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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.

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.

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:

Please excuse the self-promotional plug but I thought it worth mentioning that on March 31, 2009 there will be a TMCnet webinar focusing on the top 10 BlackBerry troubleshooting tips for enterprise activations. The growth of the RIM platform continues at an incredible pace and as companies look to become more efficient it makes sense to be as educated as possible on the various errors and problems you might encounter.

This particular webinar will focus on a slew of important topics from device issues to the server to integration with Exchange/Outlook and carrier issues. Here are the details and registration information:

Last month I reached out to Greg Gianforte the CEO of RightNow

Technologies regarding how his company is doing. Why? Well the hosted communications/call center/CRM market seems to be doing better than others as a result of reduced CAPEX budgets and I know some others in the space are growing quickly. This was his response:

RightNow had record sales in Q4. For the year, our revenue was up 25% Y/Y and we generated nearly $15M in cash from operations while returning to GAAP profitability. We gave guidance for 2009 to grow recurring revenue an additional 10% - 15% in 2009 while expanding profit margins.

I believe this growth is due to the continued adoption of SaaS and the need of companies to keep the customers they have while reducing costs. One new customer last fall, a multi-billion dollar retailer, was able to eliminate 50% of inbound customer email and 18% of phone call volume in three weeks using our eService capabilities.

I believe we will see a continued increase in the adoption of SaaS and a continued focus on Customer Experience initiatives in the current environment.

This is great news for others who provide SaaS and moreover it is gratifying to see companies taking the time in a slower economy to focus more on customer acquisition and retention. During the last slowdown in 2001 many companies took the opportunity to offshore their sales and customer service which didn't always meet with increased customer satisfaction. This time they are investing in technology to keep current and existing customers happy.

For more from Greg check out our podcast from last winter.

With all the opportunity to sell more products in the data center and the consumer electronics space, a company like Cisco can afford to simultaneously attack both markets. To that end, Cisco recently announced its entry into the blade server market and today purchased Pure Digital Technologies for $590 million, the company behind the Flip Video brand of pocket-sized video recorders.

Cisco's efforts in the consumer electronics space have not been nearly as successful as its accomplishments in the enterprise but the company seems to believe if it sells enough products in the connected home, sooner or later it will become a preferred provider in the consumer setting. They could be right but the problem for the industry today is the threat from Apple who will continue to own more and more of the home network and consumer electronics market.

Which leads one to wonder, what if Cisco started adding really cutting edge phone and computing technology into a next-gen Flip Video device...? Would it have enough consumer appeal to boost Cisco as a consumer brand? Maybe.

And moreover, can it pull off a strategy which successfully attacks the high-end and low-end of computing simultaneously? If they do it will be a shocker to many as few if any companies have ever done so. But then again, Cisco has shown in many ways - especially when it comes to integrating new companies that it is able to pull off what few other companies can.

I scan over 1,000 news headlines a day when I am not traveling and without a doubt the most popular tech topic in the mainstream media these days is Twitter. David Pogue from the New York Times has even devoted TV airtime to the topic on CNBC and it seems everyone is experimenting with using the service. Then there is the talk of leading social network Facebook modifying its homepage to take on Twitter and Google purchasing Twitter to show ads on all those tweets people send regarding their hunger status and other innocent facts which you wouldn't imagine anyone would take the time to share or read about.

It makes you think long and hard about how companies are integrating consumer technologies like Twitter into their marketing. Dell for example credits Twitter for millions of dollars in sales. Many companies in fact have embraced Twitter and the trend is not slowing down. But it isn't just Twitter which companies must integrate with. Just as Twitter is an outgrowth of text messaging, companies too must adapt to the new world where their employees will use texting to communicate with the teens and twentysomethings making up the world's big spenders.

One company, Tango Networks is focusing on helping companies with the integration task of getting text messaging to work more seamlessly with corporate IM and phone systems. On a recent trip to the company's Texas headquarters I spent some time with Al Leo - Vice President Business Development and Sales and Bill Young - Director of Product Marketing to get an update on what the company is up to. First off it is worth noting the company wants to be known as the best FMC solution in the world and they are one of the only companies looking to solve the integration challenges of fixed-mobile convergence from all angles. They focus on the benefits to carriers, the enterprise and the end-users as well. Most other solutions out there focus on one or two these areas.

To be quite honest it is a major challenge to do FMC well if you don't focus on all parts of the equation. After all, to get mobile devices to work with corporate PBXs in a way which increases functionality, lowers costs and doesn't complicate the user experience takes lots of planning and integration. This all-encompassing approach however is also a challenge to the company as carriers are notorious for bleeding tech companies dry and leaving them stranded to wither away and die.

That is perhaps why the company is also working with equipment and software providers like Microsoft and Cisco to make sure their solutions work with solutions prevalent in enterprise environments.

Similar to what the company does with SMS, it also allows enterprise calling line ID to appear in the place of Caller ID and messaging. In addition they have integrated presence with device location which opens up the ability to provide enhanced services which are based on phone location. For example, ensuring calls do not ring the phone between 12:00 AM and 7:00 AM regardless of time zone or the ability to locate the nearest doctor to an accident.

The company is looking to multimedia and the femtocell markets as natural places to grow and although this is a tough financial environment for startups, they company seem confident about their future. Based on today's funding news it does seem companies with good ideas can still get money.

Asked how the economy is affecting them they responded that they have seen decision processes slow but they haven't been shelved.

The way I see it as more companies embrace the latest technology to stay competitive, FMC should be on more and more short lists. In addition, one can only imagine companies will begin to realize that they need to deal with rogue texting going on between their employees and their customers. They will need to take control of corporate text messaging the way they have done with corporate voicemail and email.

As these trends continue, the need for FMC and corporate texting solutions should only increase. Agree or disagree? Be sure to check me out on Twitter and send me a tweet. 

PAETEC like a slew of other voice and data providers is looking to differentiate itself but perhaps its biggest asset is CEO Arunas Chesonis (pictured) whose unique style allows him to impress you about the company's direction without coming off as boasting. In fact in a recent conversation with Arunas, he told me the company is still growing and hiring. He mentioned a large non-cash charge this last quarter which made the quarter look worse than it was. I researched a bit and in the company's recent conference call there is a discussion of a goodwill impairment charge which is related to the company's acquisition of McLeodUSA. PAETEC is taking a charge now because it is not sure it can have positive net income for four years allowing it to recognize the benefits from carry forward losses. The company has some of these details in a press release and the transcript of the conference call is available for those people who like a heavy dose of financial acronyms mixed in with their telecom nomenclature.

Chesonis is optimistic about the future and the reason has to do with changes in the economy. You see much of their revenue revolves around providing outsourced services and as companies cut heads, they are in more need of assistance. For example the its Pinnacle division which handles telecom expense management among other tasks is more useful to companies who have less available people to crunch spreadsheets.

He further explained incumbents are cutting back as well and they have fewer resources to support customers with bills in the $10k/month range. Chesonis says this level of customer is good for PAETEC. Interestingly he says companies are more willing than ever to look to alternatives now that the economy is slow and savings are becoming more important.

Another interesting data point is the fact that the company has more software financing contracts out to market now than in any other six-month period as a result of reduced CAPEX budgets. And this is exactly the type of sale which makes PATEC happy because as Chesonis explains, "If you can do 20% of revenues from the DMARC inside [such as] managing Cisco gear, routers and enterprise software, it's a stronger bond and tough for a competitor to displace you."

I asked Arunas if his company is getting lots of calls from companies who want to be acquired. He says yes and that the callers are much more flexible on their terms and conditions. I received a mixed answer as to whether the company is looking to pick any of these companies up. On the one hand he said they would have to get a no-brainer price to go through the extra work. On the other he mentioned he would rather pay up for stronger assets - mentioning, "What else is going on if the price is so low?"

And it was here where Chesonis made the comments that few company leaders make and it should remind us all that a bit of humility can be healthy, no matter how successful you are... He said, "We have our own issues to fix. We are a strong B student but have more to do," referring of course to the integration of past acquisitions the company is still digesting.

What can we expect going forward?

The company is continuing to expand overseas selling Allworx (SMB IP-PBX) and Pinnacle solutions and they hope to be in 15-20 countries in ten years. In addition, they are focusing more on their energy business and they think the time is right as CIOs are getting involved in energy purchase decisions than ever. So while I have heard the argument from some that all CLECs are the same, this one is going to put natural gas and electricity on invoices in the next few years.

The Chesonis lost me. He said energy costs are going higher. Half of me wanted to get up and leave  . Are you serious I thought  ? Didn't we already burst that energy bubble? My brain just couldn't help thinking and as more neurons fired I said to myself, can we just keep oil at $30-$45 for ten more years? Please? Then reality hit me - I was in an interview after all, I better pay attention. After all, Arunas will still talking and I must have missed at least two sentences. And this guy doesn't waste his breathe. He makes great points - what was that he said? Oh yeah, apparently he thinks it will take 20-30 years for renewable energy sources to make an impact - does Obama know about this I wondered? Then he went on to say most customers spend four to five times more on energy than on telecom. Sounds like a big opportunity.

PAETEC has 3.8% market share in the northeast and the company's goal is to duplicate this share in other parts of the US. They have 1.1% share in the west, 1.3% central and 2.5% in the south. To help make this happen he tells me his company cares more, every new employee gets stock options and they get fair bonuses. In the end I can't speak for the thousands of employees at PAETEC who I haven't met but what I can tell you is this CEO is accessible and is always selling, saying smart things and seems to care. Will this translate into world domination? That isn't for me to decide but with a suite of software solutions, web hosting options, SMB phone systems, VAR relationships with communications hardware makers, an energy business and more going on at the company there is enough diversity of revenue to protect the company from shocks in one part of the business. The flipside challenge is managing a business which has as much diversity as a typical ILEC while keeping the "we care more" mantra at the forefront of the minds of 3,700 employees. And Chesonis is a weapon - I think he is the right guy to motivate a team going up against the big guys in the market. Now let's see what the economy has in store for PAETEC and the rest of the market this year and next.

See Also

• PAETEC: Success Under the Radar
• Shelley Diamond Joins Paetec's Board

The most obvious trend in the tech space is that of outsourced services since companies need to boost productivity by deploying the latest in technology but in general don't have the budgets they used to for large capital expenditures.

Recently I spoke with hosted communications company Cbeyond's VP/GM of channel sales, Brad Linden and VP Marketing Steve Zimba in separate meetings to discuss how the company is doing. They reported solid revenue growth of just under 25% which is impressive for Q4 of 2008 when most companies saw sales decrease.  The good news keeps coming as their channel sales closed on target for January and over target in February.

Linden and Zimba were optimistic in my meetings, seeing opportunities increasing in this economy. To take advantage of their momentum they are adding applications in ways traditional carriers are not. For example, in addition to their voice and data services, they have successfully rolled out wireless devices via an MVNO relationship. In addition they have a field force application which leverages software from Xora and integrates nicely with their mobile devices allowing companies to manage and visualize their sales/service force in real time. Moreover the service allows greater integration with payroll, invoicing and other business processes.

It is interesting to note that many of these new services are bundled in the same manner as a mobile phone plan. And the services in many cases are added to retain ARPU. For example, the company's BeyondVoice 1 package costs $495/month - the same price as it was in 2003. The difference is today this package includes mobile services, web hosting, email, voicemail, fax-to-email, secure desktop, backups, managed firewall, conference calling and VPN.

The company has 42,000 customers today and this number is more impressive when you consider Cbeyond only serves 12 cities/metro areas at the moment.

I have shared with my readers that many people who have lost their jobs have started new businesses and now need phone service and Zimba confirms they are seeing this as well. As he explains it, many of these people came from a big company and want the same tools in their new business they got used to in their old company. Microsoft Exchange is one good example.

Expect Cbeyond to roll out service in new markets while adding core services - especially CEBP into vertical markets that make sense. Over the past ten years the CLEC market has helped create and destroy billions of dollars of wealth through excess investment, inflated stock market valuations and abrupt government telecom competition policy changes. It is nice to see a decade after the CLEC movement got going one of the companies in this space found a way to add value to traditional voice and data and in doing so became one of the most successful tech companies according to Forbes and is considered by some customers to be their outsourced CIO.

Are companies really cutting their investments in customer acquisition and retention in this economic climate?

I have known the management of Spanlink Communications for years but haven't covered them in a while. Today I got a chance to speak with the company's relatively new President and CEO, Scott Christian (pictured) and he walked me through what the company is up to and also engaged in a great dialogue regarding how the organization has really focused on adding value to Cisco solutions.

You may remember the past CEO and founder of the company was Brett Shockley.

One of the more interesting parts of our audio interview revolved around our discussion of how companies are looking at spending more or less on customer acquisition and retention.
 

This is a good interview to listen to if you are interested in learning a bit more about the state of the contact center and UC market from at least one company's perspective. In addition there are some tips here focusing on increased productivity and customer retention which should suit every company well in these times.