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

ADC Telecommunications CEO Bob Switz appeared on CNBC this afternoon explaining his company's guidance for the full year is to be maintained. It would appear he was referring to revenue and not earnings. He also explained six weeks ago guidance was lowered. He further mentioned at the end of the second quarter, guidance was raised.

Yesterday, the company reported quarterly earnings. Apparently commodity and freight costs are to blame for pressure on earnings.

Here are the highlights from the report:

• Net Sales of $390 Million, Up 13% from 3Q07;
• Sales Outside the U.S. of $173 Million, Up 32% from 3Q07;
• $0.12 GAAP EPS In 3Q08, Which Includes Certain Expenses Totaling $0.15 EPS;
• Cash Flow Provided by Operating Activities of $56 Million in 3Q08 and $159 Million in Last 12 Months;
• 2008 Annual Sales Guidance of $1.500-$1.520 Billion, Up 13%-15% from 2007 and a 22-23% Five-year Compound Annual Growth Rate Since 2003

ADC Telecom is certainly one of the more diversified telecom companies playing in cable, copper connectivity, Ethernet, fiber, SONET, power distribution, wireless and more.

Going forward, Switz says they have a competitive transformation platform which will lower manufacturing costs. This should help offset rising prices he says and in addition the company will pass along some of the increased costs to customers through surcharges.

Regarding the global economy, Switz says 44% of their business is outside the US and since Europe has done well (up 28%) and Asia PAC is up 52% he is optimistic. Finally he mentioned he hasn't seen recessionary effects slow the telecom business as of yet.

Here is more on how the company is doing as referenced in yesterday's quarterly earnings press release:

ADC's sales for the third quarter of 2008 were $390 million, up 13% from the third quarter of 2007 and down 3% from the second quarter of 2008. Excluding sales from the LGC Wireless and Century Man Communication acquisitions of $36 million and $35 million in the third and second quarters of 2008, respectively, adjusted sales in the third quarter of 2008 were up 3% from the third quarter of 2007 and down 4% from the second quarter of 2008.

Sales outside the United States of $173 million increased 32% from the third quarter of 2007 and 3% from the second quarter of 2008. These sales were 44% of total ADC sales in the third quarter of 2008, an increase from 42% and 38% in the second quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of 2007, respectively. Comparing the third quarters of 2008 and 2007, Europe/Middle East/Africa sales of $91 million were up 28%, Asia Pacific sales of $54 million were up 52% and Latin America sales of $18 million were up 53%. Comparing the third quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2008, Europe/Middle East/Africa sales were approximately flat, Asia Pacific sales were up 8% and Latin America sales were up 11%. The remaining sales outside the United States were in Canada.

Global Connectivity Solutions (GCS)

GCS sales of $293 million in the third quarter of 2008 increased 9% from $268 million in the same quarter in 2007. GCS generated a 7% increase in sales of global fiber connectivity solutions due to growth in central office, data center and outside plant deployments. Customers worldwide are building and deploying fiber network solutions to increase network speed and capacity. The increase in fiber sales was accompanied by a 15% increase in global copper connectivity shipments and a 4% increase in sales of global enterprise connectivity products. Global copper connectivity sales in the third quarter of 2008 and the nine months ended August 1, 2008 included $10 million and $20 million, respectively, as a result of the Century Man acquisition that closed during January 2008. Excluding the Century Man acquisition, the increase in global copper connectivity sales was primarily in other emerging world markets. Global enterprise connectivity sales grew primarily in the Asia/Pacific region.

GCS sales in the third quarter of 2008 decreased 2% from $298 million in the second quarter of 2008. Sales of global fiber connectivity products decreased 14% primarily due to lower sales of central office and data center products and to a smaller degree from lower sales of outside plant products. Sequentially, third quarter 2008 sales of global copper connectivity products increased 6%, while enterprise connectivity product sales increased 8%. Global copper connectivity sales in the third and second quarters of 2008 included sales of $10 million and $8 million, respectively, as a result of the Century Man acquisition. Excluding the Century Man acquisition, global copper connectivity sales increased primarily in other emerging world markets. Global enterprise connectivity sales grew primarily in the Asia/Pacific and Americas regions.

Network Solutions

Network Solutions' wireless sales of $32 million in the third quarter of 2008 nearly tripled from $11 million in the same quarter in 2007, but declined 8% compared to the second quarter of 2008. Wireless sales in the third quarter of 2008, the second quarter of 2008 and the nine months ended August 1, 2008 included $25 million, $27 million and $75 million, respectively, as a result of the LGC Wireless acquisition that closed in December 2007.

Network Solutions' wireline sales of $12 million in the third quarter of 2008 compared to $13 million in the same quarter in 2007 and $12 million in the second quarter of 2008. Wireline product sales are impacted by a long-term, industry-wide product substitution trend resulting in a decline in market demand for high-bit-rate digital subscriber line products as carriers deliver fiber and Internet Protocol services closer to end-user premises.

Professional Services

Professional Services' third quarter 2008 sales of $54 million were approximately flat compared to the same quarter in 2007. Third quarter 2008 sales were 7% lower than the second quarter of 2008 due largely to project timing and a decision not to renew unprofitable business in Europe.

2008 Guidance

On a continuing operations basis, ADC currently expects its 2008 sales to be in the range of $1.500-$1.520 billion, an increase of 13%-15% compared to 2007 and a 22-23% five-year compound annual growth rate since 2003. This guidance includes the results of the LGC Wireless and Century Man acquisitions that closed in the first quarter of 2008.

Based on our 2008 third quarter sales, ADC now expects fourth quarter 2008 sales to be lower than third quarter 2008 as customers' capital spending nears the end of the calendar year. For full year 2008, gross margins are expected to be around 35%; however, they are expected to rise and decline with sales volume levels and mix from quarter to quarter. Looking ahead and generally consistent with its historical seasonality, ADC anticipates that sales in the first quarter of 2009 will be lower than the fourth quarter of 2008. Sequential sales declines from the prior-year fourth quarter were 7% and 3% and in the first quarters of 2006 and 2007, respectively. Excluding the Century Man and LGC Wireless acquisitions that closed in the first quarter of 2008, sales in the first quarter of 2008 decreased 5% from the fourth quarter of 2007. ADC will provide annual financial guidance for 2009 when it reports in December 2008 its fourth quarter results for the period ending October 31, 2008.

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

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. :)

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.

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.

For over six years I have been espousing the virtues of 3D, stereo voice conversations with articles  and ITEXPO demonstrations mostly focusing on DiamondWare and the company's patented 3D technology which allows you to have a conference calls with others and place them on the left right, front or rear.

Until you have heard a conference call in 3D stereo, you have not heard a conference call.

In addition, the technology allows the addition of overtones like adding a metallic sound to a speaker or group of speakers on a conference call. This function could be useful if you are looking to find a way to discern what group a person belongs to -- the Los Angeles office for example.

You may recall that on May 15th of this year, I suggested Nortel would even buy DiamondWare. Well today is that day as Nortel did just that... They purchased the company and further explained how they have a portion of their R&D budget devoted to making VC-like investments but of course with a potentially different exit strategy.

Nortel believes the future of communications is likely going to be avatar-based and even if they are partially right -- let's say 5% of all calls, this could be a huge market.

A Nortel Avatar Demo of their web.alive business communications platform:


Nortel is further betting that the technology advantage they have as a result of this acquisition will help insulate them against others in the market who compete. That would be Avaya, Cisco and even to a lesser degree (at the moment) Microsoft. You see, I personally believe that 3D, stereo communications provides such a rich immersive experience that once you have tried it, you will have trouble going back to traditional telephony.

This move is the second acquisition in a few weeks for Nortel as they just picked up Pingtel as well. For the Canadian-based company these moves are bold as Nortel seems to be gaining momentum in the enterprise. Many of us are aware that most acquisitions fail and Nortel's past acquisitions have not seen success above industry averages.

What the company has done these past weeks though is buy easily digestible companies which are relatively cheap. These companies are M&A training wheels and if the company can get better at acquiring, it can present a more formidable resistance to the Cisco onslaught. Over the years, I have heard more than one story of how Cisco has acquired Nortel partners and damaged Nortel in the process.

In order for technology companies to compete effectively against Oracle and Cisco, they need to know how to acquire successfully. So for Nortel, the world is their oyster... They have the DiamondWare 3D technology and  are now a player in open source and have time to practice the M&A game.

How the company handles these two new companies will show me and others if they are able to successfully pull off more deals and become a bigger competitive threat to other industry players.

In the mean time, these moves should serve as a signal to competitors that Nortel seems to have gotten its mojo back and for customers, I suggest you join me in pushing Nortel to get DiamondWare technology into the company's entire product line ASAP.

See Also

Jon Arnold's take
Press Release

Two days -- two shows, two cities and two trains which left at dawn. Wow... What a rush. What I picked up from the Channel Partners (Boston) and SpeechTek (New York) shows is  the communications market and the call center market are doing well, based on what companies in the space tell me.

Yes, of course some sectors are doing better than others but some are amazingly strong... Open source anything for example is a good place to be. The speech market too is doing well as companies are looking to automation as a way to save money.


In addition, businesses have begun to realize the contact center is extending its presence within the entire corporation making almost all people within the company call center agents. Seems like Nadji Tehrani was right when many decades ago he proclaimed, Every Company is a Call Center.

As this happens the need to monitor quality by companies like Empirix grows and a conversation Susan Anderson at the company showed this to be the case.

A discussion with Jim Jenkins at IQ Services -- a communications testing company also confirms that the testing market is growing.

Discussions with Nuance were interesting as well, as the company seems to be transcending the world of speech and embracing a larger portion of the customer interaction pie. Not unlike Nortel, Cisco, West Interactive, IBM and others, the company is looking to capitalize on the growth of 3G devices and the convergence of outbound, inbound calling and voice portals.

Nuance is even helping companies design user interfaces which marry the best aspects of speech recognition and the GUI, allowing for example to tell a GPS device that you want to find a local Italian restaurant and rather than listen to 10 responses which you have to pick from, you see them on a screen and at this point can say, "Pick number 3".

My conversation with Nuance's Lynda Kate Smith and Michael Wehrs was very instructive and since Smith represents the call center line of business and Wehrs represents mobile, it was interesting to hear how technology developed in one area helps in other parts of the value chain. Our discussion even got into using speech on the device and within the network to interact with stored information in the cloud. For example telling your mobile phone to play music which could reside on your device or in the cloud and having the software be smart enough to figure out how to get the right information back to the user.

Voice biometrics too is gaining traction for things like password resets but I don't see this space as taking off -- rather it will grow slowly but surely and in the process, save companies tremendous support costs in areas like password resets and others.

What I am most excited about however is ITEXPO as I am seeing a resurgence in call centers and massive activity in the communications API space. This means that not only with ITEXPO have a very strong showing (early registration numbers show this to be the case) but the two simultaneous events, Communications Developer and Call Center 2.0 should also have nice attendance levels.

Remember that the purchase of Ribbit by BT has really legitimized communications APIs and development. We now see that major world power service providers are interested in extending their networks to developers everywhere and in doing so they will extend their importance in the new world of communications.

What communications will look like in five years is tough to know for sure but what I can tell you is the thought leaders in the communications and technology space will be at ITEXPO in a matter of weeks (September 16-18, 2008) in Los Angeles and if you want to know what is important in the market today and tomorrow so you can do your job more effectively, you should be there.

I hope to greet you all personally.

What is the future of communications? One acknowledged thought leader in our field is Thomas Howe and his consulting company which bears his name is the place you go when you want to know. Howe and I were recently on a panel together at a conference in San francisco and I was very impressed with what he had to say so I invited him to be be my guest on a podcast.

Some of the takeaways from our discussion are that voice mashups are becoming more common and voice will transcend CEBP or communications enabled business processes to the realm of the consumer as well. As this happens, communications becomes the condment to virtually all applications.

The excitement here is how this will happen. Who will be the winners and losers as communications ends up everywhere? Certainly BT sees this transformation and this is one of the reasons the company purchased Ribbit. Be sure to listen to Howe's perspective on how other service providers will respond.

If you are looking to learn more about the future of communications be sure to come to ITEXPO September 16-18, 2008 in Los Angeles and while you are there you can stop buy booths at the collocated Communications Developer Conference.

While you are there be sure to say Hi to Thomas and me as well. See you soon.