Recently in Communications Developer Category

I spent much of Sunday in Manhattan with the family and while there stopped by one of our favorite restaurants for lunch. A bit later in the day my wife realized her iPhone had gone missing. The last place she knew she had it was the restaurant so we placed a call only to learn it wasn't there. We then walked back to the restaurant and conducted an exhaustive search with the help of the manager and still nothing.

On our way to the restaurant I sent an SMS to the lost phone asking for someone to call me to return it. There was no response to the SMS or the 10 phone calls I placed - the phone was on vibrate by the way. At dinner my wife began to tell me all of the personal and confidential information this phone had on it and my jaw dropped. It occurred to me that the financial damage to an individual from the loss of a smartphone is equivalent to the damage inflicted on a business. It was at this point I realized the distinction between personal and business smartphone has eroded. These miniature computers we walk around with can sink us if they get into the wrong hands.

It was at dinner where I decided to send another SMS but this time I included the offer "$200 reward." Still nothing but I got to thinking it would make sense to at least change my wife's email password so the new owner of her phone couldn't send messages on her behalf. There was no security on the phone so existing messages could not be safeguarded and Apple has no way to remotely wipe a device like RIM and Microsoft do.

Still, my wife couldn't rest till she found out what happened and she was convinced her phone got thrown away with a bunch of napkins and subsequently wanted to visit the restaurant again. I was thinking to myself, is she going to dig through the napkins to find the phone? I just couldn't see this happening - besides who would confuse an iPhone in a pink protective case with napkins anyway?

When we got to the restaurant we realized it was very busy and I thought the odds of finding it now was basically zero. Then I realized that my wife has a Bluetooth headset that she occasionally uses. I asked her to take it out and turn it on. I called her phone. Her headset rang. Bingo - the phone was in the restaurant. We told the manager who started to take the matter more seriously when he realized the headset was working.

The manager and my wife started to walk around the restaurant to determine where the phone was based on the strength of the bluetooth signal. Thankfully the signal died when they got near the dirty napkins.

The manager then went to the table where we had eaten and started moving customers around as he searched the ground. Minutes later a busboy asked what they were looking for. Once told, the busboy went to a drawer and voila - my wife's phone appeared. Thankfully we hadn't cancelled the service - we were imagining someone racking up huge international calling bills on the phone - thankfully it seemed no one touched it.

On the screen were various messages about missed calls and of course the reward. Boy was my wife happy. A subject of lively debate on the way home was whether the phone was going to end up on eBay that night had we not gone back and whether the busboy still had a job.

iPhones can track their position and if only there was a way to run background applications on the device we could have tracked the phone's location through a service like Google Latitude - which by the way is slated to be included in the next iPhone.

Determining the location of important assets will only become more important in my opinion and already there are devices which give you NSA-like security at affordable prices. Case in point is the GSM Handheld Tracker by GADGET.BRANDO.COM.HK. This pocket-sized device gives you the ability to track a car, person or any other object while allowing you to receive speed alerts, movement alerts, setting up a geofence and it can communicate via SMS.

Handheld Tracker Components

I consider this incredible functionality for $133 and I would imagine some parents would consider it a perfect stealthy addition to their teenage kid's cars.

It is worth pointing out that virtually all other phones besides the iPhone do allow multitasking so you should explore installing geolocation software in case your device goes missing. In addition you may want to take a moment and think about whether it makes sense to store social security and credit card numbers on your device. One last precaution - set security on your phone if you think it is important to protect your phone, email and other details. I would opt for a password to pop onscreen after an hour of inactivity - it will be annoying but give you added peace of mind if you and your phone do ever get permanently separated.

In 2001 when the PDA market was all the rage and smartphones didn't really exist, a company called Interactive Intelligence a leader in the contact center space saw an opportunity for a development platform called Mobilite (pronounced as if you are French) which would allow developers to develop once and have applications run on any mobile device.

The idea was genius and ahead of its time so Mobilite was shelved sometime later.

I couldn't help but think of this product as I spoke with Rhomobile Founder and CEO Adam Blum who was telling me about his company's open source mobile application framework Rhodes which lets you quickly build native mobile applications for all smartphone operating systems: iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android. Blum emphasizes that applications can take advantage of native GPS, PIM contacts and camera and that they are native, not just web applications optimized for each platform.

Another company in the space is PhoneGap and Blum explains that Rhodes focuses more on business applications while PhoneGap focuses more on consumer apps.

This graphic was chosen due to its looks and may or may not be related to the subject matter in this article -- depending on your perspective.

 

He went on to tell me Wikipedia rewrote their iPhone application using the Rhodes framework and used 20% of the code needed in Objective C and the resulting program also ran faster. He further went on to explain that while you may imagine his development environment is slanted heavily towards the iPhone, the reality is objective testers have shown applications run the same across all platforms.

Blum was Director of Engineering for Good Technology and explains he saw $200 million pushed into the company and as a result 200 engineers worked to get an email client on three smartphone operating systems. This lunacy (my chosen term, not his) made him decide to launch a company to stop the madness and his twelve-person company is looking to make mobile application writing more efficient.

In our conversation Blum explained that he believes it is virtually impossible to develop to more than two device operating systems beyond version 1.0 without some sort of cross-platform development application. He further explained that such an environment needs to be open-source in nature and as such his solution is completely open source.

As mentioned above there is a strong business focus here so new features are to added to the development environment with business developers in mind first.

Blum also told me his company is well-positioned in this economic environment as they are solving a pain point - one that has a high-degree of urgency. He concluded by saying, "What would you do without it?"

With that Blum and his 12-person company may have made some software development history by announcing RhoHub, perhaps the first development-as-a-service offering for mobile applications.

What are the benefits to developers? Well first of all you don't need to have a variety of development environments and disparate computers in your company in order to develop mobile applications for multiple devices. In addition, the company offers up a provisioning server and can even host the application and allow users to download the correct version based on device.

If you are developing mobile applications it is apparent you need to support the iPhone, Palm, RIM, Nokia, Android, Windows Mobile and Blum thinks Linux Mobile is going to be a contender as well soon. You obviously can't be an expert at all of these environments and you will obviously benefit from some sort of cross-platform development tool like the one his company sells.

But before you go out and trash your Mac and start developing your iPhone apps on the web, you should be aware that Apple's App Store seems to be rejecting a high number of applications which are being built on cross-platform development tools. This could have something to do with the major changes in the iPhone 3.0 OS coming soon but for now it is too soon to tell.

While it is obvious this sort of solution is necessary, we need to watch what companies like Apple and others do to existing customers of cross-platform tools before jumping in too quickly.

This entry from the company's blog may prove useful in your decision-making process.

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!

On a recent flight back from Europe I marveled at the ice littering the North Atlantic. A flight attendant told me it was sad as what appeared to be ice cubes from a mile or more in the air used to be icebergs. I am concerned about the environment but I am not sure I agree with the carbon cap and trade system being proposed in the US as it could adversely impact the economy.

But last I checked, regulation gets passed without my express permission and in a world where CO2 is becoming a pollutant, you need to be more aware of energy use and carbon emissions than ever before.

I am especially looking forward to the upcoming sponsored TelcoBridges webinar on TMCnet which will help educate the market on how data centers can lower their energy use.

Even if cap and trade does not become reality this year it is apparent that governments are more and more likely to impose penalties for carbon emissions. Since reducing energy use saves money as well, it behooves everyone with data center decision making authority to be part of this timely event.

Even before it was trendy, I was a fan of 3D HD voice - In fact back in 2004 I featured DiamondWare onstage at ITEXPO in Miami as a killer app. Over the years DiamondWare began integrating its technology into a virtual world and eventually the company was sold to Nortel and became part of web.alive which I covered here.

My last visit to the Ottawa campus of Nortel consisted of meetings with the tech team who told me they eventually see avatars everywhere - on cell phones, computers, etc.

Since that conversation I have been looking for signs of avatar/communications integration and I did compile a list of vendors who had an avatar strategy.

But here is the reality - if we are going to start seeing more avatar integration in telecom it has to come from our kids - just like text messaging, Twitter, Facebook and lots of other interesting technologies we once considered oddities.

Recently I learned that Second Life - the popular consumer based avatar laden community generates 15 billion minutes of web voice - or VoIP calls. And this reminded me of the popularity in the early days of Twitter and Facebook.

It remains to be seen if avatars will become mainstream but I get the feeling that this technology may just follow Twitter as a hot new thing everyone jumps on in years to come.

If you are looking to take advantage of avatar/communications integration the question you need to ask is whether you want to get involved now, before it becomes hip and trendy or wait for Oprah and Ashton to jump in first.

For nearly 13 years, Greg Galitzine has been a tremendously valuable part of the TMC team. His career started as an editor for CTI Magazine in 1996. Where he reported on the collision of the computer and communications spaces including what we called IP telephony back in the day. In 1997 we convened a meeting with Greg to explore whether it made sense to launch a publication in the IP telephony space. The outcome of the meeting was to launch what we hoped would become a cornerstone of what we hoped would be a new industry - Internet Telephony Magazine.

Greg became the editor of this publication and had the vision to see this is where the industry was going. Many companies in the communications space told us we were nuts for launching this publication as at the time there was no industry, just a few nerds calling each other on softphones.

Lo and behold, over the past decade this nerdy, niche technology revolutionized telecom to the point where business models have changed, new entrants have come into the telecom market and entire industries were transformed through international outsourcing made possible by inexpensive VoIP-based telephony.

In the last few years, Greg did a great job helping transform TMCnet into a major web force in communications and technology news. We are grateful to him for the years he has put in.

I am very happy for Greg as recently he has been given a great opportunity which involves a move to a new industry altogether. Galitzine has accepted a position with ISA, Inc., a prime contractor to the National Nuclear Security Administration and working in about 18 countries through Central and Eastern Europe to identify and interdict the illegal movement of materials for weapons of mass destruction. Greg will be taking his analytical and editorial skills to a higher level, contributing to national-level policy and operational support analysis for these major international nonproliferation undertakings.

While we all selfishly wish Greg wouldn't move on, we are happy for him and are sure he will make a tremendous impact in his new position.

Device and service convergence continues to accelerate and as it does, the complexity involved in creating new products and services increases. A counter to the trend of increasing complexity is the new multi-industry ng Connect Program, founded by Alcatel-Lucent which is establishing a rich and diverse ecosystem of infrastructure, device, content and applications for both mobile and fixed broadband networks including 4G, LTE, GPON and other ultra high bandwidth technologies.

The group accelerates the deployment of new devices and services by helping to determine interoperability across industries such as automotive, entertainment, wireless and consumer electronics. The value proposition for members include access to research, reduced development costs and a first mover advantage across markets. For carriers there is the increased use of broadband, reduced OPEX and churn and accelerated time to market.

For consumers the benefits include better integration of disparate entertainment systems, a higher level of value for devices which are part of this initiative, enhanced payment options and perhaps lower cost for a variety of next-gen services and devices.

To learn more about the group's progress I had a chance to interview Chris Carfagnini, Director of Emerging Technology & Media for Alcatel-Lucent via email. The interview is below.

What is the ultimate goal of the ng Connect Program?

The primary goal is to facilitate improved end user experiences on all forms of ultra high bandwidth broadband connections. By helping to bring new applications and services to market for next generation networks more quickly, the ng Connect Program will facilitate an expansion of the revenue base for network operators and others, offer members a chance to work with companies they may not have been able to collaborate with individually and expand their own market opportunities. By doing so, ng Connect will also deliver the benefits of a seamless broadband experience to mobile phones, computers, cars, gaming systems though this ecosystem of infrastructure, devices, content and applications. Users will be able to stream more content, run more sophisticated applications on-the-go, and communicate in the most popular formats of today, and tomorrow.

Who should join and why?

Any company that is interested in leveraging next generation networks in their future offerings, and are interested in learning more about it today, before it's implemented. Initially we are focused on industries that can bring innovation and capability in five key focus areas, although this is expected to grow in the future: Consumer Media & Entertainment, Enterprise Collaboration & e-Healthcare, Automotive Connectivity, Digital Signage and Computing Experience.

We currently have 18 member companies in a variety of industries and specialties including augmented reality, consumer & enterprise electronics, digital signage, music label, mobile games and compelling social networking/entertainment developers as well as leading technology companies in the education and automotive fields. The initial members in ng Connect Program include 4DK, Alcatel-Lucent, Atlantic Records, Buzznet, chumby, Connect2Media, dimedis, FISHLABS, HP, Kyocera Communications Inc., LearningMate, MediaTile, QNX, Samsung, SIGNEXX, Total Immersion, TuneWiki and Words & Numbers.

What is the primary reason companies are not joining?

We've been lucky that nearly every company we approach and have had the opportunity to discuss the ng Connect Program with, has become a member company, even some that are traditionally quite conservative see the value. In fact, our challenge isn't convincing companies to join once we've discussed the value of the program, it is determining which companies to bring into the program in which priority ... we have many, many companies in the funnel today.   Right now on the membership front, the focus is on educating people about who we are and our goals, the more companies we can reach, the more companies will join.

What is the most exciting part of your involvement with this group?

I work with Alcatel-Lucent who conceived and created the organization and I have been closely involved in helping this initiative get off the ground. The most fun is working with companies in industries not traditionally associated with telecom and seeing their eyes light up when they realize the value proposition of what next generation broadband networks and applications enablement can do for their business plans.

It's great because we at Alcatel-Lucent believe that a broad spectrum of companies must come together to collaborate in a strong ecosystem to innovate, remove business and technical barriers and define new business models to accelerate mass adoption of new services and devices for next generation networks.

There is currently an unmet demand scenario in the telecom services marketplace. Ultra high bandwidth networks will unleash the art of the possible for meeting these demands and creating exciting new user experiences.   The members of ng Connect represent multiple industries' key innovators within a framework to focus them collectively towards breakthrough innovations in both services and business models.

Do companies quickly understand the group's value proposition or does it take work to explain? 

Those within the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) sector clearly understand immediately but even those in diverse industries, who have not, to this point, engaged deeply with communications technology, understand very quickly and are eager to start which is why we've been able to sign up 18 companies in a very short time.

Does the success of the organization depend on any particular companies or is critical mass most important?

As an ecosystem, it's most important to have key players in each of the segments we are focusing on that include both large, well-established companies as well as the smaller, nimbler start-ups. We are extremely happy with our current membership and look forward to expanding it.

When will companies see the benefits the group has to offer?

Companies, both our customers and potential new members, can see it today. To date the membership have collaboratively developed 6 Proof of Concept demos and there are many more in the funnel.   In addition to visiting our labs, many of these demos can be seen at tradeshows. In fact at CTIA Wireless we had six Proofs of Concept in the Alcatel-Lucent booth under the ng Connect banner, including a Mobile Enhanced Reality demo, with member companies 4DK and Total Immersion that was recognized with an E-Tech Award from CTIA. 

How about consumers? Will we see a day where ng Connect becomes a recognizable consumer logo?

While that might be flattering, the goal is not to create a Consumer brand, but to facilitate innovation that allows consumers, member companies and service providers and network operators to experience the value of what next generation broadband can enable. It would be optimal though, if ng Connect was eventually recognized by multiple industries as a key "enabler" organization. 

What benchmarks have you set to gauge future success?

Clearly, the ability to collaborate and rapidly create compelling proofs of concept demonstrations for new services and experiences is a key benchmark.   We measure ourselves on our ability to demonstrate the "art of the possible" over broadband networks. Also, attracting key members from many industries to help drive demand and remove barriers to innovation will help enable new business models for all along the digital media value chain and improving uptake of new technologies and services.

How do prospective new companies learn more?

Interested companies can go to our website where we have lots of information on upcoming events, current members and our blog.

If you look at TMC from the outside and find yourself asking how you can get a job as an intern at this global integrated media company which builds communities online, in print and in person while gaining marketshare regardless of economic climate, I have some great news to share. We are looking for a small army of interns who want to learn what it's like to take on major multibillion dollar media companies with infinite resources and consistently win.

We will teach you how to sell collaboratively - how to listen and to be loved by your customers (well most of them anyway).

We will teach you integrated marketing and online marketing - not theory but ever-evolving practice.

If you love media and want to work at the company that is light years ahead online, contact us ASAP. We are very picky so if you aren't a super-hard worker and collaboration and hat-wearing are not your middle names, let's end our relationship now as friends (it's not you it's me).

One last thought about TMC - our culture is unusual - we have the financial stability of a 37 year-old company with the energy and enthusiasm of a start-up.

The Sales & Marketing internship position at TMC is designed to provide hands-on experience that will be mutually beneficial for both the intern and the organization. The internship position is designed to challenge students and provide them with practical experience in the advertising and media industry.

TMC is looking for a dynamic, creative, enthusiastic, high energy professional to support the Sales organization, to help build advertising and marketing presentations for prospects and clients.

• Work with sales & marketing team to assist in the implementation of various campaigns
• Contribute to the creative input in building campaigns and support the campaigns
• Copyediting and proofreading
• Communicate with customers and peers
• Minimum Qualifications:
• Working towards completion of a college degree program in business, marketing or communication
• Excellent communication skills verbal and written
• Proficient in Microsoft Office suite, specifically PowerPoint and Excel
• Excellent communication skills
• Detail Oriented
• Initiative and proactive thinking
• Team player
• Ability to multi-task and work in a fast paced environment meeting deadlines

Contact (mgenaro at tmcnet dot com) for more.

I would like to welcome back Patrick Barnard to the TMC editorial team. Patrick has covered a number of different editorial areas at TMC over the years and recently left TMC to work on Multichannel Merchant. He is now back and his return is just a continuing reinforcement of how TMC is continually investing in its editorial talent -- just as we are constantly evolving our web technology, graphics, analytics, reporting and more.

Thanks to influential readers like you TMC has been blessed with hundreds of advertisers and exhibitors each year who partner with TMC to grow -- even in the face of challenging economic conditions.

We take sponsor and reader loyalty seriously -- looking to constantly improve to provide you with the best products we can.

Updated 7:56 PM EST, April 20, 2009

We are in what we may want to call an open-source friendly economy and in such a market companies are more likely than ever to be persuaded that free software is worth serious consideration. But what about support? Sure you can get it from your local reseller or consultant but what happens when he is on vacation in Alaska on that fishing trip where he doesn't take his phone? Even this economy may not be enough to convince that VAR with a solid customer base that he needs to communicate with you while wrangling that 25 pound Chinook salmon into the net.

If you are a self-respecting fisherman, would you give up this

To answer this?

By now we all know the Chinese symbol for crisis and opportunity is the same and as you worry about your next Asterisk crisis, I would like to present you with the opportunity to learn more about Digium's Support Services. Digium's Bill Miller and Leslie Conway took some time from their busy schedules to brief me on the new offering and were very excited to say it allows companies to get support on a subscription basis with discounts for multiple year sign-ups. Until now, support was on an incident basis and now you can have support for 12 hours a day, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM in your local time for five days each week.

Found bugs will get entered in a bug tracker and yes, this is the first time Digium has chosen to provide support for open source Asterisk. And furthermore, even if you don't use the company's hardware, they will support you. This includes solutions such as Trixbox CE, Elastix, PBX in a Flash, etc. Of course this applies to the core Asterisk portion of such solutions. Also, if you happen to have Digium cards you get advanced replacement.

"Digium is showing industry leadership by offering a support plan for Open Source Asterisk." Says Robert Messer, President of ABP Technology a Distributor of IP Technology products that carriers the Digium line. "This can help many strong resellers creating open source solutions because Digium becomes a valid insurance option as a provider of service of last resort if their reseller disappears or fails. We don't know all the dynamics this initiative will have, however we are optimistic because we see it creating value for the entire supply chain. End users that became orphans will be protected and Digium resellers may be getting leads to up-sell and serve these accounts accounts."

From my perspective, Digium's Support Services is the perfect safety net which allows companies worldwide to take advantage of the best of the open source world while simultaneously giving them support with a predictable price. In a volatile world, this insurance policy may be the best solution for your open source support needs.

Prices start at $595/year and for more on this important news see comments from Tom Keating and Steve Sokol.