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We are thrilled to announce a slew of top notch keynoters for the upcoming ITEXPO which takes place in Miami, FL Jan 20-22, 2010. I will share them with you by first explaining why they were invited:

A keynote picture from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

Open Source

One of the biggest trends in tech this last decade has been open source and while you may not know this, I was a UNIX (the Linux precursor) system admin at TMC back in 1982 or so and I am a big fan of this OS which is reliable, stable and the strong basis for cost-effective solutions in a number of fields. Without a doubt, Asterisk is the major force in the open-source communications space and as such, Digium's CEO Danny Windham (the company behind Asterisk) was the perfect choice to address the audience of businesses, carriers and resellers. By the way, Digium Asterisk World (DAW) is collocated at this show and I hear it just sold out of exhibit spaces and my team is looking for ways to get the waiting list
of companies into an expanded DAW pavilion on the exhibit hall floor.

Digium Asterisk World Photos from ITEXPO East 2009 this year

Google Voice vs. AT&T

Google Voice has been one of the most disruptive influences in telecom these past years and this service has single-handedly become a point of public argument between the search leader and Apple and AT&T - with the FCC acting as referee of sorts. The argument revolves around net neutrality - the concept that carriers will apply discrimination to traffic on their networks based upon traffic, application type or source. Google obviously wants their services to run on any network in an unencumbered fashion while AT&T has said since 1995 when they were SBC that they want to charge for their pipes. AT&T actually then pointed out to the FCC that Google Voice does not terminate all calls on its free Google Voice service meaning it is not adhering to the principles of net neutrality. The reason of course as Google points out is traffic pumping and bizarre intercarrier compensation rules which allow some rural carriers to charge exorbitant rates for calls terminating in their areas. Craig Walker founded Grand Central, the company purchased by Google and the basis for Google Voice and as the Group Product Manager for the Real Time Communications Group at Google, he was a natural person to invite to speak with us at the show. It seems his accomplishments have unleashed a firestorm of controversy which should hopefully clean up some of the ugly mess that is telecom policy and regulation.

Exhibit hall pictures from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

HD Voice/SIP and Video

Another major trend in our markets is that of HD voice, video adoption and of course SIP endpoints. AT ITEXPO last year, we had the first panel in the world focusing on HD voice (video) and since then I am excited to see other conference organizers throwing their hat in the HD ring. A major player in all of the above spaces is Polycom and they have done an amazing job of working with disparate vendors on interoperability issues which has moved the market forward by reducing the friction caused by proprietary endpoints. In the world of video, the company has been a major player - developing telepresence systems all the way down to video phones. To get a bead on where this market is heading we invited Polycom Co-Founder, and the CTO of the Voice Communications Group Jeff Rodman to join us as a keynoter.

HD Voice Panel I moderated from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

Skype

No matter how you break out the IP communications market, Skype is likely a factor in changing the market in a pro-consumer manner. By giving away global voice calling with quality which far exceeds the PSTN, they have disrupted while getting users used to better voice quality. On top of that, they give away video calling as well, making them a company which excites consumers and scares carriers and anyone else who dares compete with their network of hundreds of millions of subscribers.

Interview I had with Skype's Ian Robin

Skype has been making a major push into the enterprise and is working on enhancing relationships with carriers as well. They are even looking for channel partners who can share in the newly created revenue streams from a number of products like Skye for SIP. When you take all of this into account, it does make great sense to invite Skype Chief Strategy Officer Christopher Dean to speak, doesn't it?

Smartphones, Wireless and Smart Ecosystems

One of the biggest trends in the world of communications is smart devices and ecosystems. What is an ecosystem you ask? Well it is a group of companies who develop products which work with a product or service offered by a host company or companies. The iTunes App Store may be the best example but certainly Avaya's DevConnect or Cisco's Partner Programs are good examples as well. You may know that TMC has focused a tremendous amount of resources on educating the world on smart ecosystems via our new SPEC site. I truly believe ecosystems have a bright future.

In order to bring attendees up to speed on all these topics we invited two top keynoters to present on the matter. Sprint's Mathew Oommen is the vice president of device and technology development at the company and uniquely positioned to share with us his company's view on the future of wireless technology. Oh and by the way, be sure to check out my recent interview with Sprint's Wayne Ward who heads up the company's M2M activities (did I mention there is a collocated M2M conference at ITEXPO?).

To get a handle on wireless devices as they pertain to ecosystems we invited Brian Higgins the Executive Director for Ecosystem Development within Verizon Wireless to join us so we can learn where the company thinks the market is headed. Verizon has been very ambitious in its goal to develop an ecosystem of products and applications which interoperate in the hope of one-upping the iTunes App Store.

We continue to work to add fantastic new speakers to our roster and you can expect this ITEXPO to be the most comprehensive and educational ever and a must-attend. I personally hope to see you there.

Oh and by the way, we have secured great rates this year at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel - you can save $150/night if you book now - the rate is $249 vs. what is typically a $399 rate at prime season. There are many advantages to staying at the show hotel such as networking, etc - and I have always been a fan of the Loews. In fact I was a guest the first day the hotel opened about ten years ago or so.

I got a tip that Adtran was acquiring Objectworld. My take? Objectworld is a company with great UC technology and no brand recognition. Adtran is a company with a product line similar to Cisco but much smaller. Still, with a market cap of over $1.4 billion, Objectworld can really get a boost from Adtran's access to capital, infrastructure, reseller network, carrier relationships  and improved branding.

Here is a link to a cached page mentioning the acquisition. Keep it tuned to TMCnet and my blog for more.

Today I am headed to Huntsville, AL where I will be giving a presentation on the state of the industry to Adtran customers and I am really excited to be meeting with a number of carrier representatives and resellers at the event. Typically to get from New York to Huntsville I drive from Nashville, TN which a direct flight from New York but a 131+ miles away. Today I am connecting via Detroit directly to Huntsville - I am a bit surprised that there is such a direct flight when there isn't one from NY to Huntsville but then again I know there are auto plants in Tennessee which could explain why there are flights from Detroit.

Anyway, I was reminded of the importance of face to face communications as I saw this video interview of Scott Kargman by Suzanne Bowen. Suzanne works for DIDX, a company supplying DIDs to carriers worldwide. Scott runs Crossfire Media, a TMC partner in our M2M, 4G and Smart Products initiatives or SPEC. Check out the interview which took place at Supercomm 2009 in Chicago.

Bill Gurley writes correctly that Google is positioned to take over the world. I am certainly paraphrasing and adding some personal bias - he describes in detail how the company invested great sums of money to assemble a superior turn-by-turn GPS database which includes a street view and in so doing is now able to take marketshare from competing mapping vendors by using advertising to subsidize the cost of acquiring this information.

Advertising revenue in fact will drive the company's operating system, software as a service and just about everything else.

As the company shares part of this revenue with partners you have seen wide adoption of Android by wireless carriers and no doubt hardware vendors installing the Google Chrome OS are next.

Expect the company to continue going after Microsoft products - by giving services away and supporting them through ads.

Any competitor which has an inferior ad network and generates less money from advertising (this is all of them) is pretty much domed.

The only way to stop the onslaught is to build a far superior search engine and hope the world switches. At this point the sheer marketshare Google commands in search allows them to utilize their massive database of user behavior as a massive focus group allowing them to improve by the second.

I just can't see anything stopping this company besides, a scandal, high level departure, illness or something similar. Even then, the company is a monopoly at this point and perhaps momentum will ensure their future success.

Is the company using its power in a way which warrants them being broken up by the DOJ? Possibly, but Google reminds me a heck of a lot of Wal-Mart as the larger it gets, the better consumers do. Giving away free GPS for example is a pro-consumer behavior and as long as the company keeps breaking into new markets and giving things away, it is tough to see how the Google could be considered to be harming customers.

Getting back to the headline of this article -- do I really think Microsoft is doomed? Yes. Immediately? Obviously not. But any time a company with a quality name in the market can make money while giving away good products which you charge for, you are done.

Just a kid, that's all I was in the early eighties in high school as I took a class in BASIC. I was always fascinated by all things electronic and whether it was video games or advanced scientific calculators, I couldn't get enough. At Westhill high School, they had a Prime minicomputer and it was on this machine where I was instructed how to program. I also had a Commodore 64 at home and with it I wrote my own video games at night and on weekends.

In the early eighties, Route. 128 in Boston was the stuff of legend... It is where all the minicomputer companies lived - Wang, Prime Computer, DEC and many others. Prime was my link to this area and it seems like it was yesterday when I wrote a math quiz program on the schools's minicomputer which I used to better prepare me for the math portion of the SAT. Today, Rt. 128 is a distant second to Silicon Valley in terms of technology and of course all the minicomputer companies missed the PC altogether and are gone.

If you are wondering why Silicon Valley took the lead over Boston, you may want to refer to this article from Vivek Wadhwa which discusses how the Valley follows a more open model where innovation is more readily shared with small companies and moreover spread through job hopping. In addition, he points out a book from AnnaLee Saxenian (which was published in 1994 predicting that Boston would be the loser in the tech race

Here is an excerpt from the article:

She noted that Silicon Valley had an amazing dynamism about it. There were extensive professional networks, job hopping was the norm, information was exchanged openly, and the culture encouraged risk taking. The Silicon Valley ecosystem supported entrepreneurial experimentation and collective learning. In other words, Silicon Valley was a very open network--a giant social networking site working in analog before the concept of such a thing even existed.

This organizational mechanism was in sharp contrast to that of Route 128. Dominated by large, vertically integrated, and secretive minicomputer producers such as DEC, Wang, Prime, and Data General. Technology, skill, and know-how were trapped within the boundaries of the large corporations.

The differences were evident at many levels: venture capitalists in Silicon Valley had deep roots in local networks and were far more nimble than their east coast counterparts; educational institutions and research labs in the West partnered with local startups as well as more established firms, while those in the East worked only with the largest corporations; and the meritocratic openness of Silicon Valley made it a magnet for non-traditional talent and immigrants.

By the mid-1990s the east had missed the shift from minicomputers to personal computers as the flexible Silicon Valley ecosystem sped ahead with innovation across a diversifying range of components and systems going from chips, routers, and application software to ecommerce and search engines. Today Silicon Valley is the leading location for cleantech venture activity, an area widely considered to be the next big value creation engine for the U.S. and the world.

Boston, however, is no slouch. The Route 128 community remains the second biggest in the U.S. in terms of venture funds committed. Boston has powerful research institutions, still, and lots of very strong companies. In some areas, such as biotech, Boston may even rival Silicon Valley. But overall, its pretty clear that the Valley has not only won but is racing further ahead.

Most entrepreneurs and engineers that come to Silicon Valley, come to experience this network and to embrace the culture it has created. That's why I came, too. Network effects don't just work for fax machines. But then again, most of them knew that intrinsically. University guys like me need to do a bunch of surveys to figure it out. They voted with their hearts and feet.

At this point the game is even tougher to win if you aren't in Silicon Valley due to the propensity for exit strategies to present themselves more readily where the acquirers are. Yahoo, Google, Cisco and Oracle are just a few of the companies responsible for billions of dollars worth of M&A dollars. And as this these companies have grown, they  have made so many millionaires that they in turn go out and launch new companies and/or invest in others which are nearby.

If you are looking for a lesson here it is that a company which mirrors Silicon Valley and is more open, flexible and shares information more readily will likely always beat the company which is inflexible and contains many silos.

As Om Malik points out, turn-by-turn GPS navigation with voice guidance has come to Google Maps and carriers can't be happy about it. Who is even less happy? TomTom and Garmin. According to Google, less than 1% of navigation devices are connected to the cloud and ironically my TomTom Go 740 Live with Google local integration is one of these devices and it is limited - it really only allows you to query Google for local establishments and it does receive real-time traffic data.

As the video above explains, Google Maps navigation was built from the ground up to be internet connected meaning you can get the latest maps and business data automatically over the net without having to download new maps manually. Google touts lots of features which they say most GPS units don't have such as voice recognition, the ability fix spelling errors and of course infinite points of interest. Other benefits touted include the ability to navigate via search meaning you can ask your device to navigate to a museum with a specific exhibit.

Other benefits include real-time traffic data and the ability to choose alternate routes. The software also allows you to search for POIs on your route and you can also leverage satellite and street view as you navigate. By the way, I bet you didn't know some Google Street View data comes from a tricycle (pictured and courtesy of AP/MSNBC)

The video above also references the new Droid phone which has an available car dock which when connected goes into car mode which makes it easier to access features you need while driving.

Om is right that carriers are likely not happy about this new and free service from Google but I wonder if at the moment carriers aren't just more frenzied about not having the iPhone which includes tens of thousands of applications in its device ecosystem.

From Verizon's point of view, this new relationship with Google is a defensive land grab and will slow down the onslaught of the iPhone by making their devices more attractive and simultaneously cutting the legs off of Garmin and TomTom. It should be noted that TomTom does have a $99 iPhone GPS app which is pretty slick but can they keep this price point when the competition has a lot more features and is free?

Google's challenge remains, do they ignore the iPhone when they come out with leading edge applications like this one so they can artificially boost their Android OS sales or do they try to get all apps they produce to work on as many devices as possible so they can boost ad revenue? It has to be a constant debate for the search leader and for now, if you have an Android 2.0 device you can get a real nifty GPS app for free. What's not to like about that?

Oh, and one other point. If we have known mobile search is coming and will be he and Microsoft and Yahoo! are trying to take on Google in this space and finally have an opportunity to become a leader in at least one niche of search, why haven't either of these companies jumped on this opportunity? Why is it that Google is the only company to take advantage of an opportunity we all saw coming. I realize Yahoo is trying and so is Microsoft but Google seems to be in a position to have even greater marketshare in mobile search than they do in PC search. And it seems unacceptable that the competition just let them take it so easily.

I really excited to speak at the Illinois Institute of Technology Rice Campus for the VoIP Conference and Expo 2009. This will be my first time to this event and interestingly the third time in recent weeks in which I am in Chicago instead of Vegas for a show. Maybe the city didn't get the Olympics but they certainly seem to have gotten all the shows - WiMAX World, Supercomm and now this event.

Getting back to my talk - I am moderating a Keynote Panel titled: Are the "Bells" ringing for Carrier VoIP? And my panelists include Carl Ford, Crossfire Media; Anne Lee, ALU; Gaston Ormazabal, Verizon and Henning Schulzrinne, Columbia University at 4:00 pm this Thursday 10/29/2009. I hope to see you there. Here is the schedule with my panel in yellow at the bottom.

Here is the website for details.

I generally don't do book reviews as there just isn't enough time in the day but I recently read Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry by Marc Benioff and wow - is it good. I posted this review on Amazon a week ago and now that I am finished with the book I want to say the last 1/3 is just as good as the rest! It should be required reading for all entrepreneurs and people who want their companies to grow.

I get many books sent to me as I am in the media business. I rarely read any of them. I know the author Marc Benioff and I know what he has accomplished so I thumbed through this book and was blown away at the how Marc and his company helped create a new software category.

I was there when venture capital dried up and overnight declared ASPs dead. I saw firsthand how devastating this was to dozens of companies with similar business models who folded like a bad hand in Vegas.

This book explains how Benioff and company navigated the toughest business environment imaginable and went up against solid competitors and became triumphant. It gives you the ideas, guts and inspiration to improve your company.

I am only 2/3 through the book and so far I have raved about it to colleagues and even sent out a corporate email as a result of a tip I gained from the book.

Granted, many of the ideas in this book may not apply to every business but what you will learn is that if you have the courage and conviction to change the world with your business ideas, you can make it happen. And after reading you will learn from the mistakes [...] competitors made and you will hopefully not repeat them.

What is best about it is the quick read aspect where you can get quick nugget after nugget and all the while you feel like you are ingesting business-building fuel. It is addictive and I can't wait to finish.

I meet with hundreds if not over a thousand tech company CEO's a year and they would virtually all benefit from the ideas in this book.

At TMC it will become required reading and we will become a better company because of it.

That reminds me -- Did you know some of the inspiration for Salesforce.com came from Apple?

Yesterday I discussed TMC's evolution to a company growing rapidly by building communities in a number of new topical areas. One such space is the smart ecosystem market which focused on the rich relationships between partners in various markets. For example the iPhone app store is a huge ecosystem as is Avaya's DevConnect program. I also mentioned yesterday that TMC is partnering with experts in other areas to combine our community building technology and infrastructure with the absolute best content available.

Our smart ecosystem industry site is called SPEC and this stands for Smart Products Ecosystem Connections and our partners on this initiative are Mary Cronin, professor of Boston College and Crossfire Media. Mary is a well-respected authority on the subject of intelligent ecosystems and we are thrilled to be working with her and her team.

There is some incredible and thought provoking content coming from Mary and others and you will want to visit the Smart Products or SPEC page on a regular basis to stay informed. One of the most interesting recent articles I came across discusses Neustar and NeoMedia and their relationship in the 2D barcode space which has the potential to link print and product codes to rich media and consumer engagement.

Here are where all of Mary's articles live - I hope you find her writing as excellent and useful as I do.

Here are a few more articles of interest from the site:

• Local Nets Are Sprouting Smart Connections
• Memo to Michael Dell: Strategy for Winning Smartphone Wars
• Smart Mobile Health Connections for Better Patient Care
• T-Mobile Gets Clean Power from Medis

I wanted to alert my readers to some exciting news happening at TMC. As you likely know TMC is among a handful of media companies growing at a time when the media landscape is in dramatic decline. As you might imagine this growth is primarily online. Over the last decade and especially in the last few years we have focused on building online communities (Channels and GOCs) for customers who sponsor these areas as they rapidly attract focused decision-makers from around the world.

The visitors who come to these communities benefit from a massive amount of free content which helps them make informed purchasing decisions. For example people looking for products in Call Recording, Smart Data Centers, IP communications, HD Voice, Fixed Mobile Convergence or Next Generation Communications can come to the respective communities focused on these topics and have access to hundreds and in most cases thousands of TMC written articles detailing the news in their specific area of interest. Our business model is straightforward; aggregate massive amounts of focused and quality content using custom-built content targeting technology - make it relevant and pertinent so as to attract the right readers who need this information as they research the products and services they are looking to buy.

For our sponsors, these communities allow them to rank high organically on search engines to get their message out to a focused audience while simultaneously being able to measure the traffic to ensure they can justify their spend to the sales and executive management teams.

Basically, this suite of communities replicates the trade show model online and just like a trade show that attracts more attendees as the exhibitor base grows; the 120 monthly sponsored communities on TMCnet attract a massive audience which in turn attracts more sponsors.

In short, I am very confident we can continue to provide free quality content in all the areas we enter. Meaning while other media companies are beginning to charge for their once free content and many others are reducing their editorial teams, TMC is adding to its editorial, sales and marketing teams as we have a model which works exceptionally well for our readers and sponsors.

We are growing our team as we enter a slew of new markets with our business model of providing laser-focused content - backed by over a decade of proprietary content targeting technology; essentially building targeted online communities which rank high on search engines as they attract large amounts of focused traffic.

Here is my quote from a press release we put out today mentioning the hire of a brand new position - VP of Business Development. Matt Weiner is filling this position and his background of working for Penton and Yahoo! make him a good fit for the position."Over the last decade, TMC has invested in the technology and people necessary to build a next-generation media company which creates communities online, in-print and in-person," Tehrani continued. "By providing our audience with top quality news, training and information, we have attracted global purchasing decision-makers to our communities. As TMC's global communities have increased in size and quality, they have attracted hundreds of advertisers and sponsors who receive regular measurable results for their marketing and SEO budgets. Our future strategy involves continuing to build communities which draw large amounts of targeted traffic as we continue to connect buyers and sellers -- and adding Matt to the team is an integral element of that strategy."

Aside from Matt, we have added a number of other positions and just as importantly we continue to ink partnership after new partnership as we enter new spaces where we leverage our community building engine in combination with the thought leadership of individuals and/or corporations in new markets.

Thank you for continuing to support our rapid growth - thanks to our readers and existing and news sponsors - we look forward to helping all of your companies grow with ours.