecom, ClearOne, CyberData, Linksys, Snom and many others.

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On a partially unrelated topic -- I have been doing a long-term review on a really nicely crafted Aastra IP phone with a DECT wireless extension built in -- expect a review shortly. So far this phone has been great.

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One of the reasons I love resellers so much is that they are really the grease that gets the world of IP communications humming. You see, resellers are essential in helping small companies with their telephony systems. Of course you could deploy a communications system without a reseller but for small companies, the experience a reseller brings to the equation is essential as smaller companies generally don't have time to focus on everything they need to know before and after they deploy a system.

I think all companies should keep up with the latest in the world of communications and technology but when it comes to deploying, you should always consult an experienced reseller who can bring unbiased (as long as you choose wisely) experience into your purchasing process.

I will be a keynote speaker at the event and I hope to see you there -- July 28-30, 2008 in Dallas, Texas.

Eyeball Networks Signs 5-Year Micro-Community Agreement with TMC

May 30, 2008 5:41 AM |

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You may recall past writings about how TMCnet has been building communities of interest for customers worldwide in an effort to educate purchasing decision makers about the products and services in different subsets of the communications and technology markets.

Our micro-community program is called channels and our more comprehensive program is called GOCs or Global Online Communities.

Currently TMCnet has built sponsored communities devoted to over 100 topics such as: IP VPN, Telecom Expense Management Solutions, IPTV CRM and HD Voice.

In addition, there are over 30 more in development and a number of our customers have been asking for longer term contracts -- ensuring they are able to keep the key term which represents the channel or GOC they sponsor.

One such customer -- Eyeball Networks, the company sponsoring the NAT Traversal channel has just signed a five year contract to hold the term as the name of a channel.

TMC's customers -- the service providers, resellers, enterprises, SMBs and developers tell us they search for products to purchase at trade shows, via magazines and the web. I believe it will soon become obvious that in addition to traditional activities such as trade show exhibits and magazine ads, all companies should explore building viral, news-generated communities in order to help educate the markets they serve, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have found that online communities build a company's brand, thought leadership and ultimately its sales.

Most importantly, as communities are online products, they can be measured, tracked and adjusted frequently to ensure they perform well.

So thanks to our customers for continuing to choose TMCnet as a destination which helps them make purchasing decisions and thanks to sponsors such as Eyeball Networks who enable us to bring you all the quality content you have come to rely on day after day.

Microsoft Response Point at Costco

May 30, 2008 5:13 AM |

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Is the world ready to buy their IP PBXs from Costco? We are about to find out as the warehouse club with 537 worldwide stores and over 51 million card holders will be carrying Syspine/Microsft's Response Point, the entry level PBX that is not short on features like mobility and speech recognition support.

My take? This is a great trial for Microsoft and its partners but I am not sure that every small business is ready to deploy an IP communications phone system without the aid of a reseller or technical person. Then again, the typical SMB is likely deploying more and more technology these days without reseller assistance.

It will certainly be interesting to watch how sales are and how much space Costco devotes to these products. I did a quick calculation by the way and it seems the average Costco store is 141,000 square feet and there are 393 stores in the US. That means Response Point will share space with juice, food, stereos, etc. in a total of over 55 million square feet of retail space. Wow! that is a lot of shopping space. Now I know why it takes me so long to get in and out of this retail giant's stores.

Vocaltec Sells Patents to Karo Millennium

May 29, 2008 8:42 PM |

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In a way, I must thank VocalTec because it was companies like them that helped me realize how IP would revolutionize communications and further help me decide to launch a magazine dedicated to the market in 1997. VocalTec was one of the first to have a column in Internet Telephony Magazine and I will never forget my many interactions with the company over the years.

So it is with mixed emotions I witness the fact that the company is selling some of its VoIP patents to Karo Millennium J.P., L.L.C. It should go without saying that these patents will likely be used to get others in the industry to pay a "tax" for using VoIP and this is likely bad news for many in the market.

On the flipside, you cannot fault VocalTec for selling 11 patents -- or half its portfolio for $12.5 million. Why? Because the company will use the money to grow -- and growth is always good.

I am sure we will be hearing from Vocaltec and Karo Millennium again soon. For some they may hear from the latter, sooner than they would like.

New Asterisk Community

May 29, 2008 11:00 AM |

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In an effort to further educate purchasing decision-makers and influencers in the world of communications and technology, TMC has partnered with Digium to build an Asterisk Global Online Community.

The goal of TMCnet's communities (and channels which are micro-communities) is to educate purchasing decision-makers by providing them with news, opinion and analysis on a specific field or topic area.

The community just went live this week and already there are lots of informative articles worth your attention.

For example, by perusing the site, you can learn about Thirdlane PBX 6.0 which adds cluster management and CRM integration for hosted providers, enterprises and resellers.

In addition, here is an article discussing how Vitelity Communications has been selected by PBX in a Flash, an open source, Asterisk-based PBX downloaded up to 15,000 times per month.

There is lots more of course so be sure to visit the community and click on the gray tabs to see all the stories.

WiMAX Research Launched

May 28, 2008 7:19 PM |

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If you are interested in analysis on the ClearWire WiMAX deal and other facets of the exciting WiMAX industry, you are in luck as Sidecut Reports has a new report which goes into depth on all parts of the burgeoning market.

The growth of WiMAX is probably going to be like so many other technologies. It will be over-hyped, slow and then do well when we aren't looking. This of course is easy for me to say but what about the countless people who need to make investment decisions that turn into quick profit?

These people need actionable intelligence and they need it ASAP.

Is this report what you need?

I browsed the 39-page draft executive summary and liked what I saw. In addition, I know the author Paul Kaputska quite well and he is great writer -- knowledgeable and with good connections.

Some of the topics in the summary include why now is the time to launch WiMAX networks in the US as the threat of 4G looms; an iPhone discussion; LTE; cCompeting wireless timelines; A discussion of the players in the space; and WiMAX chips, costs and more.

I recommend this report to anyone who needs to keep up with the busy and often exciting wireless/WiMAX space.

Google in Travel and A Monopoly

May 28, 2008 6:58 PM |

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I was just reading how Google may soon get into travel search and as I realized this I wondered which companies would be affected. Travelocity? Expedia? Countless others? It will be interesting to watch.

I also came across an article basically trashing Google for being accountable to no one.

The article goes on to describe all the people it is not accountable to... Starting with shareholders and ending up with bloggers.

The fact is whether you want to believe it or not, Google is in a position where they could put companies out of business by the thousands in the matter of moments. Whether done maliciously or by accident, the company is in a position rarely seen in the world. Even AT&T who had similar power in years past didn't really have the ability to kill companies in virtually all countries overnight. Google does.

Whether the company will be broken up someday is not known but it seems today that the company cannot be taken down. Then again, it used to be Microsoft who many worried about and now it is Google. Will the two companies eventually balance each other out? Microsoft's recent move to pay people to use Live Search instead of Google was very smart but it is unknown if such a move will work.

I have to say that when purchasing I do now use Live Search but I haven't found it useful for the products I have recently purchased.

I can honestly say one of the benefits of following the tech markets is change happens so fast that it is almost impossible to keep up with. One wonders if in 10 years yet another company will be scaring Google the way Microsoft is scared of Google today. I can tell you if this doesn't happen, we may all be working for the search giant some day.

Hey Google -- any openings for a talented writer with infrequent writer's block?

Disclosure: I am a shareholder of Google

Sangoma Blows Out Earnings -- Again

May 28, 2008 5:41 PM |

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Wow! Yes -- I know we are supposed to be in a slowdown and all -- but if the news that Sangoma had yet another record quarter is not enough to let you know that there are strong pockets of growth in communications then I don't know what is.

The company's second quarter results show annual net income growth of 66%. This as a result of record sales of $3.21 million and record net earnings of $0.96 million.

Where were these sales taking place you ask? Well consider there was positive growth in ALL geographic regions with sales outside of North America growing 84%.

What this shows me is that companies in the open source space have the potential to do very well. Sangoma has spent a good amount of time and resources generating good will in the market and they were early in developing Asterisk cards of great quality.

This strategy has paid off handsomely and orders seem to be streaming in steadily.

In addition, as I have said before -- the companies who have been focusing on marketing and PR are still doing very well in this market. In fact, in my many conversations I am learning that the tech companies who have cut marketing spending these past quarters are losing share to those who haven't stopped. I think many of these companies who are cutting will not recover their lost share.

Think I am crazy? Then explain how so many tech companies are blowing out earnings (see list below). It is apparent that customers are still spending money. Some tech execs who experienced the 2001 bust think this is a repeat. It is not. Companies are purchasing tech at a record pace and in many cases they are accelerating purchases to save money on electricity, travel and other areas of their businesses.

If you are at the intersection of any of the above trends -- and actually let the world know about it -- you will do well.

But getting back to Sangoma -- you know from my prior interviews with David Mandelstam, the company is looking to get into the bigger market of unified communications... I am curious to know how well the company is doing in this space and hope to report more on this news soon.

See Also:

Tech Trade War?

May 28, 2008 3:59 PM |

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In this corner weighing in at many billions of euros we have the EU... In the other corner -- backed by an anemic dollar and a slightly stronger yen we have the tag-team duo of the US and Japan...

Let's hope there is a nice and easy solution to the brewing tech trade skirmish taking place between the US and EU authorities. The EU is placing duties as high as 14% on printers and some flat panel monitors.

The US says these duties violate the terms of a 1996 WTO agreement. What is interesting is that Japan has also complained regarding the same issue.

The EU said that the flat-panel screens cited by the U.S., for example, are capable of working with DVD players, not just computers, and are therefore properly classified as video monitors, which are not covered by the ITA [Information Trade Agreement].

The EU further says it wants to renegotiate the agreement but the US has been unresponsive.

Let's hope this issue can be resolved amicably and that a fair resolution can reached which satisfies all parties.

Personally I believe tariffs of products are never good and always lead to dislocations in economic markets which is ultimately terrible for consumers.

See Also:

CompTIA Applauds USTR's Actions to WTO on the Information Technology Agreement

Google Gears Powers MySpace

May 28, 2008 2:15 PM |

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There is a fascinating transformation always taking place in computing. Mainframe computing relied on dumb terminals and then as clients became smarter, we started to migrate to client/server environments. Over time, news ways of working appeared and disappeared and more recently we have seen the hosted model become more important.

I have mentioned in the past that Google Gears allows hosted applications the ability to run when there is no Internet access. It seems now that Gears as it is now known is being used to help websites offload processing to local computers.

In fact, MySpace will now use Gears to enable message sorting and searching -- all powered by the local PC. As this press release and TechCrunch point out, you won't be able to use the application offline as of yet but this new addition shows that very popular sites can now reduce the processing burden on their servers by bringing client PCs into the mix.

This sort of functionality could have been achieved without Gears but having Google provide the middleware makes sense as you reduce costs and can take advantage of further innovations by the search giant.

So where does this innovation lead us? There are a few points worth noting. The first is that we will see an increased reliance on local computers for data storage. This comes with security risk and I expect to hear more about this later.

I also believe PCs may become a dumping ground for Gears data that is no longer needed. Eventually we will need a Gear Sweeper service to wipe out data we longer need contained in far-reaching directories on our computers.

I have always been a fan of Gears and this relatively new use for the software is only the beginning. I am waiting for p2p cloud computing projects powered by Gears and other such projects which will take advantage of the tremendous amount of unused processing power available on the worlds' computers.

At a more basic level we should all understand that using Gears will enable developers to harness local resources to make web programs much more software-like. In other words, using AJAX for the interface and Gears for database manipulation, caching and thread pool management/execution, a web application may be strikingly similar to a local program.

I don't expect movie production to be moving to a hosted model soon but for everyday applications -- especially business apps, we can expect the innovation to start increasing at a rapid clip.

This of course is all good news and signals yet another shift in the world of computing.

See Also:

Too Fat For That Camera Phone?

May 28, 2008 2:01 PM |

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In the category of "Oh no you didn't," comes the comment from a Nokia spokesperson saying people don't use videoconferencing as often as they might because the current angle of camera phones makes them look fat. Pretty funny.

See more on this story at TechDigest.

SIP Forum Growth

May 28, 2008 11:56 AM |

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The SIP Forum seems to be making some nice progress in attracting a broad swath of companies to its organization.

In case you aren't aware, The SIP Forum is a non-profit IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities that advance and promote SIP technology, such as the development of industry recommendations, the SIPit interoperability and testing events, special interoperability workshops, and general promotion of SIP in the industry.

One of the Forum's recent technical activities is the development of the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation -- a standards-based recommendation that provides detailed guidelines for direct IP peering and interoperability between IP PBXs and VoIP service provider networks, and the SIPconnect Compliant Certification Program through which eligible companies can gain SIPconnect validation and the right to license the use of the SIP Forum's 'SIPconnect Compliant' certification mark.

What sort of progress are they making you ask? Well, they have recently told the world they are experianceing 100% 100% growth compared to the last quarter of 2007. The organization now has
46 Full Member companies and more than 5,000 individual members from around the world.

Why do people join the forum? Well Ken Kuenzel, Founder and CTO, Covergence, Inc. says his company joined the SIP Forum because of its efforts to build on existing IETF standards to define a standards-based approach that will enable seamless IP peering between IP PBXs and VoIP service providers.

Eric Swift, Senior Director of the Office Communications Group at Microsoft Corporation said We at Microsoft have long embraced SIP as an important standard and foundation for interoperability... By participating in the SIP Forum, we will help drive the adoption of standards throughout the unified communications industry and make it easier for customers to tap into the benefits unified communications offers.

If you are thinking of joining, check the association's website for more information.

Here is a list of full members at the moment:

3Com; Acme Packet; Alcatel-Lucent; Aricent; Aspect; AudioCodes Ltd.; Avaya; Bandwidth.com; BEA Systems, Inc.; Bluenote Networks; Broadsoft, Cbeyond, Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs); CGI Group Inc; Cisco Systems; Covergence; Data Connection Limited (DCL); Dialogic Corporation; Digium; Ericsson; IBM; Hewlett-Packard; Ingate Systems AB; Intertex Data AB; IP Unity Glenayre; McLeodUSA Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; Mitel; NEC Unified Solutions Inc.; NeuStar, NextPoint Networks; Nokia; Oracle; Polycom; RADVision; Siemens, SOLINET GmbH; SNOM; Sonus Networks; Tandberg; Tecnomen; Tekelec; Telsis Limited; University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory; UTStarcom; and Wipro

Of Cell Phones and Unborn Babies

May 28, 2008 11:19 AM |

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Does cell phone use cause behavioral problems in children? A new study is out on the the matter and while it is not conclusive it did find increased cell phone use does seem to lead to children with more behavioral problems.

The study took place between researchers in Denmark and UCLA and as part of the process, more than 13 thousand women were questioned.

Over the past years, I have seen studies which show radio waves are harmful to people and other surveys which say just the opposite. What does seem obvious to me is that we are being hit with more and more radio waves as time goes on. WiFi, satellite radio and WiMAX are just a few of the new sorts of electronic radiation our bodies have to now deal with.

In case you are getting worried about this study, it should be noted that the people behind it do not think it is conclusive and moreover they think there many reasons why we shouldn't be too concerned with the results.

Here is an excerpt worth reading:

“I think this is a competently and well-done study, but I think there are enough red flags that this should probably not be something the U.S. public needs to be alarmed about,” said Dr. Tim Byers, professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Colorado in Aurora. “I am particularly concerned about mothers and fathers who may constantly be worried about whether something they did caused their child’s behavioral problems.”

Poole says the study is “well worth” publishing in a medical journal, but, because it’s highly preliminary, should not be making news in the general public.

“No one connected with the study should be doing anything to encourage media attention on it – that includes the journal, the funding source, the institutions with which the authors are affiliated and the authors themselves,” Poole added. “In my opinion, that would constitute sensationalism.”

Post Memorial Day Communications Update

May 27, 2008 3:54 PM |

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It has been a long weekend for many in the US as the weather these past few days was fantastic and based on the level of incoming e-mail I received, it seems many in the tech and telecom industries took the time off to barbeque and do whatever else they do with their families on long holiday weekends.

This week, TMC roars back to its super-productive non-vacationing self with an abundance of articles designed to help you get the most out of today's communications systems.

I have outlined a few of them here for your perusal and if you want a full list of original TMCnet articles as they happen, please visit this page and check out our services page for the latest and greatest TMCnet updates.

But getting back to the articles, if you are looking to bring the benefits of Microsoft OCS to your Nokia smartphones, you may be interested to hear what WebMessenger is doing to make this a reality.

If you are wondering what is happening outside the US with respect to communications you may not be surprised to hear that Asia and the surrounding areas are investing heavily in the latest in audio and video communications technologies. This article speaks of staggering growth rates in the region and is worth a read.

By the way, TMCnet has a dedicated communications and technology research page which you may be interested in checking out as well.

Many of you you in the communications market for some time are aware that NMS has been an early innovator in telecom and more recently the company has become a mobile player. This is why I read with interest the comments of Maggie Smith, NMS Director of Product Marketing in an interview she had with TMCnet.

Of special note were estimates she quoted about the size of the mobile video market. In fact, Frost and Sullivan estimates revenue from mobile video services in the United States are expected to reach $1.6B by 2011 and IDC has reported that revenues from mobile video and mobile TV applications in Western Europe are expected to reach nearly $2 Billion by 2009.

Another interesting part of this interview is how customers are using NMS technology to provide avatars in the communications mix. While NMS and Dialogic have been looking at avatars from a mobile perspective, Nortel started with avatars in a business environment and sees mobile avatars as the next step.

The virtual world intersection with communications seems to have tremendous potential and I am looking forward to seeing how real a market this becomes.

Flash to SIP Video and Back

May 27, 2008 11:23 AM |

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I just read about a company which allows Flash to SIP and SIP to Flash video calls. This could be useful for situations where SIP is not an option for whatever reason. According to ISC the company behind Flashphone.ru, video calling via Flash affords you the benefits of SIP without the hassles of software installs and settings and can easily be used on various platforms such as Linux, Mac and PC.

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May 2008 Archives

Speaking at IP Sizzles 2008

Eyeball Networks Signs 5-Year Micro-Community Agreement with TMC

Microsoft Response Point at Costco

Vocaltec Sells Patents to Karo Millennium

New Asterisk Community

WiMAX Research Launched

Google in Travel and A Monopoly

Sangoma Blows Out Earnings -- Again

Tech Trade War?

Google Gears Powers MySpace

Too Fat For That Camera Phone?

SIP Forum Growth

Of Cell Phones and Unborn Babies

Post Memorial Day Communications Update

Flash to SIP Video and Back

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