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It is with great pleasure I welcome Paula Bernier to the TMC family as our new Executive Editor in charge of NGN, Unified Communications and Internet Telephony Magazines. On my trip to Texas this week, the industry seemed very excited to have Paula on our team. Hiring Paula continues our commitment of investing in our readers, sponsors and advertisers and I hope you enjoy her writing and editing style.

Paula's background in the market aligns perfectly with her new role as she has worked with a number of magazines in our space. Her resume includes contributions at the following publications:

• Inter@ctive Week
• Telephony
• Sounding Board
• Phone+
• Xchange

In addition I am thrilled to have one of the major thought leaders in the channel partner industry on the TMC team. Over the past decades TMC has already been a primary resource for resellers and the channel - this new addition just reinforces this strength.

New TMC President Dave Rodriguez had this to say, "Paula's expertise in publishing in the communications and technology sector means she will be able to take the reins and run," He continued, "Our readers can look forward to robust and insightful editorial as they have already come to expect from our publications. I am completely confident that she will not only meet the bar but raise the standards of our editorial excellence. I welcome Paula to the TMC family."

Here are Paula's comments encapsulated in an article on TMCnet and here is a link to her articles so you can come back and check her news, opinion and educated analysis.

If you like soap operas, communications, technology, bankruptcies and pension liability discussions, this well-researched and well-written article by TMC's Brendan Read makes for interesting reading.

Here is an excerpt:

Tony Marsh, for the Nortel Retirees Protection Committee, told TMCnet that Nortel's Canadian pension liability is over $2 billion but is only 69 percent funded. There are no national pension guarantee funds in Canada unlike in the United States and the United Kingdom. There is only the Ontario program, the Ontario Pension Benefit Guarantee Fund.

"The agreements with Ericsson, Avaya (News - Alert), and probably the buyers of Nortel's remaining assets will absolve them of the pension liabilities, while the proceeds from the sales will be held in escrow until the sales are finalized," Marsh told TMCnet. "The question then becomes who gets what. The American and British governments staked their claims over the proceeds, but we have heard nothing from ours, which causes us to worry."

Unfortunately for the 17,500 Canadian Nortel retirees, provincial government decisions to give the ailing auto sector funding 'holidays' had led to the PBGF being depleted.

Even when fully funded it only guarantees up to the first $12,000 per pensioner per year.

In contrast for example the PBGC will pay a maximum guaranteed amount of $54,000 for a 65-year-old American Nortel retiree. There are some 23,000 U.S. Nortel employees and retirees. The fund says the Nortel Networks Retirement Income Plan is 58 percent funded, with assets of $716 million to cover benefit liabilities of $1.23 billion, according to PBGC estimates. The agency says it expects to cover the entire $514 million shortfall.

There is a once in a lifetime opportunity ahead of us as the government prepares to spend unprecedented amounts of money for a variety of initiatives. The reality is that a small percentage of companies are doing most of the selling and the government is looking for more companies to do business with in order to increase diversity and share the wealth.

Are you getting a piece of this pie? Are you knowledgeable enough about government purchases so you can benefit from this market? Do you have products the government could use but feel you aren't selling enough of them to municipalities and federal agencies?

The government will need a lot of everything from tractors to computers to networking gear to mobile devices. For better or worse it will be a bottomless pit of spending for a long while.

The way I look at it, since we are all going to be burdened with the tax debt and interest payments on this spending we may as well make some money so we can pay the taxes we will face in the future.

In order to help my listeners sell more to the fastest growing spender in the world, I conducted a podcast interview with Scott Orbach (pictured) President, CEO and Founder of EZGSA, a company devoted to helping its customers win a share of this ever-growing market.

I hope you find it useful.

In my recent trip to northern California a few vendors told me they were integrating bluetooth into their products for the home market. Generally until now most bluetooth applications have been of the mobile variety. Sure, you have some bluetooth options from GN Netcom and Plantronics for the office but Bluetooth generally is found in cars and headsets which allow mobility.

Some exceptions are stereo speakers and headsets but it doesn't seem like stereo Bluetooth has lived up to its potential yet.

As further evidence of how the Bluetooth market is looking to become more embedded into home automation, today Broadcom put out a press release explaining how their Bluetooth technology is going to be embedded in LGE (LG Electronics) TVs.

This means you can now listen to TV with wireless headphones so you don't disturb others. You can also sync music and view large-screen photos and videos.

Perhaps the most exciting part of this news is the ability to add accessories to TV like a wireless keyboard, mouse or even game controllers. The TV now has the capability to become the video game player - imagine a partnership between TV manufacturers and game companies.

You can now potentially use a TV as a videoconferencing screen for truly HD quality video communications. Coincidentally there will be some big news soon about consumer HD video but I can't share the specifics as of yet.

The timing of this news couldn't be better as you may recall I was in the Samsung Experience store a few weeks back and when I was using the YouTube widget to watch videos I asked why the remote control didn't have a keyboard. The answer? Well the widget was developed after the remote control.

Seems like Bluetooth would solve these chicken and egg problems and to my wife who just thought I was procrastinating and that is why I haven't bought a new TV - actually I must have subconsciously been waiting for Bluetooth.

I spent a solid week in Silicon Valley and as I wrap up my trip and reflect back on the companies I met with I was pretty happy to see a good deal of optimism from the communications and technology executives I met with. Some areas of growth are the usual spaces such as products which support broadband growth and wireless backhaul.

For the companies not in those spaces there seems to be more optimism coming from companies which are not the premium players in their markets. The so-called value players seem to be attracting more interest as budgets have tightened.

Another trend which I haven't seen in a while is a fear of Microsoft on a scale I have not encountered in the past. It seems the company - according to competitors is being super-aggressive and in their words looking to dominate new/existing markets and stamp out competition. This concern came from companies of various sizes and even undisputed leaders in their spaces.

There also seems to be record interest in TMC's ITEXPO taking place September 1-3^rd 2009 in Los Angeles. Many this week have commented regarding how many people in the communications and tech spaces are already planning to go to the show. I am looking forward to meeting with many industry players in just over a month at the show.

The highly anticipated news of Nortel's Enterprise Solutions business being sold to either Siemens or Nortel is here. The envelope please... And the winner is... Avaya - subject to bankruptcy bidding rules and court approval of course. Here are some details on stalking horse bids in bankruptcy auctions if you are so inclined.

What Avaya gains from this deal is marketshare, a talented engineering team, distribution channels, some very green systems and a lot more such as a great UC relationship with Microsoft and the B2B virtual-world technology including 3D stereo VoIP incorporated in Web.Alive.

The downside to mergers of course are integration issues, cultural issues, increased bureaucracy and lots of other challenges such as merging product lines, etc.

Then again in such a situation Nortel's employees which are kept on will likely be thrilled the company's assets were sold and could likely be some of the most motivated workers on Avaya's payroll. In addition, the chance of large-scale Nortel/Avaya defections is low in this economy.

In the end, Avaya picked up a distressed asset at what will likely prove to be great price, $475 million and with that comes lots of solid relationships and great technology.

More importantly all these products and services -- the ones that remain anyway, will now be promoted without the baggage of a half-decade plus on and off financial mess.

Probably most importantly, Avaya is one of the best marketers in the business and they will now have a more interesting story to tell, not to mention a slew of new products to promote.

I am looking forward to watching Avaya's integration efforts very closely and it will be interesting to see what they make of these new assets.

While the media business in general has been like so many other industries such as financial and real estate - meaning lots of doom and gloom, I am happy to report TMC is hiring to fill new positions and looking for new people as well. We just hired three new professionals in our sales group and expect to add more people this year.

You may recall I mentioned we were looking last month.

While print publications have seen advertising decline and we should know as we publish four magazines - we have positioned ourselves for the day when marketing moved to the web since the nineties.

A product we launched back then - online communities has now become one of our most successful products and in Q1 of this year our Global Online Communities grew in revenue by 50%.

We also saw record attendance growth at ITEXPO earlier this year and our customers continue to tell us TMC's solutions are some of the most cost-effective marketing and community building products they can find anywhere.

You have no heard me say how now is the time to reinvest in your company and how the organizations which make it through this slowdown will come out the other end in a much better position. We are putting our money where our mouths are and you will see rapid expansion from TMC in the years to come.

In addition, I truly expect this expansion to significantly benefit all our existing customers and we are constantly being mindful of the interests of our existing readers, sponsors and contributors.

There is much more to come but for now here is the news on the three new positions which were just filled.

I know we are in a recession and everything is supposed to be gloom and doom, etc. but please indulge me as I remind many of you just how important it is in these tough times to get new customers.

It is for this reason I feel compelled to remind you ITEXPO has become the world's communications conference - the place you need to go to find new products and services. As a result, vendors/exhibitors were thrilled with ITEXPO in Miami this past January.
 

We have crafted ITEXPO from the beginning to appeal to buyers - it has always been a show where they can find the solutions they can implement today.

And as communications technologies have shown themselves to make companies more efficient and productive while saving them money, ITEXPO naturally became the gathering place for decision-makers around the globe who want to buy products and services.

Of course I am biased so if you want to see photos from the last show you can check them out here. The video below offers more of the experience and captures the energy and buyers while showing you how exhibitors fared this very year - in their own words.

I look forward to welcoming the entire communications industry at our next event September 1-3, 2009 in Los Angeles.

BTW: This video is a must watch by corporate execs that haven't been to ITEXPO recently and are SURE no one goes to shows and have cut budgets accordingly. If you are in this category please click this link as well.

Our attendee numbers are starting strong once again and as always ITEXPO will be one of the best if not the best communications event of the year - attracting big numbers of quality decision-makers in numerous markets.

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.