Recently in CRM Category

The TMC Newsroom has been bustling with activity and lately we have had a chance to interview a number of the leaders in the communications space. Check out the TMC Video News Room home page for the latest and some of the recent interviews are below.

One thought - many of you in the communications space should ensure your CFOs listen to how well some companies in our space are doing in the interviews below. Why? Because I am surprised that financial departments in communications are cutting customer acquisition budgets (PR, marketing, sales) when many in the market are doing well.
 

Interview with Taqua

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine speaks with Taqua Chief Marketing Officer Scott Weidenfeller

03/12/2009

Interview with NeuStar

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine speaks with NeuStar Vice President Sales Michael Misheff

03/12/2009

Interview with Mera

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine speaks with Mera Senior Sales Manager Vitaly Potapov

03/12/2009

Interview with Genband

TMCnet's Rich Tehrani speaks with Genband Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Mehmet Balos

03/12/2009

Interview with Dash Carrier Services

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine speaks with Dash Carrier Services VP Sales & Business Development Kevin Breault

03/12/2009

Interview with Covad Communications

TMC's Greg Galitzine speaks with Covad Communications SVP and General Manager Wholesale Services William Ferraiuolo

03/12/2009

Interview with Actelis Networks

TMCnet's Rich Tehrani speaks with Actelis Networks Director of Sales Rick Allan

03/12/2009

Interview with Accudata Technologies

TMCnet's Rich Tehrani speaks with Accudata Technologies President & CEO

03/12/2009

Interview with Accedian Networks

TMCnet's Rich Tehrani speaks with Accedian Networks VP of Marketing Scott Summer

03/12/2009

Interview with 360 Networks

TMC's Greg Galitzine speaks with 360 Networks Product Director of VoIP Services Nick Reifschneider

03/12/2009

Interview with Stratus

TMC's Rich Tehrani speaks with Stratus President Nathan Franzmeier

03/12/2009

Interview with tw telecom

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine interviews tw telecom Senior Vice President Michael Rouleau

03/11/2009

Interview with Pac-West

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine speaks with Pac-West Chief Executive Robert H. Turner

03/11/2009

Interview with Sprint

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine speaks with Sprint Director of Wholesale Services David Falter

03/11/2009

Interview with Qwest

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine interviews Qwest General Manager Michael Lipic

03/11/2009

Interview with Profitec Billing Services

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine interviews Profitec Billing Vice President of Sales and Marketing Randal Minervino

03/11/2009

Interview with Vixxi Solutions

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine speaks with Vixxi Solutions Senior Vice President of Sales Bucky Wallace

03/11/2009

Interview with Soapstone Networks

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine speaks with Soapstone Networks Senior Vice President of Marketing Esmeralda Swartz

03/11/2009

Interview with NeuStar

TMCnet's Greg Galitzine interviews NeuStar Senior Director of Product Management Timothy Cody

03/11/2009

It took a full 20 months since the Grand Central acquisition but perhaps the wait has been worth it. Google just rolled out Google Voice, a service which expands on the one number for life idea.

I spent a few minutes trying to logon to Google Voice and finally realized the company will let me know when my Grand Central account has been upgraded. If you don't have a Grand Central account you need to wait for the company to allow you to become a free Google Voice subscriber but you can add your email address to a list now to expedite the process.

The new killer feature the company has implemented is voicemail to text or voicemail transcription. Why is a great feature? The answer lies in your ability to read voicemails while on the phone, in meetings, etc. In other words you no longer are forced to listen to messages.

Another benefit is the ability to search for old messages at a later date based on keyword.

The challenge for Google is the competition which at the moment is companies like Spinvox and Simulscribe/Phonetag uses humans to transcribe messages (counter to what many in the industry have said in the past) which means their accuracy is greater than Google Voice which will use speech recognition by computers. Still the Google solution is free which is the right price for this economy.

Since the Google acquisition, Grand Central hasn't evolved and in fact was shut down to new users. Is this the beginning of a new era at Google where its voice services will be a focal point of the company? Time will tell but I am looking forward to better integration between traditional telephony and Google services.

It is worth pointing out that Google continues to use its ad subsidized business to finance free services in numerous markets. While this can be considered good for consumers I expect this news will add more fuel to the movement of people and perhaps government regulators looking to potentially break Google up.

• Google Launches Voicemail to Text
• Google preparing to steer more telephone traffic
• PhoneTag, The New Simulscribe
• Visual Voicemail: Get it Now
• SimulScribe: Real Visual Voicemail
• SimulScribe
• Voicemail Transcription

Company looks to differentiate itself from other headset vendors through software and innovation

Historically the headset was not an area of the communications space where people expected tremendous amounts of new technology. Certainly wireless standards like DECT and Bluetooth have brought headsets into the tech space but for Plantronics these were a stepping stone for tighter integration into the world of unified communications.

After 40 years of making industry-leading headsets, the company has now upped the ante by announcing a suite of new products which are designed to add intelligence, flexibility and ease-of-use to communications endpoints. As mobile devices like smartphones and netbooks continue to gain momentum, the company is looking to provide the unified communications glue which connects various devices together while better integrating music/entertainment and business communications/UC markets.

The company just released Savi Office which is designed for office workers and provides a single wireless headset for desk phones and PC audio/softphone calls. Savi Go as the name suggests gives mobile professionals a simple-to-use wireless headset to connect to PC and mobile phone. Both products have variants that support UC offerings from companies such as Avaya, Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft, and popular IP communications services, such as Google Talk and Skype.

Savi Office is a really interesting offering in that it allows the audio from IP communications calls coming from a computer to be mixed with the audio coming from a phone so you are able to conference a Skype and PBX caller quite easily. A series of icons available in the company's Persono Suite software allow a user to interact with their music player, IP phone, PC and headset with simple button presses on a GUI or the base of the headset. If you are using typical media players, your streaming music stops automatically when a call comes in. If you are enjoying Flash-based audio such as Pandora or YouTube, your music won't pause - but at least it won't be heard until your call is over.

There is support for wideband audio otherwise referred to as HD voice and the company tells me in informal tests that users don't seem to mind giving up the stereo headset experience for wideband in one ear. For those of you who want the best of both worlds, stereo options should be available soon.

Great pains have been taken to ensure the software accompanying this product offering has tremendous flexibility, allowing custom ringtones and other options. In addition, IT departments can block users from making changes if they so desire. Moreover, Plantronics has made sure that headset bases are interchangeable so they can be standardized to minimize inventory needs.

In a nod to the changing workplace, where multiple people share a single workspace, the company has not put a limit on how many of these DECT-based headsets can be connected to a single base. In addition, the headsets allow impromptu conferencing with a maximum of four connected at once for training or other purposes.

There is also state-of-the-art power management as headsets know how far they are from the base and when they are nearby they go into a low-power mode to save battery life and energy.

While Savi Office is dedicated to the professional who spends much of their time in the office, Savi Go is really focused on bridging the mobile and office worlds by interfacing seamlessly between mobile phones and softphones (a Bluetooth dongle is included as part of this solution). A smart move by the company is a longer microphone boom included in this solution which allows for better audio quality on the road, in a car, in a noisy hotel lobby, etc.

In addition, Class 1 Bluetooth ensures range of 350 200 feet instead of the typical 33 feet range of most Bluetooth devices. The first edition of this solution will work seamlessly with Microsoft OCS and a more agnostic solution will be released shortly thereafter.

Another great feature is downloadable firmware which minimizes product returns if upgrades are needed for proper performance.

My take is Plantronics has taken headsets to the next level with a blend of software and hardware innovation. In addition, they have moved upmarket with these solutions and in doing so provide more flexibility for companies looking for the latest UC solutions to boost productivity and sound quality. Although the Savi products have noise cancelling microphones, to make a killer solution the company needs to add a noise-reducing binaural Bluetooth stereo option so people can ditch their single function noise-cancelling headphones once and for all.

Persono Suite in its Relaxed State

Persono Suite Even More Relaxed -- Just Chilling, Listening to Tunes

Persono Suite Taking a PBX Call

Persono Suite Transfering a Call

Savi Go Offering With Larger Boom Microphone (laptop/smartphone not included )

Savi Office Bridges PC and UC Audio/Telephony
Allows PC Recording of UC Calls and more

American Express is about to change its terms of service agreement allowing them to call or SMS you on ANY number you call them from. What this means is if you borrow a friend's phone, use a pay phone or a hotel phone to call the company, they can call that number back in reference to your account for any reason. This is not to imply AMEX would divulge your confidential information but the problem here is the lack of respect for customers American Express is displaying with this move.

Moreover the utter stupidity of this change from a CRM perspective makes you wonder as an investor or customer whether you want to be associated with the company at all. BTW I am a very satisfied customer of AMEX myself and these rules won't make me cancel (yet) but they will make me wary of where I call them from.

I am sitting here at the DFW airport, looking forward to getting home but not thrilled about the 50 degree temperature drop I will be experiencing. While at the food court furiously checking email and blogging, a McDonald's representative walked around with free samples of ice coffee.

You don't think of McDonalds as a company which would engage in guerilla marketing but they are - and when you consider they are the underdog to Starbucks, it explains the move.

What can we learn from this? Well that sometimes giving things away for free in the beginning of a relationship can be the key to long-term customer acquisition.

Certainly Digium realizes this and so do many other open-source companies. Is it time to explore a way to do this in your business? Maybe.

"If it doesn't support FMC it isn't truly unified communications," says David Gilbert whose business card reads "The Big Cheese" at Broadsoft-powered hosted communications company SimpleSignal. Gilbert skipped handing me the lengthy press kits which are customary in our profession and instead gave me a single napkin (back of the napkin -- get it?) which elucidates the unique attributes of the company's solution.

David Gilbert, The Big Cheese at SimpleSignal

What pain does SimpleSignal take away for customers? According to Gilbert, "The management of a PBX - the value of a hosted PBX - the ability to unify communications. [We] tie it all together and make it easy to communicate out of any application, software, hardware, home or office. [We] change the game."

He continued, "It's not about picking up the phone to make a phone call, it's about voice as a feature, not as a service."

The company's Broadsoft-powered solutions allow users to initiate calls directly from applications/services such as Outlook, Facebook, Salesforce.com and Google Docs integration should arrive in about three months.

Wow -- a napkin, really -- That's all you are going to give me?  Really though I love when companies try to be different and succeed at it doing it well

In addition the company has a voicemail to email service allowing emails to be read (text to speech) with the ability to respond via a WAV file which is emailed. He says there is a cool factor when doing this which is fun and exciting. I agree, I do send audio files via email from time to time and people always seem taken aback. Moreover, it is a great productivity booster for those who spend a good deal of time driving.

Another interesting feature is single button transfer of calls between mobile and office phone - a great FMC solution.

I didn't get a chance to ask what's next but Gilbert's gushing enthusiasm for the cloud tells me we will see more and more integration of telephony with various services. As this trend continues, telephony becomes the true salt and pepper of productivity - adding spice as it were.

This is exactly what Thomas Howe, now CEO of Jaduka mentioned to me months back in a podcast on voice 2.0 and mashups. It is good to see the theoretical becoming reality and available for purchase today.

Great news for readers of TMCnet blogs. As you know we now have 40 bloggers and continue to innovate with technology and integration additions to our blogs which allow you to use your social networking login to comment on our blog entries. But that was so yesterday.

Through the hard work of the development team here at TMC, we now have deep integration with a variety of social networking sites. For example, we can now have Twitter feeds and Facebook status updates directly imported into our blogs. Moreover, I will scan about 2,000 headlines in a given day and I flag many of them for later coverage. Many times I assign these articles to members on my editorial/blogger team.

Now however I can share news items directly from my Google Reader which brings in news from thousands of sources and all these items will show up on the Recent Activity area on the right of my blog under the search box.

If you want to bookmark my social media feeds, here are links:

• Rich Tehrani Twitter Feed
• Rich Tehrani Facebook Status
• Rich Tehrani Google Reader Feed

Please note that I will no longer update my status on Twitter but instead use Facebook. My Facebook status updates will be automatically copied to twitter and then my blog - at least that is the theory.  I set all this up a few minutes ago and am now testing.

Wow - record revenues for cloud computing vendor Salesforce.com - the first billion dollar cloud computing company in fact. We are in a recession right? This shows once again the cost-saving benefits of using technology in tough times to become more productive and thereby reduce waste and increase productivity.

Obviously SaaS and CRM are hot buttons at the company and this news shows that when these two areas intersect, you have great synergies.

For the fourth quarter and full fiscal year, the company reported a 35 percent year-over-year increase in revenues for its subscription and support revenues with $266.1 million. For the full fiscal year, this same number was up 45 percent at $984.6 million. The company increased net paying customers in the quarter and year. 3,600 and 14,400 respectively.

Going forward, the company also said it expects revenue for their first fiscal quarter to be somewhere in the range of $304 million to 305 million. And, as of February 25, 2009, the company also announced an update to its prior revenue guidance for the fiscal year 2010, which they first announced on November 20, 2008, which is now projected to reach $1.30 - $1.33 Billion.

See also: Salesforce.com: Silver Lining on a Recessionary Cloud

Salesforce.com reported revenue of $290 million for the quarter ending January 31, up from $217 million the year before. Profits jumped 86% to $13.8 million. Because Salesforce.com only recognizes revenue a quarter at a time, a better indicator of its financial health is deferred revenue. This closely watched metric, which provides insight into the number of new sales the company made, jumped to $594 million from $470 million the previous quarter.

TMC has been aggressively adding new bloggers to its arsenal of content which attracts 2-3 million communications and tech decision makers worldwide each month. We are now at blogger number 40 and counting. We are still aggressively recruiting many more and if you can write and have something of value to contribute and want the most exposure you can get, drop Greg Galitzine (ggalitzine at tmcnet.com) a line ASAP to learn more.

TMC is one of the few media companies - in fact companies of any kind, growing in this market. We are thankful that we have loyal readers, sponsors and customers who see the value of working with TMC in good times and bad.

In fact we are expanding rapidly into many new product areas and many of the products you have seen successfully deployed on TMCnet such as channels and GOCs (Global Online Communities) - what we believe to be the largest collections of sponsored communities on the internet (about 110-120, sponsors each month), will soon be rolled out beyond the communications space.

If you are a salesperson or publisher's representative firm looking to sell products which have high demand regardless of the economy, drop Dave Rodriguez (drodriguez at tmcnet.com) a line ASAP. Please forward this to any good salespeople you know.

Here is an excerpt from a rough draft of the press release we will post soon:

TMCnet Adds 40th Blogger to Its Blog Community

Norwalk, CT, (February 23, 2009) -- Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC^®), today announced the addition of four new blogs to their popular Web site, TMCnet, now boasting a community of 40blogs covering the gamut of topics in telecom, VoIP, contact centers, wireless, unified communications, open source and others.  Readers of TMCnet's communications and technology blogs account for 35 percent of the nearly two million monthly visitors.

TMCnet's recently added blogs include Open Communications, IP Communication Design, Contact Center Strategies and Oh Say Do UC.

Open Communications by Paul McMillan, director UC strategy, Siemens Enterprise Communications, will be discussing the topic of Open Communications,particularly for enterprise, while delving into other areas of interest including what lies ahead in the industry. 

IP Communications Design by Kim Devlin-Allen, director of product management for Texas Instruments' (TI) CPE VOP business, will analyze voice in the consumer and enterprise market. From HD voice to VoIP and IP communications, Devlin-Allen talks about everything from "the next coolest gadget" to solving the design challenges of tomorrow's ever changing voice ecosystem.

Contact Center Strategies by Chris McGugan, vice president of marketing for the Contact Center Solutions group at Avaya,.will be focusing on how technology is evolving in the core of the communication systems and how that transformation is delivering on a new call center architecture.  

Oh Say Do UC by Clinton Fitch, Unified Communications product manager for Spanlink Communications, examines unified communications technology, trends and observations with real-world examples.  Plus insights on how to make UC decisions both now and in the future.  

"Expanding the roster of quality bloggers serves TMCnet's commitment to deliver the most comprehensive portal filled with quality content for the communications and technology sector.  Thanks again to our panel of experts that comprise our blogosphere and to the 2 to 3 million visitors who support TMC blogs and TMCnet every month," said Rich Tehrani, TMC president, group publisher and editor-in-chief.  "Feel free to visit our blogs and post your comments."

TMCnet's distinguished bloggers also includes TMC President Rich Tehrani, TMC Labs founder Tom Keating, TMCnet Editorial Director Greg Galitzine, plus David Byrd's SIP and Serve by a Foodie, Peter Radizeski's On Rad's Radar and Tony Rybczynski's The Hyperconnected Enterprise.

TMCnet's Blog Community is continually evolving to offer a higher-quality user experience.  Visitors to the TMCnet blogosphere can now sign-in using their social networking account, via Facebook, VOX or Movable Type, allowing them to post comments which will include their profile photo. Additionally, new technology deployed enables blogs to auto-populate with images pulled from related articles.

Unless you are Cisco, Oracle or a handful of other companies such as a telco, you will have a tough time making tech/communications acquisitions work. That is my advice after watching the past decades. Perhaps the most sobering evidence is Nortel's Alteon deal which the company paid $7.8 billion for in 2000. The products are being spun off to Radware for -- get this, $17.65 million.

Nortel lost a staggering 99.88% on this acquisition which reinforces the fact that unless you know what you are doing - and in tech most of time you don't, you are better off not acquiring.

As I researched an old article on the acquisition I couldn't help but be horrified by how things have changed over the decade.

Take a look at an excerpt:

In a mid-morning conference call, executives at the companies contended that Friday morning's selloff was not related to the deal, pointing instead to overall "market volatility" and adding that other technology stocks were down as well.

Under the agreement, Nortel will offer Alteon shareholders 1.83148 Nortel shares for each Alteon share. The estimated $7.8 billion purchase price is based on Thursday's closing price of $144 a share for Alteon, and $78.625 for Nortel shares so represents no premium.

Dominic Orr, president and chief executive of Alteon, said the two companies "share a common vision of high performance content delivery services that exploit the high-performance Internet and create new profit opportunities for service providers."

He added that the merger would greatly expand both companies' reach and give them a leading edge in capturing market share in switching technology.

Can you imagine if Nortel had used these funds on marketing its core products instead of this purchase? Even if they spent a tenth of this amount on additional marketing they would have been in a great position today.

I don't want to beat the Canadian telecom company up too much as everyone it seemed was making billion-dollar acquisitions in the heyday of the dotcom boom and similar to the banking industry, it seemed you had to do this to be in the game.

If there is one thing we are learning now is if you overextended yourself in the past, you will likely not make it through this downturn. I am aware of a number of highly-leveraged communications and contact center companies which are struggling with massive debt payments which were incurred when making acquisitions.

Sadly, we will see many good people in large companies bolstered by acquisitions lose jobs as a result of this downturn and I would imagine the market will learn to make less frivolous acquisitions in the future. This is probably a good thing.

But I just can't help but wonder why Cisco and Oracle are so good at integrating new companies and others are terrible at it. From what I have heard, Cisco has a playbook for acquisitions and integration which most other companies do not have. They replace company signs with the Cisco logo as soon as the acquisition is announced for example. Other companies take months to do this.

Acquisitions for Cisco are another important core competency and they see this as an important part of their growth. It seems most other companies consider acquisitions as an afterthought. I think we now have even more evidence that the afterthought model doesn't work too well.