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The advent of the internet, SIP trunking, intense competition and the economic downturn has contributed to changing the channel partner market forever and if you are doing the same things you always did as a channel partner you may get wiped off the earth in the next few years. You need to change. How? Well I would spoil it if I told you and didn't allow you to listen to the podcast which is complete and dare I say elaborate. It is worth a listen if you are in any segment of the telecom or technology spaces and the lessons you can learn here are applicable to other segments of the market.

Dear blog readers, your assistance is appreciated. We are looking for talented sales people - entry level and sales management. We have many resumes already but I thought it made sense to reach out to my readers in case they know someone really good who is looking. The job involves working in Norwalk, CT.

TMC is an extremely driven, financially stable media company which has seen it's online and event business flourish in the last five years. Hundreds of companies in the communications and technology space rely on TMC to provide them with exposure to our laser-targeted community each month.

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Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying the only two sure things in life are death and taxes and I would hazard a guess that if you manage corporate email you could modify this phrase slightly to read the only two sure things in life are spam and outages. Just as corporations hire armies of tax experts to help them prepare returns and armies of doctors are hired to keep us healthy, corporate email decision-makers should consider calling email experts to help them deal with email, one of the more important tools in a corporate technology arsenal.

At Interop a few weeks back I sat down with Michael Hamstra, Director of marketing for AppRiver and we got into a discussion about his company which has been providing SaaS solutions since 2002 - initially helping companies with their spam and virus protection. In 2007 the company launched a hosted Microsoft Exchange offering and now has just shy of 70,000 hosted exchange boxes, 35,000 customers and filters more than five million mailboxes.

An interesting statistic is that the company processes 5 billion messages per month meaning the average corporate email user gets 1,000 messages per month or about 33 per day. In order to keep the mailboxes junk free AppRiver updates virus and spam signatures 2-4 times continually each day.

An interesting point Hamstra mentioned is that his company offers unlimited storage for email users and can do so with relative ease because they don't need to store the spam and viruses.

Moreover he told me his business has evolved due to the increasing use of malicious senders adding infected web links in email. Subsequently the company now offers customers the ability to surf securely by reducing malware and additionally can set up different groups and policies which block certain groups from categories of websites such as sports gambling, gaming, porn, ecommerce, etc.

Moreover to make email even more useful the company has partnered with Voltage Security (news) to ensure that emails can be easily kept secure through encryption. In addition there is a partnership with Global Relay in place which helps customers handle compliance requirements for HIPAA, etc.

In short Hamstra explains that AppRiver is a hosted Exchange company which is now covering all aspects of security. This of course includes disaster recovery.

But security is only part of the story as the company has also decided to use the Akamai network - one which is designed for high-bandwidth applications such as streaming. Why? Well because in my opinion the speed of email response is becoming more and more important as a business differentiator. They use the Akamai network and packet triplication, which is a method of sending information through three diverse routes via the Internet. Whichever packet reaches the destination first wins this three-way race. Once determined, that route is chosen.

Hamstra explains this has worked well for the company as they have been profitable from their inception and add 100-150 customers per week and a 97% retention rate.

Andy why not? The intersection of spam/malware elimination and SaaS is a logical growth area. Why? To take off on another Ben Franklin statement - a spam/malware message not saved is productivity earned. In the end, its all about the Franklins you save.
 

Regardless of whether you think being green is the right way to live because of the environment or you think it makes sense to save money in a tough economy you should be keeping a close eye on Microsemi, the leader in the PoE midspan market allowing traditional networking equipment to be upgraded to PoE without a forklift.

In a recent conversation with Daniel Feldman, Telecom Marketing Director for the company we got to talking about the company's new high-power midspans the PD-9000G family.

Feldman pointed out that when the company first started producing PoE products they thought the midspan opportunity would be short-lived as all switches would eventually incorporate PoE natively meaning additional equipment would be unnecessary. As luck would have it MTBF times were reduced by half in equipment with powered Ethernet as heat dissipation became an issue.

Feldman equates a switch with integrated PoE to a TV with a built-in DVD player - if the DVD player fails you have to get a new TV making the combined product less desirable.

The even better news for the company is that PoE standards call for increasing wattage with the current 802.3at standard calling for 30W - up from 15W. The next stop is 60W and I have already heard of some vendors pushing higher wattage in specific PoE applications. As wattage increases, so does heat so you can expect the appetite for PoE in switches to decrease as MTBF times decrease in lockstep.

Regardless of how you achieve PoE, rest assured that there is tremendous potential to use the technology to save electricity as you can intelligently control the power to devices on your network when the power is being provided by an intelligent device. For example Feldman tells me his company came up with a way years back to turn off power to phones if a user was not in the office. He further went on to explain you can use PoE to determine machine failure and even determine if a computer has a virus if there is a power spike on a machine with no related change in user behavior (such as plugging in a USB-powered fan, etc).

The company is actually promoting a green PoE standard which they say is quite simple - efficiency is calculated by taking output PoE power and dividing by input power.

Obviously being able to intelligently control power through midspans and other methods can lead to tremendous power savings. One would expect all devices on networks of the future to be powered by PoE but the challenge today is with ubiquitous wireless connectivity, portable devices are proliferating more quickly than wired meaning less of a target market. Still, even if 10% of all computing devices get connected to intelligent PoE switching devices we can make a serious dent in computing power consumption and in the process Microsemi can only expect to grow much larger.

In 2001 when the PDA market was all the rage and smartphones didn't really exist, a company called Interactive Intelligence a leader in the contact center space saw an opportunity for a development platform called Mobilite (pronounced as if you are French) which would allow developers to develop once and have applications run on any mobile device.

The idea was genius and ahead of its time so Mobilite was shelved sometime later.

I couldn't help but think of this product as I spoke with Rhomobile Founder and CEO Adam Blum who was telling me about his company's open source mobile application framework Rhodes which lets you quickly build native mobile applications for all smartphone operating systems: iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android. Blum emphasizes that applications can take advantage of native GPS, PIM contacts and camera and that they are native, not just web applications optimized for each platform.

Another company in the space is PhoneGap and Blum explains that Rhodes focuses more on business applications while PhoneGap focuses more on consumer apps.

This graphic was chosen due to its looks and may or may not be related to the subject matter in this article -- depending on your perspective.

He went on to tell me Wikipedia rewrote their iPhone application using the Rhodes framework and used 20% of the code needed in Objective C and the resulting program also ran faster. He further went on to explain that while you may imagine his development environment is slanted heavily towards the iPhone, the reality is objective testers have shown applications run the same across all platforms.

Blum was Director of Engineering for Good Technology and explains he saw $200 million pushed into the company and as a result 200 engineers worked to get an email client on three smartphone operating systems. This lunacy (my chosen term, not his) made him decide to launch a company to stop the madness and his twelve-person company is looking to make mobile application writing more efficient.

In our conversation Blum explained that he believes it is virtually impossible to develop to more than two device operating systems beyond version 1.0 without some sort of cross-platform development application. He further explained that such an environment needs to be open-source in nature and as such his solution is completely open source.

As mentioned above there is a strong business focus here so new features are to added to the development environment with business developers in mind first.

Blum also told me his company is well-positioned in this economic environment as they are solving a pain point - one that has a high-degree of urgency. He concluded by saying, "What would you do without it?"

With that Blum and his 12-person company may have made some software development history by announcing RhoHub, perhaps the first development-as-a-service offering for mobile applications.

What are the benefits to developers? Well first of all you don't need to have a variety of development environments and disparate computers in your company in order to develop mobile applications for multiple devices. In addition, the company offers up a provisioning server and can even host the application and allow users to download the correct version based on device.

If you are developing mobile applications it is apparent you need to support the iPhone, Palm, RIM, Nokia, Android, Windows Mobile and Blum thinks Linux Mobile is going to be a contender as well soon. You obviously can't be an expert at all of these environments and you will obviously benefit from some sort of cross-platform development tool like the one his company sells.

But before you go out and trash your Mac and start developing your iPhone apps on the web, you should be aware that Apple's App Store seems to be rejecting a high number of applications which are being built on cross-platform development tools. This could have something to do with the major changes in the iPhone 3.0 OS coming soon but for now it is too soon to tell.

While it is obvious this sort of solution is necessary, we need to watch what companies like Apple and others do to existing customers of cross-platform tools before jumping in too quickly.

This entry from the company's blog may prove useful in your decision-making process.

As the networking landscape gets more complex through the addition of remote computing, WiFi, cloud computing and virtualization, it is becoming more of a challenge to determine who is using what services and how much aggregate bandwidth they are consuming. Moreover as the need for ever-more bandwidth shows no sign of slowing, companies need to ensure they have an adequate way of charging departments for their bandwidth usage.

One company looking to fill the void is eTelemetry whose self-described goal is to extract real-time business information from network activity. I recently sat down with Ermis Sfakiyanudis CEO & President and Jennifer Silate - Marketing Manager of the company to learn about their products.

To get started I should introduce Metron to you - it is a 1-2U (depending on model) rack-mounted device which monitors and manages bandwidth usage, time spent surfing and chatting by department. Other nifty features include the ability to track computers powered on during off-hours and the ever-important alerts you need to be sent when an employee uses Remote Desktop (if they aren't supposed to of course) or if they exceed their time or bandwidth allotment, etc.

In my conversation I learned the company now has the ability to track virtualization on the desktop allowing network managers to monitor the bandwidth use and websites visited by virtual instances on devices/computers on the network.

The company has technology which maps IP addresses to users meaning their products can help you get a better indication of who is doing what with networking resources. As you might imagine this technology can be important in helping companies track who is using what cloud computing services as well. Another logical area for the company to play in is E911 where the company's Locate911 product helps companies figure out where VoIP callers on the IP network are.

It is obvious that as networks get more complex, the ability to track usage across virtual sessions will only increase. Moreover, we can't expect E911 on enterprise VoIP networks to become less important. To that end, the company seems like it is solving some important networking problems which will only become more important over time.

ADTRAN is a networking company which has transformed a great deal over the past decades. In the nineties, the company held a virtual monopoly in the CSU/DSU market and most every network had the company's standalone boxes in their network (including TMC). In fact the company was once synonymous with the term CSU/DSU in my mind. As this functionality was added into other boxes, the company saw its identity erode and in the process took the opportunity to grow into a major networking force selling over 1,700 products to enterprise and carrier customers. Total sales last year exceeded $500 million and the company employs 1,700 worldwide and is located in scenic Huntsville, Al.

One of the company's primary competitors is Cisco and to fight off this networking "monopoly" the company has focused on building quality products at lower prices. ADTRAN doesn't have the Cisco name but it has been around since 1985 and while so many competitors have left the space, the company keeps chugging along, identifying new market segments and rolling out multiple products to fill them.

Case in point is the NetVanta 1544 series of layer 3, Gigabit aggregation switches allowing customers to aggregate up to four 2.5 Gbps SFP ports in order to allow low-cost 10 Gbps switching in a product priced in the range of typical switches offering less aggregate throughput. All three varieties of the products have 24 fixed 10/100/1000Base-T ports and depending on your needs, there is a traditional Ethernet switch... The 1544P has PoE support and the 1544F provides support for fiber - perfect for campus and similar environments.

List prices are $2,795 for the base model while PoE support brings the price up to $3,795. Fiber support via the 1544F costs $3,995 and this is the only model which is not currently shipping - expect it mid/late-summer.

ADTRAN's Todd Lattanzi brought me up to speed on the new product line and explained these new solutions are great for a company that may need 10 Gbps support in the future but doesn't want to forklift upgrade later. He also mentioned these products are ideal for VoIP.

Latanzi went on to explain the benefits of this product line to customers are the ability to rely on a single vendor for their networking needs [as his company has such a broad product line], a 40% savings over other providers, a single OS on all switches and a built-in WiFi access controller in this product line.

My thoughts are that this economic environment seems to be one where companies like ADTRAN can differentiate themselves by pushing value. Yes Cisco costs more but Cisco spends a great deal of money on marketing which helps cement the networking giant as a very safe choice. But as many vendors and buyers have told me this year, customers are more open to new vendors who can provide them better value. On an upcoming trip to Huntsville I will be following up with ADTRAN to see how the market is reacting to their new offerings and the company's positioning as the quality and value focused networking equipment provider.

• ADTRAN NetVanta Certified for Deployment with Covad
• ADTRAN Helping SMBs with New IP Communications Alliance Program
• ADTRAN Intros Layer 3 GbE Switch Series
• Deploying VoIP on the LAN: Cross-Training In-house Teams Saves Time, Support Costs
• VoIP Provider Voxitas Expands to Colorado, Mountain Region

There is nothing that builds a resume more like an award and if you are a developer, you definitely want to keep an eye on the new Dialogic Innovator Award contest which will not only give you some great bragging rights, you could win some prizes as well.


Dialogic was nice enough to ask me to be one of the judges in fact and I am looking forward to being part of this program. Winners get a free one-year service and support contract, a $5,000 credit towards future Dialogic products, t-shirts, press releases and an Innovator logo which I imagine can be invaluable in boosting a company's marketing efforts.

Sure it isn't a $75,000 motorcycle - which makes a great gift for your favorite blogger by the way, but hey, times are tough.

The catch? None really - you have to apply of course and Dialogic wants to also take a moment to invite you to participate in the Dialogic Exchange Network while they have your attention.

At one point in my career I was a programmer and I wish I had the time to participate in this contest. If I did, I would write an app that taps into all my social networks and then monitors my cell phone's GPS to determine when I am in the car. When I am driving, I would want it to call me every 15 minutes and update me on what's happening with my friends and relatives. I would want my news alerts tapped as well in case there is breaking news I need to know about.

Oh and of course I would want WAV file to social networking integration in this app so I could speak and have the files live on the net with links from Twitter, etc.

But that's just me and you don't need to do what I said to win. It wouldn't hurt of course. You have until September 30^th 2009 to apply so open a new window right now and get started. Good luck!

Google Wave is an ambitious project from Google which allows true real-time communications by integrating chat, email, a wiki, social networking tools and more. In many ways it competes with other services such as Facebook and as such it really isn't that new. Still, it does seem slicker and it is more open than many other services which provide communications solutions (a promotional plug -- you may want to check out TMCnet's newest news-driven Global Online Community called Communications Solutions). It also allows real-time IM sessions meaning you can see what the other person is typing before they hit enter.

Some think the company is being arrogant with this launch because as usual they seem to think about products first and profits second. Others think the breadth of features included in Wave could mean that Gmail and Docs are history.

My thoughts are that Google has done a poor job in the social networking space to date and initiatives like Google Voice haven't blown us away. Gmail of course is a solid product and took share from Yahoo! and Microsoft and allowed Google to show targeted ads to millions of users while they viewed their email.

So from where I stand, if Wave becomes successful and is somehow integrated into the Google product family, it could indeed give a Google-sized boost to the bottom line because you can bet that your communications will have embedded ads which are selected based on the keywords you use in the communications.

Google still owns the world's largest ad network and subsequently has relationships with more global advertisers than any other company. This means they have all the incentive in the world to make Google Wave a very popular service and even if the new offering achieves a few percent penetration, it will offer millions and millions of new page views for advertiser monetization.

One last point - the timing of this product is especially curious as it seems to put Google more in the space occupied by Microsoft at a time when the operating system leader is focusing more on search and will launch a new marketing campaign to push it. Moreover it reminds me a bit of the Palm Pre in the way it integrates various services and is open... And the Pre should roll out next week.

Finally, today - it was announced that AOL will be spun out of Time Warner and to me AOL was the original service which allowed real-time communications between its members. Now it is a shadow of its former self.

My view is that communications is continuing to evolve and this move is good for consumers - even if Wave fails and some of its concepts get rolled into other platforms.

Last week at Interop my team conducted over 100 interviews with thought leaders at the show. Topics discussed include green switching, testing, Ethernet, cloud computing and more. So far, half a dozen of the videos have been posted and more are being added continually. I hope you find them helpful.

I have embedded some of these for your immediate viewing pleasure. Here is the page which will store all of these videos.

Chris Loeffler, Global Applications Manager and Lennart Jonsson, Vice President Technology, Eaton

Kevin Goulet, Senior Marketing Director, Enterprise WLAN, Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions, Motorola

Kevin Ryan, Director, Data Center Solutions, Extreme Networks