March 2009 Archives

The big news yesterday was that Skype is coming soon to an iPhone near you and while it seemed to take forever to make it happen I would be willing to wager that Skype will become one of the most popular iPhone apps overnight. I will be at the CTIA show next week and that is when the rumor is to become reality according to Om Malik. This event would be a good place for the launch and we can expect media frenzy when it happens. After all, the iPhone and Skype are both media darlings - put them together and you have even more reason to write that glowing article.

Many people in the communications space have asked me recently what TMC's secret is. After all, we are in the toughest media environment of our lifetimes and we produced our best show ever and have more paying customers online than at virtually any other time in our history.

The answer may lie in a bit of luck and some skill. The lucky part is we built our first online community for a customer about a decade ago. And since this time we have invested a small fortune in building our own proprietary technology which allows us to build highly-ranked, viral, news-driven communities for customers. Well over 100 of these sponsored communities live on TMCnet and generally consist of the tabs at the top and down the left of most of our pages.

Moreover TMCnet now houses millions of pages of content which gives the site tremendous prominence. And we have ranked very high on search engines for many years which has generated a tremendous amount of links to the 100+ articles we write a day and other content such as blog entries on the site.

The community product is called a GOC or "gock" and stands for Global Online Community. When we launched the program the term "organic search results" was probably not common but now, these communities help our customers rank extremely high for a variety of keywords which are important to them.

I know what you are going to say. Rich, that is what those click ads are for. Well to be honest the value of an organic search result is much higher to the searcher because it is not blatantly paid for and moreover it is not in a sea of other ads. Most importantly, research shows less that 20% of people even click on search ads. What about the other 80%?

TMC's communities answer the request we have been hearing -- How do you recreate the best part of tradeshows online?(shots from last ITEXPO East February 2009 in Miami)

Finally, unlike search ads, these communities help your own site(s) rank high organically by providing links. Moreover they help companies build their brand and thought leadership.

In addition, as a news-driven entity, GOCs draw traffic from other pages on TMCnet, newsletters, the TMCnet home page, news search engines and traditional search services. They are multimedia in nature, allowing companies to interface with customers via audio, video and of course text.

Example of an IP-PBX GOC (click to see full screen image)

Many of you have told me over the years that there needs to be a way to combine the best part of trade shows online. The GOC program is exactly this as it brings in your potential customers from around the world and gives them a reason to come back and see your message as the news is constantly updated. It is a very busy 24x7 community consisting of the most targeted people available on the web. And it is targeted by the news you find important.

In addition, it is measurable, and includes a wealth of metrics which can be used to analyze your spend and justify it up the chain of command.

For the reader the benefit is clear. They come to the GOC and bookmark it so they can keep up to date on the latest happenings in the space. How many people come? Well our record is over 650,000 pages viewed on a GOC in one month but typical results are between 250,000-500,000 per month. Generally, each GOC will average about 100,000 unique visitors per month - and they are targeted exclusively by content. In other words, you can use this program to build a community of people interested in subjects such as colocation, IP communications, HD voice, next generation communications, fixed mobile convergence or anything else in virtually any field. Click on any of these above links to see how the design is different and mirrors the look and feel of the sponsor.

If you are interested in learning more, here is an updated (4/14/2009) video which describes the program. Feel free to drop me an email for more.

One of the most challenging issues for companies which provide service over the net is keeping systems up and running 100% of the time. No company has been able to keep their services running constantly but certainly Google is one of the leaders in this area. Their virtualized architechture was actually developed with the idea that many of the servers in the company's data centers will fail. Still, outages happen and when they do, the company like all others has to react. Here's how and a quick excerpt.

Data Center Knowledge: Google has many data centers and distributed operations. How do Google's systems detect problems in a specific data center or portion of its network?

Urs Holzle: We have a number of best practices that we suggest to teams for detecting outages. One way is cross monitoring between different instances. Similarly, black-box monitoring can determine if the site is down, while white-box monitoring can help diagnose smaller problems (e.g. a 2-4% loss over several hours). Of course, it's also important to learn from your mistakes, and after an outage we always run a full postmortem to determine if existing monitoring was able to catch it, and if not, figure out how to catch it next time.

DCK: Is there a central Google network operations center (NOC) that tracks events and coordinates a response?

Urs Holzle: No, we use a distributed model with engineers in multiple time zones. Our various infrastructure teams serve as "problem coordinators" during outages, but this is slightly different than a traditional NOC, as the point of contact may vary based on the nature of the outage. On-call engineers are empowered to pull in additional resources as needed. We also have numerous automated monitoring systems built by various teams for their products, that directly alerts an on-call engineer if anomalous issues are detected.

DCK: How much of Google's ability to "route around" problems is automated, and what are the limits of automation?

Urs Holzle: There are several different layers of "routing around" problems - a failing Google File System (GFS) chunkserver can be routed around by the GFS client automatically, whereas a datacenter power loss may require some manual intervention. In general, we try to develop scalable solutions and build in the "route around" behavior into our software for problems with a clear solution. When the interactions are more complex and require sequenced steps or repeated feedback loops, we often prefer to put a human hand on the wheel.

DCK: How might a facility-level data center power outage present different
challenges than more localized types of reliability problems? How does
Google's architecture address this?

Urs Holzle: The Google within-datacenter infrastructure (GFS, machine scheduling, etc) is generally designed to manage machine specific outages transparently, and rack/machine group outages as long as the mortality is a fraction of the total pool of machines. For example, GFS prefers to store replicated copies of data on machines on different racks so that the loss of a rack may create a performance degradation but won't lose data.

Datacenter level and multi-region unplanned outages are infrequent enough that we use manual tools to handle them. Sometimes we need to build new tools when new classes of problems happen. Also, teams regularly practice failing out of or routing around specific datacenters as part of scheduled maintenance.

DCK: A "Murphy" question: Given all the measures Google has taken to prevent downtime in its many services, what are some of the types of problems that have actually caused service outages?

Urs Holzle: Configuration issues and rate of change play a pretty significant role in
many outages at Google. We're constantly building and re-building systems, so a trivial design decision six months or a year ago may combine with two or three new features to put unexpected load on a previously-reliable component. Growth is also a major issue - someone once likened the process of upgrading our core websearch infrastructure to "changing the tires on a car while you're going at 60 down the freeway." Very rarely, the systems designed to route outages actually cause outages themselves; fortunately, the only recent example is the February Gmail outage (Here's the postmortem in PDF format).

OK this article which discusses Twitter killing the economy is satirical but it does seem coincidental that the more people get on the service the worse the stock market does. Maybe if Twitter were to merely speed up its service, the world would gain a massive productivity boost which would increase our GDP? Are you a fan of Twitter like Jeff Pulver who wants to launch an event in the space or do you lean more towards the Jennifer Aniston side of the argument where Twitter was partly responsible for your breakup?

If you are interested in the stories and headlines I find useful, I invite you to bookmark my Google Reader feed which I update fairly regularly. I occasionally will add comments as well. In fact, since I started using this page, I have found myself blogging less. I hope you find this resource useful.

In this slow economy, different companies have various strategies to help them get through. One I have noticed is to cut all the experienced, senior people in favor of replacing them with people who make and know less. This strategy could work if the next generation of hires is really good but in general this is a terrible move.

Another strategy is to cut outreach to customers - otherwise known as PR and marketing.

But if we are in an economy where customers are spending less, doesn't it also follow we all need more customers to match the earnings level of previous years? So if last year 100 customers spent $20,000 each and they now spend $15,000 you would need 133 customers this year to make as much profit. And if the $15,000 the customers are now spending results in lower margins, you need even more than 133 customers.

The good news is, in a recession, the companies who focus on gaining market share by at least keeping consistent levels of PR and marketing tend to take share from the rest of companies. I came across an article from the New York Times today which ends with a survey that says more that 85% of customers will try new products in this recession. This is very good news and a similar sentiment was raised to me last month by Arunis Chesonis the CEO of PAETEC.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"There's a saying: 'When times are good, advertise. When times are tough, advertise more,' " said Dan Beem, president at Cold Stone Creamery in Scottsdale, Ariz., the ice-cream chain owned by the Kahala Corporation. "We want to stay with that philosophy."

The question worth asking is, what are you doing in this slowdown to offset reduced spending and the slowing speed of contract signings? If your answer is cutting back on customer outreach, the next obvious question is where will you and your company be in 6-12 months? Are you at this very moment inflicting a wound on your company by making sure your future customers are not being put in the sales pipeline?

I recently had a chance to sit down with Greg Griffiths the VP of Sales at New Edge Networks to learn more about how the company is helping customers by providing the latest MPLS technology over DSL, T1 and 3G wireless. One of the focus areas for the company is retail where this division of EarthLink has helped these companies transition from dial-up to broadband. One of the impressive parts of our discussion what the company does when it senses a problem with a company's connection. What they do is create a trouble ticket, update the web portal and send an email alerting the customer to the problem... All this is done proactively before the customer notices in some cases.

The following is the result of our part in-person and part email interview:

Please give an overview of your company

New Edge is the business services arm of EarthLink. Our mission is to provide affordable, innovative network services with a high level of personalized care to foster life-long customer relationships. 

A key advantage for New Edge is the breadth of our network. We have network to network (NNI) interfaces in nearly every U.S LATA which allows us to build private MPLS networks using a blend of T1, DSL, and EVDO. 

We are headquartered in Vancouver, Washington (just across the river from Portland, Oregon) and currently employ over 300.

How has your company transformed over the years?

New Edge was one of a handful of companies (Covad, Northpoint, etc..) that built out central offices across the country to sell internet access. New Edge chose a different path to market as it built out in smaller cities and focused only on the business market. New Edge distributed products via wholesale relationships and to this day continues to provide out of region DSL products to the largest carriers in North America.

Over the lat six years, New Edge has transformed into a leading provider of Private MPLS networks through a series of network build outs and product innovations:

• A network build-out branded as "Bigfoot" increased the number of central offices with private connectivity from 800 to over 10,000
• MPLS core upgrade
• NNI bandwidth upgrades and redundancy
• Direct connects into credit card processors and ASP's
• MPLS router infrastructure
• MPLS over DSL
• MyEdge management portal 

Last year we received three product awards:

• Frost and Sullivan service of the year (MPLS DSL with CoS)
• Frost and Sullivan best customer portal
• NPRG most innovative competitive carrier

What about the EarthLink acquisition... What has that done for the company?

EarthLink provided the network investment and operational expertise necessary to develop the products and services that align with today's marketplace.

Tell me about how your company serves retail markets

Over the last five years, New Edge has helped hundreds of "small box" retailers migrate for dial-up to IP networks. A private MPLS network with direct connections into payment processors allows for a more secure transaction environment and positions the retailer for deploying real time applications. Our management portal (MyEdge) allows a retailer to manage their end of the network in a much more efficient manner which saves precious IT resource. Today, we are proposing solutions to "big box" retailers as they look to reduce expense by purchasing MPLS networks with a blend of DSL and T1 access.

Companies are coming to New Edge to reduce expenses by migrating to MPLS networking using a blend of DSL, T1, and EVDO. This includes primary and secondary network solutions.

1. Private versus Internet based VPN aligns with today's real time application deployment and security concerns
2. One size does not fit all. Being able to choose the best access solution (T1, DSL, EVDO) site by site reduces expense
3. We offer a number of options for design, configuration, and installation of the network
4. We become an extension of our customers IT department by providing innovative tools (MyEdge management portal) and resources (we assign a project manager, technician, and account manager to each network)

How does EVDO factor into your solution?

EVDO can be chosen as a primary network element or a secondary (back-up) solution. Either option is "private" and part of the overall network context.

We will continue to listen to our customers and design solutions that make it easier for them to keep up with the growing demand for IP based applications. Our recent announcement on our voice connect product is another example of an innovative way to deliver a better solution. This product allows our customers to pick (not unlike the old days of a long distance carrier PIC) their VoIP provider.

Skype announced today that it is getting into the SIP trunking business by allowing native SIP calls to be connected directly to its network allowing enterprise communications systems to communicate seamlessly with Skype's network of users. During the Beta period, calls are carried at current Skype rates.

What this news does is take out the middleman. There really is nothing new in this release as this exact functionality has been available from companies like VoSKY, Skip2PBX, Pika and even Digium/Asterisk. The only differentiator seems to be the absence of a requirement for a SIP-Skype gateway to connect to Skype. So, Skype becomes in effect a SIP trunking provider.

The fact that Skype has decided not to use the term SIP trunking is baffling as this is the industry standard term for what they are doing. I haven't had a chance to reach out to them on this but question but I hope to learn more and report on it.

Credit is definitely due to the company. I wrote about what eBay should do with Skype back in October of 2007 and there are a few points which are finally being addressed:

Take a look:

5)      Skype trunking: This technology is one of the most intriguing around - allowing companies to communicate with branch offices, customers and home workers at a low cost. I feel going forward every company should take advantage of SIP trunking and Skype trunking. Skype knows this. So the question I feel compelled to ask is why would they do not work more closely with partners such as VoSKY and actually market Skype trunking products to customers in a more serious way. VoSKY is doing a good job but why is there not a multimillion dollar Skype ad budget behind VoSKY and others? Why leave the success of this massive market in the hands of partners when you can ensure the rapid success of this burgeoning new space yourself? The reason may be that Skype was built as a viral platform and they except this to be the only way to sell. Ditto for eBay. Guess what? Companies like Avaya, Cisco, Dialogic and Quintum sell telecom equipment and/or gateways and they have to market to customers. To be serious in the business space, Skype needs to start a serious partner program where they fund the marketing of companies which help their own paid services increase.

6)      Go after the PBX vendors: If I am a PBX vendor I would be looking for Skype interoperability as a differentiator. Still, I have yet to see an ad touting PBX vendor's Skype Interop. Why?

Obviously I think this is a smart move for Skype and it helps companies looking to cut costs while also leveraging the millions of Skype endpoints on the market. Using Skype for SIP for example will allow companies to have click-to-call buttons on their websites which directly connect to a corporate ACD, allowing call handling rules which are in place already to be observed.

In conclusion, this news is a win/win for customers and Skype and should even give a boost to the SIP trunking market. The differentiator Skype brings to the table is a massive network of devices and software on myriad computing platforms. It will be interesting to see how the company which has traditionally relied on the p2p network effect to sell will fare in a the SMB space where customers are not used to purchasing telephony through non-traditional marketing methods.

Dan York has a great and in-depth post on this news.

As companies continue to embrace MPLS networks, companies like MegaPath Inc, look to become a trusted partner in deploying networks which are secure, reasonably priced and great at packet prioritization. The company recently released its Duet service with MPLS and managed security allowing customers to benefit from a single network and bill.
 

In a recent live conversation with Dan Foster the company's SVP of Sales, he told me the company's solution can be provided over an integrated access product and includes QoS, intrusion detection, VPN and more over SDSL or T1. The company further offers PRIs as well as SIP trunking solutions.

All Duet services include 50 email accounts, spam filtering, domain name management, inbound caller ID name and number, directory listing, 411 directory assistance and E911 emergency service. The company also have an EVDO failover-based solution if your needs require it.

As a testament to how converged IP communications solutions are saving company money, he tells me that December was a record quarter and year over year sales were up just under 20%.

An area of focus for the company is open-source where they want to become a preferred Asterisk trunking provider. Look for MegaPath to continue to focus on its core competency as well as considering the hosted market as well.

For more info check the company's site and learn about how you can get a T1 starting at $299/month and the first month free.

At a time when the world is tightening its belt but still using broadband and wireless services like they are going out of style, you might imagine an increasing portion of companies would be interested in managing telecom expenses. And if you think about it - with companies cutting travel budgets and utilizing technology to substitute for air and other forms of travel, it makes sense that broadband and telecom costs could increase while headcounts shrink.

During the recession of the early nineties telecom costs decreased

more or less in lockstep with business activity and headcount. Nowadays this is far from the case as companies further look to reduce costs with hosted solutions which they used to run locally. In addition, there is an increased focus on accessing information everywhere - via phones, netbooks and smartphones. As more information is accessed in different ways such as mashups and IVR systems, broadband use increases and so can costs.

The increase in telecom use at a time when companies are looking to decrease costs across the board could explain why some companies are looking to rein in their telecom budgets by looking to telecom expense management companies.

This would explain why Veramark Technologies, one of the companies in the TEM space is adding staff. Yes, someone is actually adding people in this environment. And while TMCnet's Michael Dinan was busy writing an article about the happenings at Veramark, I was meeting with Troy McCracken the CEO and Trent McCracken the President of Spectrum Incorporated, a company also providing services in the telecom expense management space. One comment the brothers made in the meeting was that TEM solutions will save 25% of telecom expenses over four years. I have heard similar numbers from others in the industry and from researchers.

One differentiator Spectrum brings to the table is the company's focus on ensuring agents can manage customers easily through an intuitive software program. In addition they have a focus on paper invoices allowing data to be easily extracted and loaded into SQL tables.

The company has a unique way of looking at the field - they blend the help desk with sourcing and procurement, asset management, financial reporting and expense management. An important  theme in our discussion was the fact that TEM is much more than auditing and with increasing complexity of broadband services, they make a great point.

Feel free to visit the company's site for more.

In addition here are some other related and sponsored TMCnet resources for more:

One of the most maddening parts of traveling for me has to be finding hotels which have adequate bandwidth. Generally you have to learn the good properties from bad via trial and error. For those of us used to continuous and fast broadband access, having to wait for a computer to respond due to poor hotel connectivity is frustrating beyond belief. In this economy, many of us need to be more productive than ever and often work efficiency is directly related to speed of information access.

But when you think you have nailed it and found the hotel which offers the absolute best connectivity, you are often disappointed when a technical trade show comes to town and that fat pipe seems to clog pretty quickly. Especially telecom shows where it seems everyone goes to their room and downloads the Library of Congress at night.

Is there anything worse than realizing your connection is so slow, you have time to catch the evening view between email downloads?

I recently came across a post from Andy Abramson which discusses his experiences with hotels and broadband speed. He has some good tips for the road warrior as well. He closes with hotels which have good bandwidth. To his list I would like to add the Palms in Las Vegas and the Dallas and Orlando Gaylord Hotels. I am sure there are more I could add but to date I haven't really kept a good list.

Las Vegas Palms Hotel

Feel free to add your good and bad hotel bandwidth comments at the bottom of this post and maybe together we can prevent that next road warrior from a frustrating night of playing hurry up and wait with their laptops.

A nice surprise but can this be the last snow of the year please?

A shot of the Ottawa River in Canada. Click to enlarge.

It is certainly a tough time for Nortel to be trying to get a court to approve senior level management bonuses as just south of Canada here in the US, the government is focusing on taxing bonuses to employees of TARP recipients to death. The good news here is these bonuses - unlike many on Wall Street seem to be tied to cost-reduction and reducing the company's focus - or selling off parts of the business.

The question worth asking is, anyone can cut expenses at a company, how do you measure the effectiveness of what was cut? In other words, how do you ensure the things which are eliminated are smart for the long-term health of the company? Obviously there is no simple answer but this sort of incentive seems to be something which can have unintended consequences.

You may have heard the House of Representatives recently passed a punitive bonus tax bill for those working in companies which received TARP money. Specifically, The bill defines a new class of income, "TARP Bonus," that consists of any compensation payments in excess of a periodic wage and any income for such employees in excess of $250,000, or $125,000 for married individuals filing separate returns. Under the legislation, any "TARP Bonus" would be taxed at a 90 percent rate.

The bill now needs to be passed by the Senate and President.

I am in pain - two conflicting Rich Tehranis are killing each other in my brain. On the one hand there is the Rich Tehrani who is horrified that anyone who was partially responsible for the current financial mess get any bonus at all. The other Rich Tehrani is horrified that if the companies who received TARP money from the government can't give bonuses which match the industry they will lose the best people.

Then there goes the other Rich Tehrani who wonders exactly who on Wall Street, AIG, etc. had a brain to begin with. Then the other Rich Tehrani comes in and says there must be a few good people in all these companies - we can't paint them all with the same brush - right?

In the end, corporate America pay is out of whack. If your company loses money and you get a bonus more than $250,000 IMHO you are getting too much money. Then again, why would you deserve a bonus at all if you lose people money? I say this as a business person and a fair human being and as a shareholder.

I hope that compensation boards rework pay packages in such a way that CXOs and other executives get paid bonuses only when they make the company money in the short and long-term. I also hope we see more pseudo-clawback provisions using escrow accounts to ensure there is no incentive to use fraud or questionable accounting to get a quick bonus.

Let's take the time to rework executive pay packages across the board so we reward only the people who contribute to making companies successful.

But in the mean time we have to be careful as a country not to make the companies which owe us so much money go bankrupt because they lose all their best people. The trouble is this crisis makes both Rich Tehranis wonder what "best people on Wall Street" means.