February 2009 Archives

Laura Borgstede's Calysto PR Agency just put out their popular PR Vibes newsletter detailing what happened at ITEXPO this month in Miami. The good thing about the newsletters Laura puts out is she calls them as she sees them. Take a look for yourself.

Laura, thanks for all the detail, it brings back good memories.

INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO East 2009

Miami Beach Convention Center

Despite rumors of VoIP's demise and how the ongoing economy doom and gloom is bringing trade shows down, this year's Internet Telephony Conference & Expo exceeded expectations. Organizers had projected 6,000-7,000 visitors and 150 exhibitors, but the show drew more than 8,000 attendees and 165 exhibitors.

Attendees came from companies of all sizes representing all sectors of the IP Communications industry, including service providers, carriers, enterprises, government agencies, resellers, manufacturers and developers. The attendees were predominantly high-level executives, with 72% at the last event being a vice president or higher, according to TMC, the show's organizer.

The exhibit hall was vibrant, featuring solutions for enterprises, SMBs, government and service providers. Several people mentioned that there seemed to be constant traffic on the floor. The exhibitors we talked to were happy with the traffic and the quality of leads they were seeing, and according to show organizers, exhibitors such as ABP and Ingate shattered past ITEXPO lead count records.

Some of the buzz at the show included talk about IP PBX and communications systems for the SMB market, channel partner sessions, the latest and greatest contact center wares, telepresence, CaaS (communications-as-a-service) and lots about Asterisk and 4G wireless, especially since there were co-located shows on those topics.

We heard from both speakers and attendees that the 4GWE sessions were well received. The content was relevant, and attendees felt that the conference gave them insight into new technologies and technical issues revolving around 4G Wireless Networks.

Microsoft had a significant presence at IT EXPO, mostly surrounding the Response Point IP-PBX. Jajah's booth was another popular spot, where the company showed off its application that turns the iPod Touch into a fully functioning mobile phone for consumers. Also, IP phone system vendor Grandstream previewed its next-generation IP video phone.

ITEXPO's educational program focused on teaching enterprises, SMBs, and government agencies how to select and deploy IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications. Sessions dealt with how service providers can profitably roll out services their subscribers are asking for. There were 202 speakers at the show. We spoke with many who said their sessions were well attended, and the audiences were engaged.  "The Q&A was good, especially in my SIP Trunking sessions," said Jon Arnold, principal, J Arnold & Associates.

John Frederiksen, the general manager of Microsoft's Response Point initiative, and Danny Windham, CEO of Asterisk, gave keynotes addresses Tuesday morning to a standing-room-only audience. Frederiksen said he sees tremendous potential in the SMB phone system space and that the opportunity is similar to the netbook market.

Another popular session was "The Unified Communications Shootout," which drew a couple hundred people. Attendees were impressed with the session's format, which gave several vendors five to seven minutes to pitch their solutions. Attendees then could decide which booths to visit to find out more. A Q&A period wrapped up the session.

Unfortunately, TMC chose to allow 2 PR executives to participate on panels this year. While obviously Calysto is a PR agency itself, and consider ourselves experts in the IP and telecom industries, we do not consider PR people to be the ones that attendees want to hear from as spokespeople. Do you agree?

During the IT EXPO, TMC editors also picked the Best of Show winners in several categories that represented the breadth of exhibitors who showed their wares in the exhibit hall. For the winners, visit http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/voip/itexpo/itexpo-best-of-show-winners-preannounced.html.

The media presence was solid; around 70 registered as press. Those in attendance were mostly the usual suspects--a lot of TMC folks, obviously, as well as other trade press and analysts from both large firms and independents. The coverage was thorough, both in terms of articles and blogs.

"In spite of a tough economy and a gloomy outlook for telecom, support for the show was strong," Arnold said." I think many people were pleasantly surprised to discover this when they got there, which only added to the buzz."

One complaint we heard from a couple of people is that they wish the show floor was open longer. With the number of meetings people have scheduled, as well as sessions they wanted to attend, sometimes they had less time to walk the floor than they would have liked.  

However, the consensus was that the show was a valuable tool. People were able to conduct a lot of business last week at IT EXPO, definitely enough to make attendance worthwhile. "I had many meetings and developed relationships with several people I met for the first time at the show," said one attendee. This was a strong all-around show for those in the IP industry. The exhibit hall was overflowing with energy and boasted strong traffic, the educational sessions were well attended and interactive (so there will probably be even more speaking opportunities next year) and there was strong media coverage.

IT EXPO West will be October 27-29  now Sept 1-3 in Los Angeles. Future 4GWE events include the June 4GWE Whitespace Summit at Supercomm and the 4GWE event and in October co-located with IT EXPO West.

The IP Communications Industry Unites: VoIP Is Alive

By Matthew Nickasch

February 5, 2009

Internet Telephony Expo East -- The Spies Come Out

IT EXPO East 2009: Microsoft Goes Official with Response Point SP2

By Doug Mohney

February 4, 2009

Dialogic Expands Hybrid Gateway Configurations

By Michelle Robart

February 4, 2009

IT EXPO East 2009: Cbeyond Adds Mobile Workforce Management with SaaS Offering

By Doug Mohney

February 4, 2009

Microsoft at ITEXPO: Innovation, Software to Drive Next Phase of Communications

By Michael Dinan

February 3, 2009

IP Telephony Veteran: VoIP Has Grown Up

By Michael Dinan

February 3, 2009

SLIDESHOW: ITEXPO East 2009

By Doug Mohney

February 3, 2009

NetSapiens and Dash Carrier Services Announce Expanded Relationship at ITEXPO East

IT Expo - So Far

Jon Arnold's Analyst 2.0 Blog

By Jon Arnold

February 3, 2009

VoIP Watch

By Andy Abramson

February 3, 2009

SIP Print Expands Distribution with ABP Technology

Devfoundry Announces New VoIP Diagnostic Tool at ITEXPO

By Tim Gray

February 2, 2009

SLIDESHOW:The Opening of ITEXPO East 2009

By Doug Mohney

February 2, 2009

RAD Data Communications Features SIP-Based VoIP Solution at ITEXPO East 2009

By Tim Gray

February 2, 2009

Founded in 1999, Calysto Communications (www.calysto.com) is a global public relations and social media marketing firm focused solely on the specialized needs of the technology industry in the broadcasting, telecommunications, and wireless sectors. We provide a full suite of services to emerging and established business-to-business and business-to-consumer organizations. Unlike general technology PR firms, Calysto leverages its deep industry knowledge and intimate relationships with market influencers to deliver unmatched industry mindshare, analyst coverage and media publicity to our clients. Our all-senior management team uses a strategy-driven approach proven to help Calysto clients drive sales, create value for shareholders, move toward liquidity or raise overall awareness. Calysto also publishes a free e-newsletter, PR Vibes^TM (www.prvibes.com), which provides industry players with insight into media and analyst moves around the industry; industry events and tradeshows; and trends in marketing and public relations.

TMC has been aggressively adding new bloggers to its arsenal of content which attracts 2-3 million communications and tech decision makers worldwide each month. We are now at blogger number 40 and counting. We are still aggressively recruiting many more and if you can write and have something of value to contribute and want the most exposure you can get, drop Greg Galitzine (ggalitzine at tmcnet.com) a line ASAP to learn more.

TMC is one of the few media companies - in fact companies of any kind, growing in this market. We are thankful that we have loyal readers, sponsors and customers who see the value of working with TMC in good times and bad.

In fact we are expanding rapidly into many new product areas and many of the products you have seen successfully deployed on TMCnet such as channels and GOCs (Global Online Communities) - what we believe to be the largest collections of sponsored communities on the internet (about 110-120, sponsors each month), will soon be rolled out beyond the communications space.

If you are a salesperson or publisher's representative firm looking to sell products which have high demand regardless of the economy, drop Dave Rodriguez (drodriguez at tmcnet.com) a line ASAP. Please forward this to any good salespeople you know.

Here is an excerpt from a rough draft of the press release we will post soon:

TMCnet Adds 40th Blogger to Its Blog Community

Norwalk, CT, (February 23, 2009) -- Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC^®), today announced the addition of four new blogs to their popular Web site, TMCnet, now boasting a community of 40blogs covering the gamut of topics in telecom, VoIP, contact centers, wireless, unified communications, open source and others.  Readers of TMCnet's communications and technology blogs account for 35 percent of the nearly two million monthly visitors.

TMCnet's recently added blogs include Open Communications, IP Communication Design, Contact Center Strategies and Oh Say Do UC.

Open Communications by Paul McMillan, director UC strategy, Siemens Enterprise Communications, will be discussing the topic of Open Communications,particularly for enterprise, while delving into other areas of interest including what lies ahead in the industry. 

IP Communications Design by Kim Devlin-Allen, director of product management for Texas Instruments' (TI) CPE VOP business, will analyze voice in the consumer and enterprise market. From HD voice to VoIP and IP communications, Devlin-Allen talks about everything from "the next coolest gadget" to solving the design challenges of tomorrow's ever changing voice ecosystem.

Contact Center Strategies by Chris McGugan, vice president of marketing for the Contact Center Solutions group at Avaya,.will be focusing on how technology is evolving in the core of the communication systems and how that transformation is delivering on a new call center architecture.  

Oh Say Do UC by Clinton Fitch, Unified Communications product manager for Spanlink Communications, examines unified communications technology, trends and observations with real-world examples.  Plus insights on how to make UC decisions both now and in the future.  

"Expanding the roster of quality bloggers serves TMCnet's commitment to deliver the most comprehensive portal filled with quality content for the communications and technology sector.  Thanks again to our panel of experts that comprise our blogosphere and to the 2 to 3 million visitors who support TMC blogs and TMCnet every month," said Rich Tehrani, TMC president, group publisher and editor-in-chief.  "Feel free to visit our blogs and post your comments."

TMCnet's distinguished bloggers also includes TMC President Rich Tehrani, TMC Labs founder Tom Keating, TMCnet Editorial Director Greg Galitzine, plus David Byrd's SIP and Serve by a Foodie, Peter Radizeski's On Rad's Radar and Tony Rybczynski's The Hyperconnected Enterprise.

TMCnet's Blog Community is continually evolving to offer a higher-quality user experience.  Visitors to the TMCnet blogosphere can now sign-in using their social networking account, via Facebook, VOX or Movable Type, allowing them to post comments which will include their profile photo. Additionally, new technology deployed enables blogs to auto-populate with images pulled from related articles.

This has been a very busy news week and I have tagged dozens of stories to cover but haven't had time to write about them all in separate entries so here is a summary of what you need to know from today.

Stacy Higginbotham over at GigaOm has a short but sweet summary of the recent 2.5 hour Gmail outage with lots of interesting links. Google did post a nice apology by the way but I am sure it comes as little consolation to people affected.

In a sign we could be at the bottom (let's hope) of the financial mess, consumer confidence hit an all-time low and perhaps more surprising is the fact that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testified today and made markets go up by sating we could see an economic light at the end of the tunnel in 2010.

From the guts of the economy I take you to the guts of computing where TMC's own Zippy Grigonis explains like no one else can the importance of the new Emerson Network Power Dual Core AdvancedMC module.

From there we go to the new Apple Safari 4 which is Apple's latest browser which is not only much faster but now sports a home page with graphical icons similar to Google's Chrome. It claims to be 30 times faster than Microsoft IE and my informal tests I have trouble disagreeing.

Skype too has a 4.0 version out and the word at TMC is this is a much better iteration - slicker and it now displays a number on the taskbar corresponding to how many conversations you have going on.

The final bit of news is about Neutral Tandem, the company is completing its IP voice network transformation with Sonus. What these two companies have in common is their low profiles. Since the demise of VON you barely see Sonus and they have a new management team which I haven't had time to connect with. During the telecom bubble the company had a market cap of $20 billion but has come down to $326 million this month.

Neutral Tandem, the company providing an alternative carrier network to the ILECs is as under the radar as you get yet they have stock performance which is staggering. Over the past five years they have gone down in value under 10% and the stock is about as Stable as McDonalds, one of the brightest companies in this economy. Perhaps these bullets from the company's earnings announcement earlier this month are the reason. Wow.

Full Year 2008 Highlights

• Revenue of $120.9 million, up 41.2% from $85.6 million in 2007
• Pretax income of $36.8 million, up 194.4% from $12.5 million for 2007
• Net income of $24 million, compared to $6.3 million for 2007
• Adjusted EBITDA of $51.4 million, up 73.1% from $29.7 million in 2007
• Billed minutes of 61 billion, an increase of 48.8% over 2007
• Commenced operations in 36 additional markets

The company's market cap is holding steady at $602 million. I look forward to covering Neutral Tandem in greater detail going forward.

I recently had a chance to sit down with David Isenberg and discuss his Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference which takes place March 30 & 31, 2009 in Washington DC. He reminded me the price for the conference goes up $100 on February 28 so you need to act quickly.

Update: David kindly offered readers of this blog $100 off if they register at this URL. So until 2/28 it'll only cost you $395, then after that, when the list price goes up to $595, your discount will still be $100.

There are a number of new speakers announced who join already-announced speakers such as the CIO of San Francisco, the CTO of Seattle, the Chief Technologist of the FCC, and the visionaries of Lafayette LA and Burlington VT municipal networks.

Here are some of them:

1) Kevin Werbach was co-leader of President Obama's FCC Transition Team. He also produces the high-powered, well-respected SuperNova tech conference, and he authored the 1999 FCC report entitled, "Digital Tornado."

Kevin will discuss his experiences on the Obama FCC Transition and the prospects for the new FCC.

2) Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He's also Kauffman Professor of digital media entrepreneurship. The Knight Center is working to help create a culture of innovation and risk-taking in journalism education, and in the wider media world. Dan will interview Kevin Werbach.

3) Billy Ray, CEO, Glasgow (KY) Electric Power Board, In the mid-80s, Billy was spurred by energy crisis #2 and an unresponsive cableco to create a broadband network for the citizens of Glasgow KY. By 2001 it was serving 75% of Glasgow's households at less than 60% of the U.S. average price. Today Ray is building FTTH and thinking about how fiber can asuage the need for new electric power plants. More.

4) Andrew C. Revkin is the New York Times science reporter on the "beat" of global climate disruption. He travels the world, witnessing first-hand changes that may indicate bigger changes to come. He's surfing the edge of Internet reporting on his blog dotEarth.

5) L. Aaron Kaplan will discuss how Vienna Austria's community-built, community-owned, 500-device, 30-km diameter, Wi-Fi mesh network, free-of-charge to its users has achieved financial sustainability. More.

It seems like a great event. Here are more details:

All eyes are on the economy. The Obama Administration has declared the Internet a keystone.

• enable economic growth,
  
• strengthen democracy,
  
• facilitate creativity and innovation
• make the Earth greener, and
  
• lower the barriers that divide people.

• on-line, network-enabled industry and culture, new jobs and sustainable growth
• Burlington VT, where muni fiber enables business, artistic endeavor, and new telemedicine
• how Lafayette LA's community came together as it built its muni fiber network
• the twin cities of Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa, where one twin has a muni net, and the other doesn't
• how municipal CIOs are planning for Seattle, Portland and San Francisco municipal fiber networks
• city nets, wired and wireless, that didn't work -- what went wrong and what that teaches
• what Obama's infrastructure and economic recovery plans mean for tomorrow's network
• and more ...

WHO: F2C is a meeting of people engaged with Internet connectivity and all that it enables, including

• vendors,
• customers,
• regulators,
• legislators,
• analysts,
• financiers,
• citizens and
• co-creators.

F2C is shaped by universal connectivity and the plunging capital requirements of information production, which, in turn, are changing many of our fundamental economic and social assumptions.

WHAT: A two-day meeting inside the beltway where the creators of the future of the Internet meet to engage in mutual learning and exploration.

WHEN: 8:00 AM on March 30 through 5:00 PM on March 31, 2009. List of confirmed speakers and bare-bones program here.

WHERE: AFI Silver Theatre, Silver Spring MD. More travel, lodging and venue details here.

WHY: It is written that Freedom of the Press is only for those with presses. The Internet now makes Freedom of the Press available to about 3,000,000,000 people, almost half of Earth's humans. At F2C: Freedom to Connect, we explore how this changes the fundamental operating assumptions of society, and ask, "What next?"

Unless you are Cisco, Oracle or a handful of other companies such as a telco, you will have a tough time making tech/communications acquisitions work. That is my advice after watching the past decades. Perhaps the most sobering evidence is Nortel's Alteon deal which the company paid $7.8 billion for in 2000. The products are being spun off to Radware for -- get this, $17.65 million.

Nortel lost a staggering 99.88% on this acquisition which reinforces the fact that unless you know what you are doing - and in tech most of time you don't, you are better off not acquiring.

As I researched an old article on the acquisition I couldn't help but be horrified by how things have changed over the decade.

Take a look at an excerpt:

In a mid-morning conference call, executives at the companies contended that Friday morning's selloff was not related to the deal, pointing instead to overall "market volatility" and adding that other technology stocks were down as well.

Under the agreement, Nortel will offer Alteon shareholders 1.83148 Nortel shares for each Alteon share. The estimated $7.8 billion purchase price is based on Thursday's closing price of $144 a share for Alteon, and $78.625 for Nortel shares so represents no premium.

Dominic Orr, president and chief executive of Alteon, said the two companies "share a common vision of high performance content delivery services that exploit the high-performance Internet and create new profit opportunities for service providers."

He added that the merger would greatly expand both companies' reach and give them a leading edge in capturing market share in switching technology.

Can you imagine if Nortel had used these funds on marketing its core products instead of this purchase? Even if they spent a tenth of this amount on additional marketing they would have been in a great position today.

I don't want to beat the Canadian telecom company up too much as everyone it seemed was making billion-dollar acquisitions in the heyday of the dotcom boom and similar to the banking industry, it seemed you had to do this to be in the game.

If there is one thing we are learning now is if you overextended yourself in the past, you will likely not make it through this downturn. I am aware of a number of highly-leveraged communications and contact center companies which are struggling with massive debt payments which were incurred when making acquisitions.

Sadly, we will see many good people in large companies bolstered by acquisitions lose jobs as a result of this downturn and I would imagine the market will learn to make less frivolous acquisitions in the future. This is probably a good thing.

But I just can't help but wonder why Cisco and Oracle are so good at integrating new companies and others are terrible at it. From what I have heard, Cisco has a playbook for acquisitions and integration which most other companies do not have. They replace company signs with the Cisco logo as soon as the acquisition is announced for example. Other companies take months to do this.

Acquisitions for Cisco are another important core competency and they see this as an important part of their growth. It seems most other companies consider acquisitions as an afterthought. I think we now have even more evidence that the afterthought model doesn't work too well.

Sipera recently received RSA Secured Partner Program Certification meaning you can now use two-factor authentication with your IP phone to ensure secure voice communications. The two factors used in this case are a PIN and a SecureID gadget which gives you a unique code. In addition to increased security, Sipera touts how their solution reduces the need for enterprises to deploy VPN routers at every home for VoIP deployments. You need to be a SIPERA IPCS customer to take advantage of this solution and it scales to 50,000 users in case you are wondering.

This is a smart move for both companies and good for the IP communications market as it allows IP phones to be deployed more easily and less expensively while maintaining security.

This is just a brief thought on what Apple should include in its next update of its iPhone firmware. How about a simple way to categorize applications - similar to how the iTunes app store works? I would like to be able to group my games separately from my news apps which of course should be separated from my financial and VoIP applications.

Apple already organizes these applications in iTunes, why does the iPhone home page become a dumping ground for unorganized icons? Seems like with over 15,000 apps available in the App Store, now is as good a time as any to get some spring cleaning help from the developers at Apple.

There are a number of bright spots in the IP communications space as evidenced by the last ITEXPO in Miami but the consumer market is not one which you would imagine tops the list. Sure, there is massive growth in the space but unless you are a telco, Skype or a cable company it is tough to make money in the space.

But that hasn't stopped thousands of companies from trying. One such example is ooma, a company which started out making consumer devices which bundle in free phone service. For about $199 you get what is more or less an answering machine/ATA combo. The company made a huge splash in the blogoshere in the summer of 2007 when it told the world it had a way to securely allow these devices to terminate calls over the PSTN from other users of the network. Many bloggers including me questioned how this was possible as anyone we thought could tap into calls made by others.

The company agreed and changed the way their devices work - now using a new network they have developed. There are no longer security issues I was told during a dinner meeting with CMO Rich Buchanan and VP Corporate Marketing Tami Bhaumik.

A topic of note is the fact the company is looking to launch an SMB VoIP solution in the near future which will support 1-10 users and include features such as an auto-attendant, call forwarding and more. The pricing model will be different as well.

But the biggest news the company may have is a product called Telo, a super-slick phone system which Band & Olufsen could have designed. Between courses they wowed me with a prototype of the new capacitive--touch device. Oh and let me take a moment to apologize to the ooma design folks for getting butter on it - I didn't know it was the only prototype.

Although I didn't see the unit powered they told me the ooma logo glows blue when you are on the phone. The new device is slick on the outside and a powerful Linux-based computer on the inside. The goal of the company is to infiltrate your home with these devices and then entice you with add-on services such as home automation, network monitoring, etc.

As you can imagine I had to ask about how the competition is between ooma and magicJack - after all the night before the meeting I was up late and somehow got hooked on watching the magicJack infomercial in its entirety (again). Buchanan told me that many customers start with magicJack and then upgrade to ooma.

I then asked about the patent situation as we all know telcos took advantage of monopoly revenues to hire engineers who developed a number of patents (no products or services based on them of course) which could be used to stop any competitive innovation in the future. Vonage was obviously stung hard by the telcos and if ooma gets to become a household name, it is a certainty that ILEC lawyers will be meeting them in court.

Buchanan told me the company has its own patents and they have further vetted their products to ensure they don't infringe on any of the patents used against Vonage.

In addition he mentioned one of the company's investors is the FCC or more specifically the TD Fund, which is backed by funds from FCC auctions. Oh and by the way, the chairman of the FCC sits on the company's board. I imagine if a telco were to sue, it would make for some less than cordial FCC interactions in the future. Oh and while on the topic, you can submit your very own business plan and potentially have an FCC chairman on your board as well by visiting this page.

But where was I - oh yes, the company also has a nice-looking DECT 6.0 cordless phone they will release with Telo. The phone allows call screening, MP3 ringtones, 12-hour talk time, HD voice, speakerphone, two-line support, intercom and a number of other useful features.

The system supports up to eight phone numbers and six phones - which I am told is more of a limit of home broadband upload speeds than of the ooma box. There is the option called Premier which allows an instant second line when a phone rings. This means you don't need to put the current caller on hold to take the call... You just pick up another phone. Likewise you pick up a second phone and get dial tone when the first line is occupied.

I am impressed. I must say these guys seem to be on top of things. What I like most about Telo is that it will save consumers money while giving them what they will perceive to be state of the art consumer electronics. Buchanan and Bhaumik have worked together in the past and seem to have the requisite experience to get these boxes in the appropriate retailers. They seem to be doing this well so far. I also think they know how to work the relationships as they have been in the business for a while. Obviously it does not hurt to have an affiliation with the FCC in any business - this one included.

I am told sales in January were up which tells me the world seems to finally waking up to how VoIP can save them money. In the future there is a picture frame, in-house sensors and cameras on the product road map.

Now it is time for the disclaimer. I don't have access to the company's finances and didn't do an audit. The two people in marketing are the only representatives of the company I have met. In case you aren't aware, marketers are generally great promoters of products so you don't usually walk away from meetings with a seasoned marketer and say, that product really stinks.

Having said that, I really like Telo and I sincerely believe Bhaumik and Buchanan have a tremendous understanding of the telecom space, marketing and retail. The move into the SMB market is really smart.

My only concern is in the area of product-line extension. I see the jump from IP communications to home automation as extremely challenging. This is because to most people ooma will be their phone company and they will have a difficult time understanding why they should buy non-telecom services from them. Generally companies fail at brand extensions. It is one of the most challenging things you can do. The best example may be buying a salad at McDonalds - obviously people do this but the McDonalds brand is firmly entrenched in our minds as purveyors of artery-clogging convenience-food, not something which is considered to be good for you.

I am glad I met with these ooma execs. I wish them well. The new Telo is one of the slickest telecom appliances I have seen in a while and I am very much looking forward to watching how the market reacts to it.

 Yahoo search for term Nortel

Do a Yahoo! search on Nortel and you see ads from Microsoft and Avaya which are quite friendly. Microsoft for example directs you to its People Ready Business site where it pushes its relationship with Nortel with messaging which emphasizes global solutions to empower the enterprise. Avaya's ad is pretty generic - and goes directly to the home page.

Microsoft Live search for term Nortel

If you use Microsoft Live as your search engine the results are similar to Yahoo with a Microsoft ad but the Avaya ad is replaced by one from Fonality going to their home page which touts their "New Deal" or a 20% discount on certain models.

Google search for term Nortel

The situation on Google gets much more competitive as Altigen goes after Nortel's customers with the statement, "Concerned about the future of your Nortel phone system?" The headline says "Customers and Partners," in an effort to go after the entire Nortel ecosystem.

Similarly, Avaya's ad direct and professional... It begins with "Upgrade Your Nortel" the ad then says "To New Avaya System." It finishes off with great marketing copy - "Free Information to Get You Started."

BTW - yes, I know, Avaya corporate has been very quiet. In response to the many questions you have sent us about more interviews with Avaya CXOs, my team has reached out and the interview ball is in the company's court. I will get back to you when the Avaya's CEO begins interviewing. I am looking forward to hearing what they have to say as much as you are.

But back to the matter at hand - yes, in a recession you need to capitalize on the weakness of the competition to grow or at least stay stable. All companies need to gain share and one way to do it is with search ads.

I have mentioned in the past that a number of companies have reached out to TMC as well to help them develop programs to target Nortel's customers. I can't disclose who or whether we took this business but it seems a common theme right now is to go after the low-hanging Nortel customer fruit.

On a related note it is unclear how current and future customers will view the Nortel sale of its application acceleration business to Radware. I don't expect the competition to let up due to this news but it does seem to be a positive sign for the company that it is able to sell anything in this tough economic and M&A climate.

Search engine ads change all the time so take this entry as a snapshot from a late Friday afternoon in February and nothing more. If I hear more details of other companies specifically targeting Nortel customers in the future I will be sure to share.

• Nortel Under Assault
• Nortel Puts Another Nail in WiMAX Coffin
• F5 Targets Nortel Customers

It goes without saying the need/desire for wireless broadband is growing - partially fueled by social networking applications but perhaps just as importantly the need to be connected regardless of location. Instantaneous access to information is an addiction which I have found very difficult to break. Personally I feel withdrawal symptoms when my devices run low on battery and I don't have access to power. Likewise on Valentine 's Day when I forgot both phones at home I had this naked feeling until I consciously told myself I won't need these gadgets to help me through my meal.

TMC's Erik Linask wrote an article about how wireless broadband can boost global economies and it may sound improbably at first but it makes sense to me. The demand for these services will only grow and as increased frequencies are released in developing parts of the world, more people will come online and Metcalfe's Law takes effect.

You remember -- the law which states the power of the network increases in proportion to the square of the number of nodes connected to it.

As you can see here the power of the telephone network increases as more people are connected to it.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

For those of us in the communications space -- our opportunity is now. We need to continue to innovate with better products which save our customers money and/or make them more productive. We have a great industry and with an increased focus on how important we are to the global economy, we should have even more opportunities available to us.

Yes, I know the stock market is struggling to make new lows and consumer confidence is bouncing against the bottom as well... But still, we can't deny the importance of IP communications to help consumers save money in these difficult times. Bryan Martin CEO of 8x8/Packet8 is dead right when he says many of the people laid off will go out and start new companies meaning they will need the latest in IP communications solutions to compete effectively.

I know doom and gloom is the mood but we need to keep pushing, producing and innovating. We still have a great deal to offer global society and our future -- especially on a relative basis (compared to banking, oil services, real estate, retail, etc) has never been brighter.

See Also:

Four Signs IP Communications is Thriving

You might have noticed I write about the iPhone a good deal. I just wonder if as often as I cover it if I am writing about it enough. You see the pocket-sized gadget has over 15,000 apps which run on it and even its drawbacks seem to spawn new industries. For example you can't use typical gloves on your iPhone so if you get a call in the winter and you don't have an exposed finger you have to use your nose to unlock the phone.

But letting your nostrils do the dialing was so yesterday when there is an assortment of new-aged, iPhone friendly gloves for you to choose from. Is this getting ridiculous or what? But wait, I remember one of my recent trips to New York on the train; I was stuck in an unheated space between cars with numerous holes in the floor. It must have been 20 below with the wind chill and I had one hand on the iPhone fighting frostbite while the other hand had a glove. I bet I would actually use these things...

Maybe I should get some to review.

With all the talk of broadband stimulus, many of us in the more densely populated areas of the nation probably wonder just why this is such a big deal as we have cable and companies already competing for our business. For regions of the country where cable modems and DSL are not viable options, you have to make do with satellite and hope for WiMAX to give you higher speeds.

Another more viable option is being brought to market by IBM and International Broadband Electric Communications, Inc. (IBEC) -- an Internet Service Provider - who just announced they have begun to establish Broadband over Power Line (BPL) networks for nearly 200,000 rural customers served by seven electrical cooperatives in Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and Virginia. TMC's Michael Dinan first reported on the story last November.

IBM and IBEC, with the aid of government funding, are building broadband over power line networks in cooperation with member-owned electric utility co-ops across the nation. The first seven co-ops to participate include: Cullman Electric Cooperative in Alabama; Utilities District of Western Indiana REMC, Parke Country REMC and South Central REMC in Indiana; Midwest Energy Cooperative in Michigan; and BARC Electric Cooperative and Central Virginia Electric Cooperative in Virginia.

Bruce King, CEO of BARC Electric Cooperative in Virginia is looking forward to bringing broadband access to his community of 11,000 households and small businesses in the coming months. "I cannot go to church or rotary club meetings on the weekend without someone in the community asking me when we'll have high speed Internet access. Our members are orphans in the Internet world," said King. "I'm proud to be able to tell our members that it will only take us 1 percent of the money we invested in the electric system to begin with to enable it for broadband. I am a financial guy, and that is an overwhelming reason to do it."

Going forward, it seems the choices for rural broadband will be satellite, 3G, 4G (WiMAX/LTE), BPL, and perhaps white space technology (TMC will be announcing a new white spaces conference soon BTW - drop me a line if interested.) It will be interesting to see where this broadband stimulus money goes. It could dramatically accelerate BPL technology adoption which could have a negative effect on WiMAX or other wireless technologies. Conversely it could benefit wireless at the expense of BPL. The jury is still out.

Broadband stimulus plan evolution will be worth watching as it will be the ultimate public/private partnership where lobbying and other "relationships" rather than survival of the technology fittest will determine which companies and technologies are left standing. While at first blush this should scare the hell out of us, the government has been an important advocate of technologies in the past such as UNIX and their early support is partly responsible for the open-source revolution. I hope this stimulus plan is more like the UNIX example and less like the never-ending banking and automotive "stimulus" the government has been experimenting with these past months.

Billionaire investor George Soros seems to be a fan of tech and telecom as evidenced by the recent Soros Fund Management SEC filing. Holdings include a ton of familiar tech and telecom names and I listed some of them below. Amazingly, about 50% are tech or telecom related.

Here is the complete list for those of you who are interested.

• AT&T
• Agere Systems
• Amdocs
• Audiocodes
• Avnet
• BigBand Networks
• Bluefly
• CA
• Cadence Design Systems
• Ciena
• Cirrus Logic
• Digirad (nuclear cardiology - it is tech - just not something I write about)
• Digital River (ecommerce solutions)
• EMC
• Emulex (storage networking products)
• Flextronics
• Google
• Harmonic Inc. (Interactive network video)
• HP
• Hologic (Digital Mammography - again - tech - not something I cover currently)
• Informatica
• Internet Brands
• LSI Corp
• Lattice Semiconductor
• Microsoft
• PAETEC Holdings
• Red Hat
• RF Microdevices
• Sprint Nextel
• Symantec
• Symmetricom
• TW Telecom
• Tech Data
• TI
• Time Warner Cable
• Verizon
• Wind River
• Yahoo
• Radware