Hosted communications provider Acredo Technologies recently hired Mike Ross to bolster the company's sales. Acredo is headed up by Mike Ross a veteran of the communications space having worked for Dialogic, Rhetorex, Aculab and many others.

Mike's son Brian worked with dad at Aculab for many years and while there did a great job selling DSP resource boards to a number of OEM customers making the communications equipment sold to business and service provider customers.

While I must admit this isn't the biggest news -- it does signal the continued growth of the hosted market (at least from this vendor's perspective) and it also brings two of the nicest people in telecom back to the same company where they will likely be successful again.

If you want to connect with Mike Ross, be sure to come to ITEXPO the week after next to hear him speak. Here are some details.

Whenever I go to a conference, I learn a tremendous amount from the people I meet at the show. I really enjoy the impromptu networking which takes place at events as it allows me to learn so much about what is happening in the market. Ironically, I generally learn things I didn't think I would learn ahead of time. Quite often, I wish I would have known more about peoples' experiences before I met with them as it would allow me to be better prepared to ask pertinent questions.

I further wish I knew who was coming to events and and moreover I wish I could get a "brain dump" from them before the event so I could have a frame of reference before our conversations take place.

Imagine how much better networking at a show would be if I had an idea what people were generally thinking about the market before I even say hello.

In less than two weeks the world with gather at ITEXPO -- The World's Communications Conference to help select products for purchase, learn about the latest events in the telecom market and network with peers.

It is this last area where this blog entry should be of maximal benefit. You see, over the past month or so I have been interviewing the telecom movers and shakers who will be coming to ITEXPO. I certainly didn't interview every mover and shaker (exactly what is a telecom shaker anyway  ;)  ) but this list should give you a good idea who some of the speakers and exhibitors will be at this year's show.

The questions each person answered below may be slightly varied but what is common is the person's thoughts on their markets and where they think things may be going. I truly hope you find these interviews useful and I hope to see you at the show September 16-18, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

NAME	COMPANY
Don Palmer	Sip Print
Jim Beuoy	OKS
Mark Stacy	Touchstone
John Nam	Phonevite
Jim Beuoy	OKS
Barry Sher	IVR Technologies
Ari Raban	Phone.com
John Doyle	CommuniGate Systems
David Mandelstam	Sangoma
Sharone Ben Levi	AudioCodes
Rupesh Chokshi	AT&T
Jeff Gallino	Callminer
Dr. David K. Schrader	Teradata
Mark Ricca	Intellicom Analytics
Xuedong Huang (XD)	Microsoft
Rick Dell	Mitel
Mark Lepko	Altitude Software North America
Liz Amaral	Enkata
Francis Carden	OpenSpan
Kevin Murphy	NEI
Chris Gravett	Aculab
Brian Schwarz	RedSky Technologies, Inc.
John Konczal	Sterling Commerce
Stefan Winkler	Symmetricom
Eric Thomas	FreedomVoice
Albert Chu	ACCESS Systems
Bill Miller	Digium
Randy Busch	Jazinga
Jeff Hicks	NetQos
Scott Charter	WBS Connect
Jim Slaby	Acme Packet
Dean Jordan	Telesphere
Justin McLain	Endeavor Telecom
Asif Rehman	Mitel
Steve Safley	VoIPConsultants
Frank Paterno	Intelliverse
Warren Sonnen	Epygi Technologies
Jim Jenkins	IQ Services
Jonathan Christensen	Skype
Mark De Clerq	Sitel Semiconductor
Ken Kuenzel	Covergence
Chris Lyman	Fonality
Michael Hermann	Cincinnati bell
Brough Turner	NMS
Shelley Veazie	CTI Group
Abdul Kasim	Critical Links
Eran Gal	Xorcom
Robert Messer	ABP
Todd Woodstra	SpinVox
Mike Coward	Continuous Computing
Laura Serna	Dialexia
James Rafferty	Dialogic
Ken Lowe	Sigma Designs
Rob McDougall	Upstream Works Software
Mary Boyd	Intrado
Henry Danser	Aspect Software
Gregory Giagnocavo	Vitelity
Vikram Saksena	Sonus Networks
Alastair Westgarth	Tango Networks
Greg Rothman	Cbeyond
Vivek Khuller	Divitas

In less than two weeks something extraordinary will happen. Not only will the global communications industry convene in Los Angeles for ITEXPO but there will be over 100 members of the media, analysts, etc meeting with the world's leading vendors in the communications and technology space.

In addition, well over a dozen TMC editors will be on-hand at the show for the first ever TMC Editor's Week. Close to 100 meetings have been set up by my team so far and counting.

If you are interested in having a meeting at the show with a TMC editor be sure to email Todd Keefe ASAP.

Here are a few of the TMC editors present and depending on scheduling, you can meet with them:

• Greg Galitzine
• Rich Grigonis
• Bob Emmerson (European Editor)
• Peter Radizeski (Reseller Channel)
• David Yedwab (Unified Communications)
• Tom Keating (New Product Reviews)
• Brendan Read (CRM/Call Center)
• Erik Linask
• Michael Dinan
• Tim Gray

Fonality just received a $12 million financing round by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund. This is a powerful statement by this top fund that they really beleive in the open source communications story and to be quite honest, it is tough to disagree that this is a great space to be in as most every vendor in the space is doing well.

I have covered Fonality before -- the company makes quality PBX products and I have had a chance to test the Trixbox PBX for a number of months and remain impressed.

Getting back to Draper -- the fund has had some great investments including Hotmail, Baidu, Focus Media (advertising in China), Skype, Overture, Divx and many others. Some of the lesser known, current investments include Jobfox in the recruitment space, Kajeet -- in mobile services and Visto in wireless email.

But getting back to Fonality, the company has employed an interesting twist in the communications space as their PBX has taken some of the best parts of open-source and fused this with a hosted model -- allowing for example the recording of phone calls on Fonality servers which do not reside in your office.



At this point it should be obvious the open source communications market remains one of the most exciting spaces in telecom.

If you are interested in the open source market be sure to come to ITEXPO in two weeks in Los Angeles where you will see all the open-source leaders such as Digium/Asterisk, Pika, Sangoma and of course Fonality. You can also take advantage of Fonality/Trixbox certifications which will be held at the show.

See Also: trixbox Pro 2.0 review

One of the most fascinating advances in political systems worldwide is the advent of technology like blogs and other web 2.0 initiatives such as social networking and video. But even the old technologies like SMS are coming into play as candidates look for any and every advantage to distance themselves from one another.

As you can imagine, with so much technology swirling around, making candidates more productive and efficient, we at TMC became mezmerized by it all. It got so interesting to us in fact we decided to categorize all of the stories we ran having to do with election technology. Afer a while we realized we had developed an entire website focusing exclusively on election technology and how it transforms poltics. I hope you enjoy it.

election-2008.tmcnet.com

It is worth mentioning that call centers are a vital part of of the election process and now that the government has more or less outlawed telemarketing for everyone but themselves, call centers continue to be a vibrant part of the election process. We will of course continue to chart the progress of this segment of the market as well -- as you may recall, TMC has been covering the call center space since 1982 -- before the term call center was even coined. :)

The financial news networks seem to thrive on giving us the negative news regarding the economy. Jobs being lost; wages decreasing and all sorts of other negative bits and pieces.

Well there is something you won't hear about if you focus all your time and attention on the network news. It seems in fact that there is some great economic news in the world of IP communications. In fact, VoIP jobs are rising in salary at a time when so many other jobs are not.

OnForce Inc., is an online jobs mart where employers and workers meet on the Internet and agree on an hourly rate and a recent report from the company shows growth in VoIP rates have increased from 1.5 to 1.95 between Q1 and Q2. This basically means VoIP jobs are now paying twice the average of all IT jobs.

Get this... Jobs in the field of printers and point of sale systems (cash registers, etc) command 1/3 the salary of those in VoIP!

If you are in the VoIP space, your time is now. Sure these salary levels may not be this high forever but it is great to see demand and salaries increase so rapidly in a time where news in other markets is generally not as good.

If you are looking to get into the VoIP market or enhance your skills, the time is now. Don't wait... Don't delay.

There are many certifications you can look into and many are very good but only one is offered by TMC -- the company which publishes the only VoIP-related magazine -- Internet Telephony and puts on the world's only IP Communications event ITEXPO...

And of course that would be TMC University. Frankly, you cannot find a better certification anywhere IMHO and as you may have noticed it is tough to be humble when you think your product is so great.

Below is a list of VoIP-related courses and certifications which will be available to you September 16-18, 2008 in Los Angeles, CA. By the way, these courses come with a satisfaction guarantee and I have heard many times that resellers and others have found the certifications at past events valuable and responsible for increased business and rates.

I hope to see you at the show.

	Date	Course	Hosted by
Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Microsoft OCS Tuesday, September 16, 2008 FMC/Mobility   Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Open Source   Tuesday, September 16, 2008 SIP in the Contact Center   Wednesday, September 17, 2008 IP Network Security   Wednesday, September 17, 2008 SaaS Thursday, September 18, 2008 Unified Communications   Thursday, September 18, 2008 SIP: The Foundation for Building Enhanced Services Thursday, September 18, 2008 Next-Generation Call Center Management

I made a logical leap in my headline -- inferring you can get famous -- in this case, written up in Popular Science Magazine if you come to TMC's Los Angeles ITEXPO conference in just over two weeks. Let me explain.

About a year and a half ago, Ari Zoldan, CEO of Launch 3 Communications -- a company installing global WiMAX networks came to ITEXPO and won an Toyota FJ Cruiser at the show. Now he seems to be popping up everywhere.

I just read an article in Popular Science Magazine (a great pub BTW) where Zoldan in his new capacity as CEO of Quantum Networks, LLC explains to inventors the best way to go about getting VC money from a firm like his. A few points to consider are -- call the CEO directly and don't give up majority interest.

Here is the article (look to the right side of the page).

Oh, and in just over two weeks, ITEXPO will be in full force and this year we are giving away a Toyota Prius to one lucky winner. Will it be you? Perhaps. Come to the show and find out.

If you haven't been paying attention you just may have missed the fact that bloggers have been going crazy lately about VoIP blocking on planes and the associated ways of getting around said blocking. Long story short -- SIP was being blocked on American Airline flights but Flash widgets were not blocked.

Andy Abramson has an original post on the matter and PhoneBoy has thoughts on why airplane broadband providers can likely block anything thrown at them.

Like I said a while back -- isn't it amazing how much effort airlines throw at stopping passengers from talking on phones when they don't get paid by the minute? I remember how they used to push us to use the in-flight phones in years past. Now it is easier to hack into the Pentagon's IT systems than talk on a flight.

Seriously... Five years already? That is how old Skype is? Well time has really flown and I agree with Tom Keating that Skype really made VoIP a household name -- thanks to Vonage too of course who reminded us all of VoIP every time we turned on a TV.

I also agree somewhat with Andy Abramson that Skype is more VoIP 1.0 than 2.0 but what are you going to do? They are theoretically focusing on the things that make instant revenue today and synergy between Skype and eBay doesn't seem to be important. If it was, you would be able to Skype eBay customer service (see item #10).

I am really happy that Skype's Jonathan Christensen will be keynoting ITEXPO on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. It will be very interesting to hear what he has to say and see if the company has a new direction as a result of the new CEO they recently put in place.

The immense potential Skype has is almost impossible to fathom -- at any given point, millions of Skype users are online. As the company looks to the next five years I wonder if we will see a slew of new 2.0 type services or as Andy surmises, will we see less?

I got an email today with a link to an article in a Ridgefield, Connecticut newspaper discussing how telepresence is allowing a school to continue teaching a language which was thought to be cost prohibitive to learn. This is really big news as it reminds us telepresence has tremendous potential to help children learn about many subjects where cost was once an issue. In addition, the technology allows greater interaction with students in other classrooms around the world and gives access to museums and other interactive exhibits.

All in all this is great news for the telepresence market and moreover gets our children used to advanced technology which will no doubt be commonplace when they enter the workforce.is expense.

Of course school boards need to approve the initial costs of telepresence systems but once they see the potential I would imagine most will.

Thanks to Bob Liu for sending the link.