One of the people with a long history in the communications space is Neal Shact (pictured) -- CEO of Communitech Services. In the past, Shacht has been a distributor in the headset market and has been early in many new markets such as VoIP, call centers and others.

Shact points out it is impossible for customers to know what they want in UC. He mentions the old story that Henry Ford once said people when asked what they wanted in transportation said, a faster horse.

His point: you need a communications roadmap. Don't rely exclusively on your UC vendor to dictate what you want and need.

You want to check out this podcast as it is rife with references outside communications -- and the tie-ins are fascinating. In addition, he has a way of bringing tech and communications together.

I truly hope you enjoy it.

I have been getting more and more questions on where the communications market stands in light of macroeconomic conditions. It is a constant in my frequent conversations. In most cases, when I get this question, people tell me their business is good but they wonder if the housing market problems will trickle down into the telecom space.

The answer is simply, I do believe there is risk to all sectors of the global economy. For the first time in my memory, US and other political leaders have come on TV and mentioned the term global crisis on a frequent basis. This sort of talk shakes confidence. This is simply the way it works.

The question we need to ask is how do we benefit in such a scenario or at best, how do we tread water so our sales, revenue, income does not decrease?

Most importantly, you need to focus on areas which save your customers money and make them more productive. UC, telepresence, workforce automation, FMC and other technologies pay for themselves quickly. In addition, SIP trunking is a natural in this market... You save your customers money and get a recurring revenue source if you are a service provider or reseller.

Subsets of the communications market are on fire. Mobile banking and WiMAX are a few. Emerging markets and rural America are ripe for wireless broadband.

In fact, these markets are ripe for all forms of communications and penetration in many cases is extremely low. Of course this equals tremendous opportunity.

In a slow market there is pressure to purchase less but we have crossed the chasm of mobile web browsing these past years and we will see more devices with mobile broadband and this leads to the increased use of the internet on the go. As this trend continues - the opportunity for wireless services increases as well. This leads me to the mobile application market. You need to have an application which works on the iPhone, RIM devices and eventually the Gphone. Don't forget about Windows Mobile or Nokia by the way.

I have seen many recessions in my day and the telecom space is one of the few which saw something called a nuclear winter between 2001-2003. What I learned from these experiences is that every slowdown ends at some point and customers do not ever stop buying - they may slow, they may delay, but they don't stop.

In other words, even if things slow down in our space, they will speed up again. The strategy for making sure you come out the other end of a slowing economy in a better position than you are in today is as follows:

Conserve Cash: This is obvious but how you do it is crucial. If you cut your PR, marketing and R&D, where do you think you will be in a slowing market? None of these areas can be cut by more than a few percent. If you have to cut a bit more, R&D is the area to cut incrementally from. The reason is that the feature wars most companies fight are less important than explaining to customers why they need to buy your products.

Keep in mind, every company you sell to now has to go through more internal scrutiny before they buy. You need to reinforce sales with more marketing and sales efforts. In order to last in a slowing market you need to ensure you are still selling. If you are too heavily R&D focused and don't do marketing and PR effectively, hire an agency to help you immediately.

Become More Productive: Every company needs to operate at 100% efficiency. Cut off your dead wood. Do it today. It is time to let the complainers and high maintenance people go. If they aren't happy, you are doing them a favor. Believe me; it will work out better for you and for them.

Rally the Troops: Explain to them why they need to work smarter, harder and faster. Customer service is key. Don't lose customers because of bad service.

Hire PR/Marketing People: If you aren't strong in these areas, you have to hire an agency or top people who can help you market more effectively in slow times. I have witnessed many millions of wasted marketing dollars in my life. Spending a marketing budget and spending it wisely are totally different things. A million dollar marketing budget can be blown stupidly with 10 newspaper ads or used much more effectively in focused media vehicles where your potential customers are actually looking for your products.

Market Analysis: There are hundreds of small companies which are engineering driven in the communications space which do not know how to market. Companies founded by engineers are typically the worst run from a marketing perspective. (Remember - I am an engineer myself so no insult intended - we aren't sugar coating here). These companies - where the engineer runs marketing are likely going to have trouble selling products in a slowdown (or any other time for that matter). Keep your eyes open for acquisitions or weakness in the markets you serve. Keep your ear to the ground. One of these small companies about to go under may have good ideas for products but just no clue how to sell them. You may determine developing a competitive product/service to one of these small companies makes sense.

Speed: It is better to be fast than right. After all, you can't be right every time but if you are fast, you can adjust and become right faster than the other guy.

Optimism: Be optimistic. If you are smart and run things well and your entire team works together to support you, your company can come out of any downturn stronger than it went in. Sure, be cautious --but in the end, business is cyclical. It just is. That is the nature of the beast. Work harder, faster and smarter and you will be rewarded.

Remember, things are still generally good in the communications and technology markets and if you follow these rules you should make it out the other side of any slowdown in better condition than you are in today.

You may have noticed some posts regarding Skype being for sale and possibly acquired by Google this past weekend. While a few people have speculated Google would be the only purchaser, Andy throws in Oracle and Cisco. I agree with Andy and would add IBM, Microsoft and SalesForce.com into this group as any of these companies would want to strengthen their subscriber bases and having Skype in their portfolios means a strong integration with a very popular software package which can be leveraged to provide a great unified communications solution.

Oracle and IBM especially would be able to leverage Skype in this fashion. Of course yes -- Skype is a consumer play but I hear over and over how often Skype is used in the corporate environment. I haven't seen a study on how many customers do use Skype at work but I think the company is very valuable and combined with a partner who can realize the true synergies, there is likely much hidden potential here.

Here are a few news stories I came across today to keep you up to date on show happenings so far. I didn't get a chance to read them all by the way but I wanted to share as soon  as I could.

• Broadsoft's David Bukovsky Presents Keynote at ITEXPO West
• Taking a Closer Look at iLinc 10 ITEXPO West 2008
• Octasic Announces Mass Customization Program at ITEXPO for Vocallo Media Gateway
• BandTel Touts SIP Trunking at IT EXPO West 2008
  
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  ITEXPO West 2008 News to Date

  September 15, 2008 9:48 PM | 0 Comments

  To keep up with some of the news from this week's ITEXPO here at the Los Angeles Convention Center, check out the following show dailies from the past three days.
  
  

  • Tuesday, September 9th
  • Thursday, September 11th
  • Monday, September 15th

  Here is a news page as well if you would like to see even more.

  GIPS Gets Russian Win

  September 15, 2008 9:13 AM | 0 Comments

  In years past the competition between GIPS and Spirit DSP has been the stuff of legend. While the competitive situation has unwound over the past 18 months or so it is still interesting to see how the companies compete with one another.
  
  For example, some news out of this week's ITEXPO is that exhibitor GIPS has just announced it has been selected by Mail.Ru to have its GIPS' VoiceEngine embedded inside the Mail.Ru Agent, starting with version 5.2 -- allowing affordable calls to stationary and mobile phones.
  
  Of course the interesting thing here is Spirit DSP is based in Moscow -- so this is a win in foreign territory for GIPS and the company can look forward to having its solutions rolled out to about 50 million new Russian users.

  Zippy's Thoughts on ITEXPO

  September 15, 2008 9:02 AM | 0 Comments

  I just came across an article by Richard Zippy Grigonis regarding the success of ITEXPO in light of the incredible competition over the years. Reading it, reminded me of shows of the past which I enjoyed going to. Zippy -- as many of you know is about the straightest-shooter there is -- he tells it as it is -- from his vantage point of course.
  
  This is what makes his thoughts are all the more incredible (and humbling) -- and Zippy -- you are part of the team that allows ITEXPO and TMC in general to flourish. Of course while i am in thanking mode -- getting ready to head out to LA for ITEXPO myself -- let me extend a hearty thanks to the entire TMC team, our advertisers, sponsors, exhibitors and partners who have allowed TMC to keep growing.
  
  I look forward to seeing you all and thanking you in person this week. Be sure to register now and come on down.

  Keating on Skype, Pika and Zune

  September 12, 2008 3:40 PM | 1 Comment

  You know what? I was looking at Tom Keating's blog today and there is some good stuff worth sharing. First he points to an Om Malik interview of Josh Silverman the CEO of Skype and then reminds us of how to get Skype to run on an iPhone (sort-of) until Skype releases an official version.
  
  The interview is great -- it shows Skype is laser-focused on profit, mobility and embedding itself into other applications. Malik pushed Silverman on a few fronts -- explaining that the telcos aren't a monopoly (contradicting my thoughts and those of Silverman) -- he also pushed Silverman on why they are still part of eBay and finally on why Skype is boring. If I were an eBay shareholder though, I would be less interested in being amazed by the company's products and more interested in profitability.
  
  Silverman sidestepped this point a bit but did say they are focused on innovative products. He went on to say, people want the product to be more reliable and easier to use -- rather than something with more features.
  
  This gets me thinking -- is there a disconnect between what us bloggers want and write about and what Joe-sixpack needs?
  
  Getting back to Keating -- in his blog --  he does a great job reviewing the Pika Warp appliance for Asterisk which is not a turn-key Asterisk IP-PBX but rather a platform which developers and VARs can use to configure Asterisk 1.4.x to their liking. In fact, the main concept behind the WARP Appliance is to offer resellers and VARs an inexpensive Asterisk hardware platform that they can OEM and offer under their own brand name.
  
  It is worth mentioning the WARP Appliance also works with FreeSWITCH, so developers can also choose to embed FreeSWITCH instead of Asterisk. In fact, any telephony application such as IVRs, call logging, predictive dialer etc. built using PIKA's telephony APIs can be integrated onto the appliance, whether it is a proprietary application or based on an open source platform.
  
  Finally there are some thoughts in the blog on wireless Zune and you can bet Tom will be listening to his on the flight out to ITEXPO next week.
  
  And yes, you will find Pika at the show as an exhibitor (booth# 102 and a Gold Sponsor -- Communications Developer Pavilion) -- which takes place September 16-18, 2008 in Los Angeles as well.
  

  Solar Roofing Materials

  September 12, 2008 8:00 AM | 0 Comments

  I came across a good article on solar roofing material which focuses on a new technology which is hurricane resistant while being more aesthetically pleasing than traditional solar panels. The article reminds us that in the US, tax credits for such technologies will soon be gone and further let's us know that Europe is ahead of the US in terms of incentives for such technologies.
  
  Sadly the article also mentions how builders are wary of new technologies because of the possibility of recalls and other problems.
  

  IP Fax on Mainstream News

  September 11, 2008 4:55 PM | 1 Comment

  Long Island's news 12 just ran a news piece on IP faxing. IP faxing has been around for years but is it enjoying a resurgence? It seems the technology may be getting a boost from the move by companies looking to save money and go green.
  
  See DalCom's Fred Hakim discuss his company's product FaxSer in this video which ran on Cablevision's News 12 Long Island.
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