Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Communications Developer Archives

HTML5 Continues to Be Big Tech News

2012-05-22T21:28:22Z

HTML5 is being embraced by virtually every company as it a cross-platform solution to getting your content in front of users without the need for app stores or developing customized solutions for each device and OS you would like to have your content displayed upon. The good news is companies like Adobe have jumped on the bandwagon – ColdFusion 10 will support HTML5 based on news released this week in fact.

Then there is the “dark side” of HTML5 – basically some believe mobile devices and browsers aren’t ready for this new development language. This problem becomes an issue for video where 30-60 frame per second viewing is needed for optimal viewing quality.

It seems every company has decided that HTML5 is in their future. For example recent news about 3D-based modeling in your browser is possible thanks to a new company called Sunglass and LG showed off a new secure HTML5 viewer cable operators can use with their TVs this week at the Cable show in Boston, Mass.

In short, the future of development on the web looks like it will center on HTML5 and while it may seem logical that HTML – something which all sites employ will still be in use, this newest iteration is far more sophisticated and powerful than previous versions. There are new security, programming and design implications and for that reason it is worth taking a course or attending a conference on the topic to be sure you maximize your programming and design results.

As a disclosure TMC where I am CEO is a partner in DevCon5 perhaps the most well-established HTML5 design and development show in the world. Our sixth event takes place in New York July 23-24^th, 2012 and the conference program is now available for your viewing pleasure.

I hope to see you there.

What UCONN Engineering School Advances Mean to New Students

2012-05-21T16:15:50Z

I have been fortunate enough in my career to do something I love – cover technology and be involved in all the most innovative happenings from the early eighties until today. Tech is one of the markets which experiences constant change, moreover, the ability to learn something new presents itself virtually every day. Whether you are a system administrator, programmer, database designer or microprocessor designer you are not only in demand, you are able to constantly do new and innovative things in the course of your work.

Of course some jobs are better than others and if you do not keep up you may find your skills become obsolete. Furthermore, not every moment of a techie’s life is exciting but what has been constant for three decades is techies are in demand, treated well and given numerous opportunities for advancement.

In addition, as the US sees more international competition for jobs, it is imperative that high school and college students look towards math and science because this is where the future jobs are.

As a child I was always fascinated by tech and gadgets. I even discovered programming in my teens and found I loved it as well. But like most high school students I thought I knew everything and subsequently decided that I wouldn’t need math so I tried to avoid it whenever possible.

As it turns out I ended up in UCONN’s School of Engineering because I wanted to learn about computers and there was no non-engineering alternative at the time in this university (I didn’t want to switch to another). I originally thought I was going to be a biology major but I realized that programming and computers excited me more than categorizing animals, examining mitochondrial DNA and studying the makeup of cell walls.

Because I went through this engineering program – sometimes kicking and screaming, I prepared myself for a career where I am able to meet with and understand what virtually any company in the tech space does.

Did I mention there were over 10 math classes engineers had to take? If I could do it over again, I would pay really good attention in Advanced Math in high school – this was a foundational course I didn’t think I would ever need. Doing really well in this one class could have made my college math and physics courses much less challenging.

Fast forward to today - as the CEO of a media company focusing on tech and communications, I am the luckiest person around. This is primarily because I am at a competitive advantage as most of my peers don’t have such a degree. When you consider how much technology has changed media in the last few decades (we used to call it publishing in fact) you realize that because of what I learned at a great engineering school I've been able to grow a rapidly evolving company as it navigated the changing world of the internet, search engine optimization and the like.

The benefit of studying engineering is that it taught me to solve problems and this background has given me a foundation which has and will continue to help me for a lifetime.

I consider what I did infinitely repeatable – any student who likes technology – video games, tablets or other tech, should really delve into math and science and consider an engineering degree. Even if you aren’t a gadget person, you should consider this field as it is amazing, rewarding and exciting.

You may argue that you really don’t love math and science or even engineering but my response would be that it is better to like what you do and be able to use it to support a family than have a degree in something you love and graduate with little or no job offers and end up living in your parent’s basement for years.

Our economy has been uncertain for more than a decade and if I was a student I would seriously consider a career path where I am likely to be able to graduate and get a job quickly. I would argue this is even more the case if you are taking out a student loan. Yes, you hear people give advice like only do what you love – but I know too many people qualified for jobs which don’t exist and who are jobless with mountains of debt. This doesn’t seem to be a great way to start off your career or independence.

In my home state of Connecticut, the challenge is we are falling behind the rest of the country when it comes to science – in actual terms we are holding steady but others are achieving higher rates. Even though Connecticut is ahead of the 2011 average, seven states just pushed ahead of us on the national ranking.

This is sad news for my fellow residents of the Nutmeg State. You see, I firmly believe the answer to the nation’s economic problems is to increase employment and science and math proficiency will aid in achieving this goal. To that end, all states need to improve in both areas and fast.

I have complained before about having gone from a culture obsessed with NASA to one fixated on the Kardashians, Jersey Shore and other forms of entertainment which seem to be more focused on atrophying our brains than enriching them. It is time to reverse this trend.

Before I put the soap box away I want to remind readers that the world is the most competitive it has ever been and workers in any country could take your job tomorrow – usually with the click of a mouse. A site like Elance, for example, allows a user to hire a contractor anywhere in the world and to date, the site has almost 1.5 million registered contractors and is responsible for at least half a billion dollars’ worth of work being transacted. Elance, and in fact many employers, could care less where you live as long as you can get a job done – well and cost-effectively. So you can see, the more relevant education and experience you have, the more likely you are to find work.

Last week I was up at the University of Connecticut Storrs campus for an Engineering Advisory Board meeting with the faculty and other members of industry to give our input on ways to make the school better. The great thing about UCONN is they have been improving the school in general and the School of Engineering in particular. They are laser-focused on taking this institution to the next level.

The good news for qualified students is the more of them who are admitted, the more the university can reinvest in making the school better. It is worth pointing out that admission is not limited to Connecticut residents or even US citizens. The information we gathered at our meeting was fantastic. Last year saw about 50 new computer engineers enrolling and this year that number has gone to at least 80 – a 60% increase. The number could go higher still. Another professor in the room, from Yale, said they are noticing similar enrollment trends.

More good news courtesy of Reda Ammar, PhD Professor and Department Head, Computer Science and Engineering and Alexander Russell, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering & Mathematics:

10 of our faculty are winners of the prestigious NSF CAREER award; three hold named professorships.
Our faculty are internationally-recognized leaders in bioinformatics, networking, and security.
Our research expenditures have grown to $2.7M annually.
Our undergraduates are in intense demand: nearly 100% of our graduates immediately join industry or academia.
Our graduate students are commanding prestigious positions in academia.

In addition, in our meeting we were told the school is building a new 70,000 square foot engineering building, they have recently purchased a $600,000 HPC machine for student use and $825M will be spent on a biosciences research center.

In short, UCONN is investing in making the school better for students and graduates of the Computer Science and Engineering department seem to have wonderful opportunities ahead of them. Besides, this institution is involved in really fascinating research in areas from voting machines to security.

In high school, I didn’t know the wonders of engineering and I might never have have chosen this education path if it wasn’t the only way to learn about computers at the school I was in. But now, I would consider any other education and career path to have been the wrong one. I am sure my choices aren’t correct for everyone but I can say the following with a high degree of confidence: if you are looking for a stable career which has a high likelihood of being financially secure for years while being intellectually stimulating, your chances of making this goal a reality will increase if you focus on doing really well in school, your SATs and then, apply to an engineering school.

And maybe someday soon, your company will be responsible for inventing the next must own-gadget, app or life-saving vaccine. With all the global excitement surrounding the Facebook IPO, we should all be reminded that technology innovation not only allows individuals to change the world but it can be financially rewarding as well.

Optimum Live TV App now on PC

2012-04-26T21:05:27Z

Update: the Optimum app for Android does not allow live TV viewing but allows you to manage your DVR and check TV listings. The company says this functionality "is coming." Moreover - the app will only work on laptops - not PCs with external monitors. Is it too late to ask for a do over on this post?

Having been on Android and iOS for quite some time (see my review from last April), Cablevision's Optimum TV viewers can now also watch TV on their PCs, Macs and laptops. This could be important to power users who have tricked out monitors of 24" or perhaps even greater. In fact the need for a standalone TV may be getting questioned more and more as a result of the ability to directly (and more easily I might add) watch TV on PCs.

In order to take advantage of the service be sure to have Windows XP SP2 or greater as well as a processor which runs at 1.6 GHz or better. Mac users will need an Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz processor or better. Both platforms need at least a gig of RAM as 25MB of free hard disk space.

Similar to the way the iOS and Android versions work - you will be able to watch TV, browse listings and manage your DVR but not watch video stored on it.

I have been impressed with the Optimum app for TV viewing using an iPad although occasionally there is a connection error which is typically solved by leaving and re-entering the application.

It is amazing to me that tablets like the iPad have been on the market for only a few years and already have become the first place developers took when coming out with new apps. It is well known that apps generally drive hardware purchases and point to the direction of the hardware platform market share. I remember having serious discussions with the people at Quark about their popular QuarkXPress desktop publishing solution back in 1990 or so at the New York based Folio show - at the time they said they would never port to the PC. A few years later they changed their mind and interestingly, Apple really started to decline around the same time.

What will be really interesting however is when the stats come out from the cable companies regarding which platforms consumers are using to consume video. In other words - yes, PCs and laptops have larger screens than tablets but your PC isn't easy to lug into the bathroom, onto the kitchen table, etc. Of course I am not advocating TV watching in the john but if you do, please spray some Lysol on that tablet before subsequently bringing it to the kitchen table.

I'm looking forward to trying the app out this weekend - maybe sooner if time allows. I will report anything out of the ordinary that happens.

Consumers Tell Mobile Carriers how to Save Millions

2012-03-22T17:42:15Z

Wireless carriers spend millions on contact center calls related to device questions from their subscribers and to lean more Amdocs recently commissioned a survey which shows that while 83% of the 2,900 consumers surveyed are aware of self-service options, only 37% of consumers use them. Why? You may think because they don't have access to a PC or perhaps they have an Apple iDevice and are afraid the answer will be in Adobe Flash and all they will see is a series of question marks.

Well, if this is what you thought, you'd be wrong on both counts. The reality is that they expect the answers to be wrong or inaccurate.

So perhaps you are thinking, social media is the solution. Nope, 75% of users did not find a satisfactory answer there.

91% of respondents requested a single repository of information which would keep them from having to rely on Google, Bing and/or another search provider.

TMCnet's Peter Bernstein goes into considerable depth, analyzing the study and making important recommendations about how to reduce call center call volume and the associated cost. Wireless service providers should really read the piece.

Neustar Aims to Make Mobile App Development Easier

2012-03-20T15:26:39Z

With over half a million apps in the Apple App Store alone one might argue that developers have all the tools they have to develop compelling applications but what if there was a way to take traditional apps and integrate them more closely with carrier networks and big data analytics allowing them to be more powerful, spur increased consumer spending while greasing the wheels of mobile commerce and more?

Recently Jean Foster and Steve Edwards at Neustar showed me their Intelligent Cloud service which integrates rich anonymized databases from TARGUSInfo with access to carrier networks and other information to accelerate developer productivity and to frankly enable applications to become better drivers of value for consumers and revenue for advertisers and merchants.

One demo they showed me involved a gift card where a user scans the bar code associated with it. At this point a unique URL is passed to a browser and opened on the mobile device allowing a consumer to check balance information, make a payment and connect their cell phone to the card. Then a consumer can opt in for marketing information and can further text message to get a response with balance information on the card. Then they can scan a code on a product to have the amount debited from the card. In this manner the cell phone becomes the card meaning the card doesn’t need to be used again.

It is worth mentioning that Neustar handles the messaging and communications in the above demo.

The company has covered North America with carrier partnerships and recently Telus has signed up to the platform enabling developers to integrate the best of Neustar APIs with those from Telus allowing such things as mobile payments and messaging.

Neustar also provides communications for enterprises – for example their Mobile Enterprise Services solution allows an HR department to communicate rapidly with workers not only via SMS but via email and desktop solutions. This solution is powered by the company’s Text Everywhere service.

They also have a Geofence solution enabling marketing based upon location. Partner ZOS enables the company to provide its customers the ability to provide messages and offers when users are near specific locations.

Neustar has a storied history as a trusted third party providing SMS short codes, DNS look ups LNP information and more. They believe this position in the market allows them to be the optimal partner at a time when privacy and consent are becoming so important.

Last year the company purchased TARGUSInfo and is now able to correlate anonymized data from 200 independent databases allowing an app developer for example to see if a cell phone user is likely to be able to purchase a luxury car, etc.

Neustar is a fascinating organization as it has its hands in myriad areas of technology and communications – this move into big data, analytics and mobile enablement for developers seems like a smart diversification move as many of its legacy markets begin to slow.

And certainly with all the recent security challenges facing mobile app developers, it is possible the company really is at the right place at the right time to ensure increased user, carrier and ecosystem trust.

Need a New Car? Win a Mustang at ITEXPO in Miami Next Week

2012-01-27T15:48:11Z

I think I may have one of the best jobs in the world. I admit it is a bit ADHD-inducing as I get involved in lots of areas from new media to the latest technologies in the market as I run this major media company which is TMC. Not only do I get help influence tens of millions of people online I also get to host live events where I meet many of the readers who frequent my blog and TMCnet - the main web portal of TMC where I am CEO.

But the most exciting part of my job comes twice a year when I give away a car to an unsuspecting attendee at ITEXPO. Next week - Friday Feb 3rd at 1:45 pm at the Miami Beach Convention Center, I get to give the next car away and it will be a Ford Mustang. In order to be eligible to win you need to pick up a card at registration and get it stamped by all the sponsors of the car giveaway.

Thank you sponsors for making these giveaways possible. If I were an attendee at a show I would want a mix of solid education, a chance to network with peers, see the leading exhibitors in the space but also to have some fun and that is what events like our various receptions and giveaways are supposed to provide.

The TMC team and I look forward to hosting you next week. Thank you all in advance for coming to our event and hats off to the TMC team who is managing not only ITEXPO but a host of collocated and unparallelled events such as Super WiFi Summit, MSP World, our SUITS technology patents event, M2M Evolution, Mobile LATAM, HTML5 Summit, Cloud Communications Expo, The Channel Vision Expo (CVx), Business Video, Asterisk 123, 4GWE, StartupCamp5, Avaya Tech on Tap, the Blackberry Hackathon, SIP trunking workshop, business development workshop, telecom reseller week, to name a few.

http://itexpo.tmcnet.com/sip-trunking-workshop/miami/

ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Schedule

2012-01-25T20:49:34Z

One of the most frequent question I get regarding TMC’s ITEXPO which takes place next week in Miami – is with all that is going on – how do you make a decision as to which parts of the show to attend. Truth be told I believe the event and its collocated conferences and educational sessions rivals just about any other tech show in terms of education.

Some of the hot topics to be discussed include not only general communications and technology but 4G wireless, mobility, Asterisk, open source, business video, the channel, cloud computing and communications, HTML5, Mobile Latin America communications, M2M, technology patents, the MSP market, Super WiFi/white spaces and much more.

The following is a list of important details you will need to help navigate ITEXPO East 2012 Miami. I warn you – this is a subset of what is happening. To keep you posted on not only these items but other important events at the show please follow @itexpo on Twitter and turn on mobile notifications – it is pretty simple – just follow the menu below. Twitter also allows you to turn off notifications at certain hours in its settings tab.

Also, please download the show directory/guide (PDF) and read through it before you get there to get the most out of the event.

ITEXPO East 2012

January 31 - February 3, 2012

Miami Beach Convention Center

If you are staying at the Loews in Miami or a hotel nearby the best route to walk is down 16^th street making a right on Washington after a block. Most concierge personnel will tell you to walk down Collins which is longer and if the sun is strong may be a bit uncomfortable.

View Larger Map

Registration counters are located in the Hall B Lobby. This is the section of the convention center on Washington Blvd., closest to the show hotels.

When you arrive, proceed to the registration counter to receive your badge. You will need a photo ID.

SHOW HOURS

Tuesday, January 31

Registration: 7:30am – 5:00pm
Workshops begin at 9:00am
POST POTS Special Sessions: 2:00pm
Avaya Tech on Tap: 5:00pm

Wednesday, February 1

Registration: 7:00am – 7:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 12:45pm; 3:30pm
Exhibits Open: 4:30-7:30pm
Free Networking Reception: 5:30-7:30 on expo floor - Sponsored by Broadvox.

Thursday, February 2

Registration: 7:00am – 4:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 9:00-11:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Networking Reception: 4:00pm
StartupCamp5, featuring keynote by Terry Matthews: 4:45pm
ITEXPO Party on South Beach - Mangos Tropical Cafe: 9:00pm

Friday, February 3

Registration: 7:30am – 2:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 2:00pm
New Mustang Giveaway at 1:45pm – Must Be Present to Win

Updated schedule. Visit the show site for additional details

Keynotes and Special Sessions Schedule: (Open to all attendees)

Tuesday, January 31:

2:00 pm: Special Panel Session:

Post POTS Net Neutrality & the Cloud: From POTS to PANS

============================================================

Rumors of the death of POTS are not exaggerated. To build a new model for the future we have to determine the bottlenecks. Come discuss the impact of the cloud and the migration from end to end to any to any services; about supporting access and quality of service; about Net Neutrality and Privacy.

5:00: Avaya Tech on Tap Workshop and Networking Reception

=========================================================

Kick off ITEXPO East with a special pre-conference seminar and evening networking event, hosted by the Avaya DevConnect Program. Join Avaya and our special keynote speaker Judith Hurwitz, co-author of "Cloud Computing for Dummies", as we tackle some of the most challenging technology transitions facing IT organizations today, namely cloud computing and collaboration enablement.

KEYNOTES Wednesday, February 1:

12:45pm: Michael Rouleau, tw telecom
3:30pm: Paget Alves, Sprint
4:30pm: Timothy Wagner, Samsung Telecommunications America

KEYNOTES Thursday, February 2:

9:00am: Rick Whitt, Google
9:30am: Chris Swearingen, Senseaware, Powered by FedEx
10:00am: Dirk Gates, Xirrus
10:30pm: Julius Knapp, FCC
4:45pm: Sir Terry Matthews, Wesley Clover

WORKSHOPS at ITEXPO – Open to All Attendees

Cloud Business Development Workshop

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Larry Dillon and Michael Curry will co-host the first ever pre-show workshops focused towards new business development techniques for resellers, developers and cloud-based service providers.

Asterisk 123 Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Come get a well-rounded and informative introduction to the Asterisk Project. All are Welcome! Whether you are managing a team deploying an Asterisk implementation, evaluating potential replacements for a legacy telephony solution that's on its last leg, or just a general Asterisk "newbie" excited to learn what Asterisk is capable of, then this talk has something to offer you.

Sangoma Vega Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Sangoma Technologies will host a free full day hands-on training session teaching you how to configure and troubleshoot the Vega series gateways for use with IP-PBX and SIP trunking.

Blackberry HTML5 Hackathon

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Join us at the upcoming HTML5 Hackathon to discover how BlackBerry WebWorks takes HTML5 beyond the browser. We'll show you the power and simplicity of the new BlackBerry browser

Ingate’s SIP Trunking Workshop

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Attendees can earn a SIP Trunking Professional Certificate by participating in the Professional Development Program on February 1. Attendees can also earn a Unified Communications Professional Certificate on February 2.

Telecom Reseller Week Presentation Theatre

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Telecom Reseller Week provides you with a forum for you to learn about cutting edge new solutions you can represent, to meet with many new potential partners, and to study proven sales techniques to help improve your team's performance.

MPLS University

Tuesday, February 2 - 1:30pm

MPLS University is a forum for IT and business professionals to bring their questions about network reliability, always-on connectivity, voice, regulatory requirements, security, and cost control. Join us for two FREE live MPLS University sessions at ITEXPO to learn more about utilizing cloud-based solutions

StartupCamp5: Comms Edition

Tuesday, February 2 - 4:00pm

Featuring keynote address by Sir Terry Matthews

The incredibly popular StartupCamp networking event returns. This unique forum is for early-stage entrepreneurs to pitch their communications products or services to a discriminating audience of potential investors, media, bloggers and industry influencers. The event's fast-paced, "ready, set, pitch" format brings early-stage communications companies, developers, industry leaders and investors together to network and validate entrepreneurial pitches in real time.

4:00: StartupCamp5 Free Networking Reception

4:45: Introduction/Event Kickoff by Larry Lisser

5:00: Keynote Presentation by World-Renowned Entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews

5:45: Startup Presentations and Judging

7:00: Networking and Voting

QUESTIONS?

Contact Frank Coppola (203.852.6800 x 131)

Thank you sponsors

Diamond Sponsor:

Digium

Platinum Sponsors:

AudioCodes
Sonus Networks
Sansay
Dialogic
Interactive Intelligence
Netxusa

Gold Sponsors:

abp
Adtran
Broadvox
MegaPath
USAN
888VoIP
Panasonic
snom
tw telecom
Sangoma

I really look forward to seeing you all at the show – it will be fantastic.

Update: My marketing team has a fancier version of this document which they send in emails after you register. It has web links and may be easier on the eyes.

ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Out of Office Message

2012-01-24T22:15:59Z

While I digest the super-strong, mind-numbing Apple growth numbers which propelled the stock to a high of $460 per share after hours I have just set my out of office message for next week when I will be at ITEXPO. The message is below in case you want to use something similar. And for your convenience here is the first show daily from the event – which covers news from Sprint, AT&T, Whitespace Alliance, Panasonic, Accedian Networks, Cycle30, FaxSIPit, Phone.com and Polar Media.

---

Thank you for your message. Starting Jan 30th I will be at ITEXPO (www.itexpo.com) in Miami.

This is the global tech and communications conference - covering cloud, MSP, super WiFi, 4G, M2M, Patents, SIP, VoIP, HTML5 and featuring keynotes from Google, Sprint, Samsung, The FCC and Sir Terry Matthews.

On Friday, Feb 3rd @ 1:45 pm I give away a new Mustang - You must be present to win so I hope to see you there. (http://goo.gl/vkqrd)

Have a wonderful week and enjoy the New Year.

Paget Alves, Sprint CSO keynotes ITEXPO in Miami

2012-01-17T22:21:40Z

Dear readers – thanks for registering for ITEXPO – our conference registration numbers show there is solid attendance already and the scope of attendees as always will be international with people coming from as far away as China. What I love about running conferences is the ability to experiment with the leading edge of technology to help attendees stay up to date on the latest happenings in hot spaces like super WiFi, UC, IP collaboration, mobility, 4G, M2M, etc.

On Wednesday, February 1, at 3:30 PM, Sprint’s Chief Sales Officer Paget Alves will help tie many of the themes at ITEXPO and related show as he discuss the power of ingenuity in the business-to-business space and its influence on wireless technologies – both current and future.

If you want to stay up to date on the latest in technology and communications including cloud computing, asterisk, the opportunity for channel partners, HTML5, the MSP space, startups, etc you should think about attending.

If you can’t – that’s fine as well – TMC and I will do our best to keep you posted on what I believe to be one of the most important events in the industry. I just got back from CES, I will be at MWC… I get a sense of renewed energy and excitement in so many sectors of the market; it will hopefully be a successful year for us all.

Can Incumbent Companies be Disruptors?

2012-01-14T10:30:41Z

Business disruption through technologies they never saw coming is fascinating to me. I have been fortunate enough to be in the technology and communications spaces at a time when the pace of change has been breathtaking.

Consider for example in the 1980s when Rockwell one of the leading ACD manufacturers collaborated with IBM to enable computer-telephony integration or CTI. As a point of reference an ACD is an automatic call distributor and is the machine that asks you to press one if you are calling about domestic travel and so on. Now the reason CTI was important had to do with the ability to pull customer data from a contact management database so the call center worker knew who was calling in advance of the call. And these systems were far from cheap – they cost millions and Rockwell and IBM had a nice revenue stream because call centers could justify these huge bills because they reduced the amount of time agents spent on the phone as data entry time was minimized.

But less than ten years later Microsoft and Novell the leading OS vendors at the time decided they would telephony-enable their operating systems through protocols named TAPI and TSAPI allowing an off the shelf server to do CTI.

In less than a decade customers benefitted not only from Moore’s Law which reduced prices dramatically but from a shift from proprietary to open systems. Rockwell’s leadership position which they held for more than a decade was gone overnight. And although the company tried to be competitive by launching a PC-based phone system, they were never able to overcome changing market forces.

Interestingly Rockwell’s pain was Dialogic’s gain as the company made DSP resource boards the essential components allowing communications systems to be integrated into servers and PCs. These high-margin boards sold like hotcakes in the nineties as companies used them to build all sorts of solutions such as of course ACDs and international call back systems – where an international caller would make a call to the US and hang up after the first ring. At that point a US originated call was made enabling the caller to connect to their party at much lower US rates.

Then one day an Israeli company VocalTec decided to take these DSP resource boards and use them to construct VoIP gateways and this development took the communications market into uncharted territory as Intel saw all the ruckus and decided they needed Dialogic and went out and purchased them. The theory was DSP resource board technology could be integrated into the CPU.

Along the same lines HMP or host media processing was born allowing the processor in the server to do the job once only made possible by a standalone board packed with DSPs. Moore’s Law as you know is a powerful force and eventually multicore CPUs made short work of large-scale VoIP.

So we took a sophisticated hardware problem and turned them into software. Whenever that happens we generally know margins erode quickly. After all if a college kid can make a social network in his dorm room that about a trillion people are using – anything and I mean anything can be done with software with far less resources than hardware.

So we went from DSP resource boards for computer telephony which eventually enabled IP-telephony to IP telephony running on processors which eventually led to Skype.

Let’s summarize what happened here. Open systems helped decimate the margins in proprietary ACD market and Dialogic benefitted. Then Moore’s Law coupled with VoIP helped reduce the need for dedicated boards. Skye for its part made VoIP easy and became a multibillion dollar success.

The question is whether or not a rapidly evolving tech environment is one in which old leaders can remain at the top of the pack in the new world. Microsoft for example made serious inroads into the mobile phone space yet Google and Apple annihilated it there in short order. On the other hand, it is still trying to compete with its Bing search offering and yesterday in fact the blogs were abuzz with important people in the blogosphere saying they will switch from Google to Bing.

Bing is by no means a serious threat to Google but at least Microsoft is in the search game as a result of this offering and over time Bing could become a player in a market where Google is currently a monopoly.

It is my belief that corporate culture and marketing myopia contributes to the death of companies at the hands of disruption. In this piece on TMCnet the author goes on to describe how the “dictatorship of the customer” leads to corporate death. Moreover companies no comprehending how broad a market they are in face death. In other words railroads are in the transportation business not trains. There is a big difference.

For example Kodak saw years back that it was going to have to have an online photo service to offset its declining film revenue. It purchased Ofoto and really didn’t make it a much better platform. It didn’t expand it into a video sharing service for example. It could have developed YouTube and Facebook combined if it had the vision to see that photo sharing was just the beginning. But to Kodak its core business and culture was all about making money from the printing of photos not advertising supported content storage.

Moreover as Kodak began to expand into the online photo realm its retailers such as the pharmacies started to revolt as they now saw the photo processing company as a competitor.

Disruption is fun but its results on an industry are brutal.

Moreover in technology the disruption comes from everywhere. Tablets are hurting PC sales and more or less killed the netbook market. At CES this week the Samsung Galaxy Note turned out to be a killer product merging the best of a tablet and phone into a single device. Basically it takes two market segments revolutionized by Apple and disrupts them both with a “tweener” device.

I’d like to add that it is insanely difficult to predict the next big thing and even when you do timing is even more of a challenge. The first wave of VoIP companies perished, likewise the first laptop company died and the first successful social network was sold for less than $40M recently.

But there is an opportunity for executives to become more strategic in their thinking. After all, a laser like focus on customer satisfaction didn’t help the Wang Company when the PC was invented. On the flipside the tablet could have killed the Kindle but Amazon came out with a Kindle Fire and sells it at a loss allowing it to retain control of the book market and expand into new spaces.

Let’s be a bit more specific. Are newspapers in the business of selling ads or ensuring that advertisers get the best ROI on their investments? Seems to me they are in the business of connecting buyers and sellers – yet it doesn’t seem many of them think this way.

Are retailers in the business of having concrete stores with high rents or selling more products profitably to their customers than the competition? If it is indeed the latter then where is he global network of retailers allowing them to pool warehouse space and other assets to more effectively compete with Amazon? Where is the collective alternative to Amazon Prime which Macys, Wal-Mart, Target and others belong to?

As I have said before, it is better to be quick than right but I would add that if you are able to think strategically and then act decisively – without worrying about cannibalizing existing businesses you will have the best chance of surviving the eventual disruption you will face in your markets.

So yes, incumbent companies can be disruptors but only the best run companies who have tremendous vision and the ability to acquire, integrate and execute.

Alianza Lands Huge Clearwire Cloud Communications Deal

2011-12-20T22:10:26Z

Fasten your seat-belts - this is getting interesting... cloud-communications provider Alianza just landed a four-year hosted software licensing agreement with Clearwire. Alianza's end-to-end voice platform combines all the back-office platform management, product management, and end-user support functions into a single web-based administrative user interface and this deal marks perhaps one of the largest if not largest cloud-based VoIP deal I am aware of. Company President and CEO Brian Beutler certainly thinks this is the largest deal in the industry... He told me so on a call this past Friday evening.

This is huge news for Alianza and the cloud in general.

TMC's Carrie Schmelkin has more.

I've invited Brian and his company to be part of Cloud Communications Expo Jan 31-Feb 3, 2012 at the Miami Convention Center as part of ITEXPO. I hope to catch up with him there as well.

Bluetooth Smart Ready Shows Potential

2011-12-19T17:51:59Z

Bluetooth to me is one of the most convenient technologies I use as it allows me to get rid of the cord from my mobile and desk phones. I am surprised actually that everyone doesn't use a stereo bluetooth headset - at gyms around the country it seems like one out of 10 music listeners have given up their typically white cords in favor of new technology.

Frankly I just don't get it but am hoping that the new bluetooth 4.0 standard which is more miserly with power will make a good technology even more useful. It is worth pointing out the SIG wants you to refer to it as Bluetooth Smart Ready.

In theory the power consumption is so low that you can get a year out of a device using a button size battery - now that's low-power.

As you might imagine, applications in home automation and the medical field are prime examples of where such a low-power wireless technology will shine.

Thanks to Kickstarter there may soon be an automotive app - one which syncs with your iPhone 4S which was the first phone to support bluetooth 4.0 BTW. The solution constantly updates your car's location via a small device which is connected to your automobile. It then allows you to find your vehicle when you need to - let's say after that trip to the mall around holiday time when your car is lost in a sea of steel and paint somewhere in a 100 acre lot.

But more interestingly this new bluetooth spec means there is some new competition in the M2M space and technologies like NFC and perhaps ZigBee may lose some marketshare as a result.

I am not holding my breath for the world to go bluetooth when it comes to stereo headphones but perhaps they will at least embrace it for a wealth of other activities which make their lives better.

Hat tip Richard Sprague who retweeted Scott Jenson

Avaya's Top Communication Trends in 2012

2011-12-16T20:22:04Z

Recently I had a chance to have an in-depth conversation with Avaya about the trends they see for 2012 in the communications space. In particular I spoke with George Humphrey a Director and Line of Business Owner at Avaya and Diane Royer, Senior Marketing Services Manager.

The trends below are at times augmented or enhanced with my thoughts.

1) Mobility raises the expectation of availability

Voice is morphing in the enterprise and becoming more consumer-driven and as a result everyone is connected at all times and moreover everyone wants immediate action. Consumers want to know right away if that widget on the website is compatible with European power or if the red color of the lamp online is closer to burgundy, beet or pomegranate.

Consumers are walking around with smartphones today that are the computing equivalent of supercomputers of a few decades back. This means we not only can do anything anywhere from a voice and data perspective, we will need to in order to maintain our customers and jobs. This is certainly not a new trend – a huge jump in being able to work around the clock took place in the nineties when voicemail allowed executives, salespeople and others to check messages without being in the office. BlackBerrys continued this trend and the web and e-mail turbocharged it and today’s powerful devices, WiFi and 3G/4G networks have supercharged the trend.

2) Contact centers test the value of voice

More companies will calculate where voice communications fit into their value stream, from pure cost to revenue generation. This is straight from Avaya - I didn’t get into this one as I thought some of the other bullets were more interesting.

3) Contextual data spans the last mile of personal productivity

For those of you were around during the 1980s in the call center space, you may recall the call centers who could invest millions of dollars were able to connect their Rockwell ACDs to their IBM mainframes to allow a database dip when the phone call information appeared via ANI and this in turn allowed a screen pop on the agents desk when they answered a phone call. What could be “popped” depended upon what was in the database but the idea here is we can do “screen pops squared” today because a call can come in and we can leverage CRM repositories, enterprise search tools, social networks, blogs, wikis and you name it. It is really just a matter of organizing it all. The idea is the more information agents have, the better they can serve their customers and in turn the more loyal the customers will be, resulting in higher ARPU and stickiness to borrow some terms from the wireless space.

4) Businesses advance from social media to social business

The idea here is we are about to cross the chasm of social adoption in companies – the social company or social enterprise is around the corner which in tech adoption turns will likely take 5-10 years. Interestingly at a recent conference I attended one vendor told me about a financial company which installed a state-of-the-art social platform for their company to use. Problem was the majority of the company was made up stock brokers who were – let me put this delicately, closer to retirement than college. Basically the old folks couldn’t figure out the newfangled pokes, circles and the like. Who says I have to be diplomatic all the time? :-)

Point being once again, this will be a journey, not a destination we reach in the next few years. Are we there yet? No. Quit your whining and be patient. :-)

5) Social media and customer care enter into an arranged marriage

My family came to this country from one in which arranged marriages were the norm. Let’s just say you didn’t necessarily fall in love you were I suppose “told” to love. Keep that in mind when you integrate your contact center and social strategies as customers have to feel like the two are seamless and agents need to be able to navigate the Venus of the Contact center and the Mars of social with aplomb. Just keep in mind, you really need to get it right the first time as there is no prenup I am aware of.

The rest of these are straight from Avaya – stay tuned for more comments from me after number 12:

6) The SIP is raised again

early adopters have completed implementation of, and captured initial ROI from, SIP-enabled infrastructure; now they’ll begin deploying SIP-enabled applications to gain the next level of value.

7) Social interactions expose customer care’s flaws

Businesses can’t fake who they are in a “social” setting, because social interactions ultimately expose “the real you.” Some businesses will discover they aren’t portraying an image they prefer, so they’ll be compelled to reinvent what customer centricity is all about.

8) IT support staffs converge, part two

In many companies, voice and data support teams converged with the advent of Internet Protocol (IP) telephony; with the deployment of unified communications applications, more companies will blend their applications teams as well.

9) Continuous connectivity drives communications support services

Communications support services increasingly will involve proactive problem resolution via secure access links and live interaction when necessary via innovative Web environments.

10) “True” UC apps proliferate

IT departments will be compelled by business units and enterprise users to adopt more user-centric applications and devices.

11) UC managed services/outsourcing facilitates alignment between IT and business units

As business unit demands increase at an even faster clip, more IT departments will adopt managed services/outsourcing business models to keep pace. IT groups that resist will continue to struggle.

12) Clients take control of managed services

As IT departments better understand industry best practices around infrastructure management, they will become more discriminating about the services they purchase, their expectations for transparency into those services, and how they hold service providers accountable.

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A few important points - on number eight, the company believes there also needs to be an evolution in IT meaning the director of infotech for the call center needs to understand data, UC, UC apps and be more savvy about MSP-based solutions. And on number ten, the concept here isn’t CEBP or Communications Enabled Business Processes it is more about BYOD – so think mobility.

I also asked the company how these trends are or aren’t manifesting themselves into sales and the response was more clients are seeing true value in UC and app-centric communications. Moreover, they are looking to more creative ways to procure solutions meaning the manufacturer becomes the systems integrator and moreover they are looking for more MSP-based delivery models.

I also asked about Avaya’s Flare collaboration environment which the company rolled out a short while back and they said it is available on the iPad – I downloaded it and it is pretty slick. In the future we can expect it to become video-enabled on this platform and Flare for Android and PC are coming in the spring of 2012.

I also asked about the company’s A175 tablet and didn’t get the sense this device is lighting the world on fire. Let’s put it this way – I knew it was tough to compete with the iPad at $500 when the A175 costs about $2,000. Now there is an Amazon Kindle Fire priced at $200. Believe me there is no comparison between the capabilities of the A175 and these other devices as it is multimedia-enabled and is really a super-powerful device for road warriors. It’s just that Avaya doesn’t have the appeal or consumer electronics name of an Apple or Amazon and this presents a challenge.

Another interesting point is that customers have seen cloud advertised so often they are interested in these types of solutions but they don’t necessarily need their system to be in the cloud. In other words it can be a solution which is MSP-based and OPEX oriented. In other words Avaya is trying to listen to customer needs and cut through the catchy cloud computing and cloud communications buzzwords to determine how they can solve their customer’s needs.

You can also see Avaya’s original thoughts on these trends if you are interested in seeing them without my added perspective.

You can see Avaya live as part of TMC’s ITEXPO where they have consistently been running their Technology on Tap events. It will take place Tuesday, January 31, 2012 from 5-10 pm EST in Miami Florida at the Miami Beach Convention Center (not the typical hotel setting you may be used to). Moreover the keynote will be given by the Author of Cloud Computing for Dummies, Judith Hurwitz. The company kindly requests you register in advance, thank you.

Tech Growth: It's all about the Arbitrage

2011-10-15T16:15:31Z

Wikipedia defines arbitrage as the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets and I’m amazed at how it’s helped the world of tech grow through the decades. Now before I continue I should point out productivity and flexibility are also crucial reasons for tech growth. For example, the PC spreadsheet made it possible to not only perform financial calculations more quickly but more importantly to perform calculations you just couldn’t afford to have humans do.

But really, arbitrage is the hidden gem in the market because quite often it fuels the use of a new technology with paying customers who can justify the expense because they are saving money elsewhere. Perhaps my first experience with tech growth through arbitrage was the computer telephony/CTI market of the nineties where international callback companies were popping up using DSP resource boards from companies like Dialogic to allow international customers to place a call with a single ring to the US and hang up. This action initiated a call back from the States at much lower rates.

These same DSP resource boards advanced over the years to eventually enable them to compress voice in real-time – which in-turn launched the IP telephony gateway market which in turn revolutionized telecom technology and it was mostly paid for with arbitrage. Somewhere around 2004 or fact I felt the tide turn to the point that the communications industry decided if it wasn’t IP, it was legacy.

I had a guest come over the house just now and during the course of the conversation I queried an iPad to answer a question that came up. He asked how we lived without these devices and proceeded to tell me he just redid his kitchen and he took the iPad with him whenever he went shopping with his wife. By doing so he said they were able to ensure they had the best prices possible. He then said, we definitely paid for the iPad with the savings on our new kitchen.

And I thought to myself – wow, arbitrage is everywhere, even in the tablet space.

At Metaswitch Forum 2011

2011-10-03T20:37:19Z

I presented at two sessions today at Metaswitch Forum 2011 and both focused on wireline trends in the market. The general theme of this conference so far has to do with how carriers can compete in a world which is rapidly becoming mobile and social. Metaswitch for it's part has been busy improving it's platforms allowing carriers to take back control of business relationships with their customers.

Interesting takeaways from this session is a discussion being led by Anusha 'Ash' Nirmalananthan of Metaswitch where she is dissecting some social network activities in Facebook and Skype and exposing areas of exploitation for carriers.

She says, innovation and differentiation are crucial for carriers going forward. "Carriers need something unique" she exclaimed.

She further shared a customer survey that said they want VoIP carriers to provide them with apps on their smartphones.

Location:Audrie St,Las Vegas,United States