Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - HD Voice Archives

Microsoft Working on Skype Everywhere Initiative

2012-04-20T12:37:01Z

The fact that Microsoft would want to integrate Skype everywhere shouldn't be too surprising, Office/Lync and Windows Phone are obvious areas and so is Xbox. That's why news of the company looking for engineers who can delve into the hybrid world of video games and IP communications shouldn't be too surprising.

When Microsoft integrates Skype into Xbox and bundles some free calling into the solution, what's to stop them from offering a DECT phone as well? With retail prices of DECT 6.0 phones starting at less than $20, the idea makes more and more sense.

Sure, you can use a cordless/wireless phone with Skype today but if Microsoft integrates it all seamlessly and video is added for free, what happens to the business models of Ooma, netTALK and magicJack?

And what about the cable companies, AT&T and Verizon? Sure, a Skype home phone calling solution will be inferior as it doesn't allow emergency calling due to a lack of E-911 support but still, if it is part of a bundle and has HD voice support, why pay for phone company or cable calling? Especially if it has video as well and other great Skype calling features, presence, etc.

Additionally, a benefit of the Skype purchase will be potentially becoming the phone provider for hundreds of millions of consumers. Of course Skype already has hundreds of millions of users but when I say "phone" I mean the actual physical phone, not the computer to computer experience.

Moreover, if Microsoft is successful, it will be achieving what Cisco couldn't with Umi. And remember, one of the reasons I said Umi wouldn't make it was because of Xbox Kinect. I also mentioned Skype's deal with Panasonic, Sony and others as another reason. It would be ironic if Skype and Xbox together were to fulfill the market niche Umi was looking to exploit.

The challenge for Microsoft is the tablet market - which today means iPad, is eating the video game space. So the next version of Xbox better have some really compelling features to draw the gamers back. I would think they believe tight Skype integration will be one of these features.

The 7 Wireless Data Cap Losers

2012-03-06T23:08:46Z

We are in uncharted territory when it comes to mobility as this year we will see a slew of productivity-boosting 4G, quad-core smartphones like the Ascend 4D Quad from Huawei which I saw at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. Moreover, while devices get more powerful, we will only want to do more with them and quite often this means relying on wireless networks from carriers.

The only problem is these providers are rapidly running out of bandwidth and this means they have decided the best course of action is to cap users and slow their connections once they hit a certain threshold. Their other strategy is to just charge for bandwidth being used.

This latter method of charging will eventually lead to data use bill shock. This means we can expect to see the viral spreading of news related to parents being faced with a $5,000 bill because their child viewed 2,000 YouTube videos in a month.

There is nothing worse than that nail-biting feeling you get when you try to end that important video call before your carrier starts to throttle your bandwidth

So without further ado, here are the top 7 losers who will be hurt by wireless bandwidth caps:

Cloud vendors – all of them. Regardless of business model, you will soon start to lose one of the fastest growing markets you have – mobile users. The carriers will tell you that a small fraction of users are hogging most of the bandwidth but that just may be because the majority of users have slower devices and/or haven’t discovered the really bandwidth hungry apps which they will rely on in the future. And we know that most users aren’t on 4G yet – when they do migrate they will use more data, more quickly. You want me to name names of companies who will be hurt? OK, Amazon EC2 – as so many other services rely on the leading ecommerce and cloud hosting site as well as Dropbox and of course iCloud.
Desktop sharing companies like OnLive Desktop, GoToMeeting, LogMeIn, etc. Much of the appeal of using these service has to do with working remotely and having the full functionality of being in the office. To some degree, these services actually minimize bandwidth use because if you download a huge photo and view it – you only see a compressed rendering of the photo on your tablets screen. This of course will all change because as screens get more resolution, the amount of bandwidth use will grow.
Video Streaming companies such as Hulu, YouTube and Netflix are obvious casualties – and as more tablets are sold, the problem gets bigger. And yes, video is a huge bandwidth hog.
Audio Streaming Companies like Pandora, Spotify, etc. Sure audio consumes less bandwidth than video but with streaming radio – users have a tendency to just set it and forget it.
Social networking sites to some degree have an issue but for many functions such as tweeting and/or posting status updates which don’t include video, limited bandwidth shouldn’t be an issue. But one has to wonder about how the ecosystem of apps which enrich social networks – let’s say Twitpic for example could feel a slight pinch because users may be afraid to do anything which bandwidth-hungry because they may exceed their monthly allotment of bits. Graphics-rich Pinterest may see some pain as well.
Apple could potentially have a problem as well but the company does seem to be immune to most challenges which should hurt it like the advent of $199 tablets. The challenge for Apple is newer devices tend to have advancements screen resolution – in fact the next iPad is rumored to be called the HD, not the iPad 3. Guess what? All those pixels need to be filled with information and the more pixels you have, the more bandwidth you suck. The same is of course true for Google, Motorola, Samsung, HTC and the rest of the market. Smartphones aren’t immune to this problem either so a Samsung Galaxy Note just went from a device which can straddle the smartphone/tablet market to one which could cause users to go over their data plans more quickly.
Finally, corporations have the most to lose as they purchase all these fancy tech tools for their workers with the expectation of ROI which is usually calculated based on stable metrics. And now users are going to be in a situation where at a certain point, their telepresence calls start to have jitter and latency because they are over their bit allotment for the month. And the issue will be difficult to predict in advance as a Slingbox user could eat up a month’s worth of bandwidth in a week or even a few days.

In short, bandwidth caps may cause great pain for users over time and wireless carriers should be very careful as their policy changes begin to change end-user behavior.

The Only Way Google can be Successful in Consumer Electronics

2012-02-10T14:25:30Z

Yesterday I detailed how Google IS the tech news of the day and folks, this search leader is ambitious – more so than Microsoft ever was. In addition to a Dropbox killer and massive Google+ growth I outlined in this recent post, the company is also getting into the home entertainment business through its Motorola Mobility acquisition. Specifically Google will release a self-branded line of consumer electronics allowing you to stream music throughout your home.

Google already has a cloud-based music service so obviously there is synergy there but the only way I see this strategy working is by Google doing things differently.

My loyal readers know I am a fan of Sonos – they sell an in-home audio streaming service which integrates with Slacker, Pandora, Sirius/XM, Spotify and even integrates with iOS devices and iTunes libraries stored on computers. In-short, you have access to all your music and favorite radio from any room. But Sonos products although they are great, are not cheap. The company’s Play:5 for example will set you back $399 and the company’s Bridge which you’ll also need adds another $49 to the total.

Sure this is cheaper than wired alternatives but at just over 1,000,000 rooms the company has a long way to go before it becomes the audio equivalent of Apple.

Moreover the palindromic Sonos taps into existing ecosystems – it doesn’t get involved with them. In other words you have the option to pay for the ad-free or premium versions of each radio service you are interested in.

Google execs woke up today and realized Apple’s market cap just surpassed the combined value of it and Microsoft together. It understands the ecosystem is the future. And Google’s strength is selling ads.

What this means is that Google needs to have its own streaming radio station and moreover needs to get into the radio advertising business again – the last time it tried it had disastrous results but I would liken this sort of radio ad model more similar to YouTube than traditional radio advertising. All of this is great news for Google because they excel at on-demand as opposed to real-time ad selling – for the moment.

So what I see Google having to do is integrate radio ads into its music streaming service but more importantly it needs to one-up Siri by speech-enabling all the devices in the house before Apple beats them to it. Remember that in December of 2009, Apple purchased streaming service Lala and at the time I surmised it was to Get Apple into the in-home streaming business.

The race is on.

Back to Google – it obviously would want to integrate Google+ into any of its new offerings allowing users to share the music they are listening to, the programs they are watching, and everything else.

Sonos for its part has nearly-perfected home audio. Google should think about picking them up rather than reinventing the wheel. Moreover, if Google is really serious about this market it should consider an acquisition of Bose – if the privately-held company would consider such a deal. That way it could have an established brand with retail stores which will allow it to go head-to-head with Apple in malls worldwide.

So I see the only viable future for Google in home entertainment being a subsidized model like the Amazon Kindle Fire. It is just unclear if advertising will generate enough revenue to offset the hundred dollars or more I believe the company will have to discount each product to gain the massive traction it needs in the market. As we know, Google hasn’t been successful in retail and Motorola Mobility has had some moments of brilliance in the past but got its teeth kicked in by Nokia, RIM and Apple.

The Kindle Fire model – “we will give you an awesome deal” is the only one I see working here. The question is can the company really monetize this hardware effectively? Time will tell.

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/

Julius Genachowski Makes Brilliant Move at FCC in Hiring Henning Schulzrinne as CTO

2011-12-29T17:48:30Z

Earlier this month, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the appointment of Henning Schulzrinne as Chief Technology Officer – a major move forward for the FCC and the US communications regulatory environment. This move was made in-part because the FCC has had to keep up with fairly rapid changes in the communications and networking worlds. Telephony was once a circuit-switched service provided by a handful of large telecommunications companies and a number of regional players.

It was relatively easy to understand and regulate. But when VoIP and other forms of IP communications came on the scene, the world became less defined. Vonage didn’t own the “pipes” to people’s houses but they provided telephone service. Thus the move from circuit switched communications to packet switched was underway. This raised issues of net neutrality but also changed the way communications service was to be regulated. Moreover, the FCC under Kevin Martin decided that VoIP providers had to rapidly deploy E911 service just like LECs and CLECs. This additional cost caused some VoIP players to go under but as Martin told me in a keynote interview at a recent ITEXPO – it wasn’t anything personal but a safety issue which needed addressing.

Fast forward to recent times… You know I have spoken about the death of the PSTN in this space and moreover I decided to dedicate a keynote lunch panel to the topic at ITEXPO as well. Although we are a number of years away from the inevitable death of the public switched telephone network, it will happen. Moreover, much of the technologies and standards to make this transition aren’t yet in place.

And to make matters worse it is only a matter of time before special interest groups get into the action and make statements about how the evil government and phone companies want to take away grandma’s telephone service.

So when the switch happens… It needs to be absolutely perfect. Flawless in fact.

This brings us to the news of Schulzrinne who has played an absolutely crucial role in the standards process and advancement of IP communications. Recently he was chair of the Computer Science department at Columbia University as well as co-chair of the Internet Technical Committee of the IEEE Communications Society. Perhaps most importantly he co-designed the Session Initiation Protocol which we affectionately know as SIP. Also the Real Time Streaming Protocol, the Real-time Transport Protocol and the General Internet Signaling Transport Protocol.

Schulzrinne has spoken at past TMC events and been an important part of the content we have created over the years – going back to the early days of Internet Telephony Magazine which launched in February of 1998. Here is a search (with news feeds) on TMCnet where you can see some of the mentions and coverage related to Schulzrinne.

The FCC is a government agency which generally means it is bogged down by bureaucracy, red tape and politics so a logical question is how much change can one man bring? I am unsure. But this move is a stroke of genius by Julius Genachowski and I give him the highest marks for his foresight in choosing Henning for such an important position at a time when the nation’s communications network will be experiencing absolutely revolutionary technological advancements.

Sound ID SIX Proves Bluetooth Headsets Need an App

2011-10-31T19:33:30Z

Reheating a casserole? There's an app for that.

The evolution of the headset mirrors virtually everything else in the world – it has become more technologically sophisticated and a lot smarter. Case in point is the Sound ID SIX Bluetooth headset, a technological marvel which continues to impress me and the more I use it, the better it seems to get.

A lightweight carbon-fiber design actually allows you to raise and lower the volume by just sliding your finger on the headset, no buttons needed. An on/off switch, single multifunction button and Micro USB connector round out the package, making it elegantly simply to operate while being aesthetically pleasing.

When I paired the phone it suggested I download the associated free Ear Print 3.0 app onto the iPhone which I did. From there I was literally amazed at all the things which could be done with this headset. There is a find function which plays louder and louder alerts to the headset so you can find it – in a messy purse or bag perhaps. The concern of course is what happens if the headset is off. I had such a situation arise where I dropped the box containing the headset in a dark room. The headset was off to conserve battery so finding a black gadget the size of a few pieces of gum turned out to be a headache. The good news is as I learned later - standby time according to the company is 75 hours. So there was no need for me to turn it off. My informal testing later showed a battery drain of 10-20% in 16 hours of standby use making the company’s claim pretty believable. While on the topic, the company says talk time is four hours after a full 2.5 hour charge.

Its worth noting you can connect to two A2DP devices meaning you can listen to music through the headset - not in stereo though. This is a great benefit as with typical bluetooth headsets you can’t listen to podcasts or satellite radio. Moreover, you can alternate to listening to videos on a tablet and audio on your phone or the other way around. There is a personalization setting (pictured above) allowing you to drag your finger around the screen to change the equalization level of the music. Sliding to the right makes the higher frequencies louder while sliding it up makes the low frequencies increase in amplification. I found the setting best when slid to the top right about an inch from the corner – it gave the best combination of bass and treble and brightened the overall sound in a pleasing manner. If the bass level increased too high I began to detect distortion.

There is also a sound meter function which can be used to determine how loud your surrounding area is and if it can cause harm to your hearing. You can also customize the headset to blink a light when you are on a call to alert others. There is noise reduction and a Pass Through mode which amplifies the sound in the area so the ear with the headset gets a sense of the surrounding noise. I found this to work best in the Focused Mode as opposed the ever-defaulting, Surround. You see there are too many noises for the device to accurately amplify and it just doesn’t have the dynamic range to do justice to it all. Examples include an office air conditioner, blowing fans in a car, chimes and music. Basically, Focused mode tries to amplify less ambient noise which makes it a better solution. This is not the fault of the headset - even the most expensive speakers you can buy with the most advanced amplifier will never sound exactly like a piano. Point being, the larger the drivers (speakers) and more powerful the amplifier, the better approximation you get to the original sound. This is an over-generalization but you get the idea.

VoiceMenu may be the slickest of the tested features as it gives you an option to choose from five separate actions whenever you press the single button on the headset for two seconds. You can determine the order of the menu options, you can choose what the options should be, you can choose the speed the menu is read to you and more. As you can see from the pictured menu above, after it starts being read, if you press immediately after the first option, it redials. After the second option, it activates Siri and so on. If you select battery status it tells you if the battery is good or not – it does not tell you a specific percentage.

You also get to program a few phone numbers such as home, work, spouse, service, etc. and if one of these numbers calls, the headset will alert you specifically to who is calling. You alternatively can use one of the 5 menu items to automatically call one of these numbers with two simple button presses.

The coolest part of the headset is the way you increase and decrease volume – you just slide your finger on the clear carbon of the headset repeatedly. I did notice however that some music and sound in general didn’t get as loud as I would have liked. Perhaps this is a headset limitation or a way to protect the hearing of users.

Also, you press and hold the center of the headset for two seconds to mute and unmute but it took me some time to get the hang of exactly where I needed to press to activate this function.

The company says there are three microphones used to ensure good sound quality by eliminating background noise such as wind. I did come away impressed at the not only the sound coming out of the headset but the accuracy of Siri when I used the microphone – it was much better than a competitive headset I had used previously.

The default earloop is very comfortable and stays in the ear incredibly well for a wide range of reviewers – starting with young children all the way up to me. Loops of other sizes are included if you want them as well as an over-the-ear loop if this is your preference. The company can also make a custom ear piece for you if you like. As someone who has difficult ears to fit, I was very happy with how this headset stayed glued to my ear – giving a "just right" feeling. The only challenge is when I pressed the headset button, it felt uncomfortable as it pressed into my ear on the first few days of use. By day three, I acclimated to the sensation.

Other technology which works behind the scenes is automatic volume control which raises the sound of the headset as it senses the surrounding background noise increasing. This is a typically a feature on some high-end performance cars and if performed well, can reduce a lot of hassle for the user. I didn't notice this working during my testing.

In terms of comfort, I have worn the headset for a few hours at once and it was fine. The Focused Pass Through mode kept me from the typical feeling of deafness in the ear with the headset and the lightness of the unit made it easy to forget I was wearing the headset at all.

If I had to suggest improvements it would be the box that the headset comes in – it is too big and the top falls off too easily. I would further shrink to the box so it would be 50-60% of its current size. Also a few times when the phone or tablet was rebooted, the headset would not be recognized. The only way to get them to pair again was to reboot the headset. This is a problem I have encountered with other bluetooth devices as well so I really can't fault the company. After all, they do flash this instructive message to help you along.

Due to the A2DP profile support you can now use this diminutive headset to listen to sports, news, music and even games in a location where you would likely would have needed wired headphones. So while waiting for the doctor, you can listen to your devices without disturbing anyone and dealing with wires which get tangled and annoying. Moreover, the size is small enough to put in a shirt or pants pocket with ease.

Also, you can program services into the menu allowing you to call Bing 411 without having to dial. I tried it just now and was able to get access to sports scores, horoscopes and of course traditional telephone directory assistance.

The headset costs $129 and it is a good value at that price – it is the Rolls Royce of bluetooth headsets and is the perfect addition to today’s smartphones. Moreover what this app/headset duo shows us is how powerful and rich an experience you can have via simple hardware with rich software powered by today’s smartphones. In other words, the same ingenious design of many smartphones with minimal buttons can be leveraged by devices which communicate to our smartphones. Think about the possibilities – mice, home stereos, monitors, microwaves, toasters, external hard drives… Virtually anything can be connected to a smartphone and the experience can be much better than the current controls we rely on today.

TMCnet reviews the Sound ID 510

TMCnet Coverage of the Sound ID 400 Bluetooth Headset

Death of the PSTN a Major ITEXPO Topic in Austin, TX

2011-08-18T20:14:32Z

In 1997 when TMC announced the launch of Internet Telephony Magazine – the world’s first publication on IP communications I met with dozens of skeptics who told me emphatically that the technology was a hobbyist toy and not something you make a magazine out of. People at the COMDEX event I attended were sure it wasn’t the birth of a new industry. Fast forward about 15 years and now because of VoIP and wireless (which when 4G goes mainstream will also be VoIP-based) – not to mention social networking, there is serious talk about killing the traditional circuit-switched telephone network or PSTN by 2018!

This is huge news and the ramifications are massive – not only for investors but for companies in the telecom and datacom spaces looking to figure out how to navigate a changing telecom landscape.

This is a must-attend event – as is all of ITEXPO Sept. 13-15, 2011 in Austin, Texas. To date, confirmed panelists are some of the sharpest around – Richard Shockey of the SIP Forum – we are thrilled to have him as moderator, Daniel Berninger of Cipher Software and Mitch Simce of GENBAND. Expect more panelists to be added soon. Here are more details and a description below.

2018: The Death of the PSTN Keynote Luncheon Panel – 12:00 – 12:30 on Tuesday September 13, 2011

For the first time in history, the FCC has begun to entertain a definitive plan for eliminating the public telephone network by 2018 and replacing it with an interconnection of IP networks. The conversation is being driven by consumer and business migration to IP communications, carrier recognition of the cost benefits and service enhancements enabled by IP, and a recognition that much of the TDM infrastructure still in place is nearing end-of-life and is becoming nearly impossible to manage and maintain. In many cases, component parts are becoming nearly impossible to acquire.

This is not the first major technology evolution the government has had to contend with. However, unlike number portability and the transition to digital television, the market is better positioned for the move to all-IP, as the natural transition has already begun and most of the standards for supporting the transition are already in place.

Despite that, this change will impact billions of people globally and change the entire business model for smaller rural carriers, in particular, as the Universal Service Fund may soon become a thing of the past or, at best, be significantly reformed along with intercarrier compensation.

Come join our expert panel, hosted by TMC CEO Rich Tehrani and moderated by SIP Forum Chairman Richard Shockey, to learn how to navigate this uncharted territory and prepare for business in a post-PSTN world. Understand what needs to be done and how it will be managed, discover unforeseen challenges, and learn which companies will benefit and which will face challenges as a result of this transition.

Host: Rich Tehrani

Latest Trends in Speech Technology, CRM, IVR, Collaboration and Cloud Computing

2011-08-14T23:45:22Z

Speech analytics in greater demand

At the recent SpeechTek 2011 conference in New York I gained some great insight into the state of speech technology. For example, Jeff Schlueter of Nexidia told me his company’s speech analytics solutions have been in greater demand in this current economy as the desire to control costs has led to increased adoption of speech analytics. In addition, the company has released version 9.0 of its Enterprise Speech Intelligence product suite which cuts the TCO in half and allowing for customers to handle even larger amounts of data.

Voxeo goes big

The idea of handling larger systems was echoed by Dan York of Voxeo who told me the latest version of the company’s new VoiceObjects 11 solution has scaled for a mix of global carrier and enterprise customers to handle 20k ports. More importantly the ports are all linked into a private cloud of sorts allowing central reporting across the VPN, a central console, full resiliency, redundant failover and one-click roll back in case there is a problem which quickly needs to be undone. York explained the company has also rolled out Prophecy 11 which adds HD voice, IPv6 and fax support. One good bit of news is wideband audio makes it easier to recognize voice because as York explains, “There is a lot more data to analyze.”

New player Novauris intrigues

Competing against established players like Nuance, Microsoft and Loquendo isn’t easy but Novauris, a newcomer to the speech technology space has already inked some deals with tier one OEMs and carriers and they have a specific niche where they think their performance is best in class. Specifically, accessing very large sets of databases such as addresses, names of people, product catalogues, IPTV and electronic programming guides, local search and directory assistance. The company works with Angel and SpeechCycle in the call center space as well – doing name and address recognition in the cloud and passing back the data via XML in real-time.

Industrial speech apps boost productivity

Wavelink Corp has been in the mobile device management space for many years and its Avalanche software has been upgraded to 5.2 providing increased capabilities in terms of reporting, organizing devices, security, location-based services and two-way messaging between administrator and user devices. Moreover, in a conversation with Jay Cichosz, he tells me the company has been enjoying success in the industrial market where the company’s terminal emulation solutions help workers more efficiently manage packing and shipping logistics via handheld devices. Moreover, by speech enabling these apps – his customers have seen productivity gains as floor workers no longer have to glance at a watch or PDA to see what they need to do next – they can now just listen and respond with voice as well. The company’s Speakeasy voice solution was upgraded this past March and differentiates itself by being priced very competitively and doing the speech processing on the mobile device in order to save precious bandwidth on factory-floor networks which typically aren’t designed to handle bursts of multimedia traffic.

Microsoft to abstract devices for more seamless experiences

Last year, Microsoft introduced me to their Xbox Kinect gaming system with built-in speech recognition and I was very impressed. To date though the gaming system has been better known for its motion detection – allowing the body to be the controller than its speech technology. This will potentially change soon as speech has now been put into the SDK.

In my meeting with Grant Shirk, I also had a chance to use Windows Phone 7 Mango and as Shirk explained some areas of speech integration are apps, search and address book. By the way, the new Mango OS supports 500+ new features 4 of the top 15 requests for improvements included speech.

I asked Shirk about his thoughts regarding HTML5 and he believes there is a lot of opportunity for speech to be integrated into HTML5 and moreover, he said companies HTML5 investments generally start with customer interactions and he said, “Speech is a natural interface.” When queried about where Microsoft sees itself in these spaces, he replied, “We are in a great position to provide services to help companies build cross-channel experiences independent of device.” To me that makes the company sort of a super-middleware provider of the future and in some ways, Adobe’s new Edge tool I just covered will be competitive with this vision.

SAP feeds customers feeds

SAP is best known for a suite of software solutions used to help companies get products from manufacturing to the customer, allowing them to collect money and pay taxes – and just about everything in-between. In a conversation with Anthony Leaper and Dr. Volker Hildebrand, they told me how the company sells their solutions in bite-sized chunks and also makes rapid-deployment solutions available for delivery in 6-8 weeks. Sales, service and marketing are just some of the areas where such packages are available.

One of their latest announcements is Sales onDemand – a feed-based system which brings structured and unstructured data together in a collaborative, Facebook like way. Similar to Salesforce Chatter or Cisco Quad, the company is targeting very large companies and will also release Service onDemand. These two products will work together allowing salespeople to see a feed of customer late payments or service requests. Leaper believes SAP has an advantage over Salesforce because his system is more integrated allowing all objects in the CRM database to be seen while he sees Chatter as a bolt-on solution.

The challenge for SAP is they are late to the game but they may see these new releases as a way to protect and cross-sell to their installed base and speed-to-market has to be balanced with interoperability across the company’s ever-expanding software suite.

Turning Oscar Madison communications into Felix Unger

The Odd Couple was a favorite TV show of mine as a kid featuring a very Messy Oscar Madison who was roommates with a very neat Felix Unger. I couldn’t help thinking about these two when I met with Alok Kulkarni of Cyara Solutions and his customer Sam Jackel from Westpac, Australia’s largest bank with 6-7 million customers. Cyara provides next-generation premise and cloud-based solutions for simulating, testing and monitoring IVRs, voice biometrics, outbound dialers, voice callback and other contact center systems and applications.

And what they did for the bank was to help them take disparate solutions handling IVR, speech, complex routing algorithms, Websphere, java apps and more and integrate them more efficiently to dramatically improve customer satisfaction. A three-year project resulted in customers being able to get to the information they want via phone in only 14 seconds. This is down from 90 seconds – a significant improvement. To get an idea of what challenges the company had, every time there was a customer interaction, messaging needed to traverse a number of different firewall hops and pipes between Telstra, IBM and Westpac networks causing potential packet loss, latency and jitter.

In addition, by using automation, the need for human testing has been reduced by 50% - allowing these testers to be deployed for more sophisticated testing.

The bank is thrilled and says they view Cyara as a key plank in their strategy around quality and efficiency and use the company for end-to-end regression, systems integration, functional, stress, performance and load testing and real-time monitoring of the customer experience in the production environment. You generally don’t get such a large company to give such a glowing testimonial to a relatively new company so I thought it worth sharing.

Zoho’s Appleization

In a conversation with Sridar Vembu and Raju Vegesna of Zoho they explained to me their take on the future of computing. Sit down before continuing because this is a really big deal. The software market is going through a gut-wrenching change. Consider, even the most complex apps can be put out in a few weeks because of the maturity of the latest development tools which can be constructed atop existing frameworks. And once released, distribution of these solutions has been commoditized through app stores. Basically, software is on the verge of being commoditized and if we learned anything in the PC Vs. Apple war it is that a slick, simple-to-use interface is worth far more than a commoditized solution.

Subsequently, Zoho, a company with a suite of 30+ cloud-based solutions is working on making their interfaces even simpler to use. I got an early glimpse of their new CRM software and was very excited about the new and much-cleaner interface which loses no functionality in its pursuit of Apple-like simplicity.

What I like best is the ability to tie together email, office apps, CRM and everything else so users don’t have to bounce around between a myriad of apps on the desktop to get their work done. An early pioneer in the cloud space, Zoho is now up to 1,500 people and is profitable and experiencing 100% YoY growth.

In two weeks you can expect a new solution, Contact Manager which the company bills as CRM for the beginner. For more on Zoho, check out this video interview TMC’s Erik Linask conducted with the company late last month in San Jose.

So there you have it – if you made it this far, thanks and be sure to catch up on other articles from Speechtek from TMC’s Tammy Wolf:

Sprint Tries Desperately to Block AT&T, T-Mobile USA Merger

2011-06-28T20:52:51Z

At a time when wireless broadband is becoming so important to US consumers and businesses, how can it make sense to have less choice in the market? Moreover, as carriers shift from all-you-can-eat pricing to a tiered system, isn't it obvious that wireless charges for consumers are going to skyrocket?

These are some of the arguments opponents to the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA are making but AT&T spends so much on lobbying and is so well-connected, they seem to be close to getting their deal done.

The situation for Sprint is so dire, the company's CEO Dan Hesse is doing virtually anything he can to prove the deal is bad for consumers. This includes an 18-state push and tripling of the time he spends in front of Congress and regulatory bodies.

Generally any action has positives and negatives associated with it and Hesse has to prove that on balance, AT&T will either provide inferior service or higher prices as a result of this merger.

Certainly the momentum is on the side of AT&T and not Sprint but the government does need to sign off on this deal and if he can find enough sympathetic listeners he may be able to kill this deal or at least make AT&T have to give up some very painful items to get it done.

More from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Avaya's Support Strategy Emulates Successful Cancer Diagnostic Systems

2011-06-23T22:03:29Z

It is an unusual occurrence for me to receive a call from any company to discuss their support. Generally the media gets all warm and fuzzy about tangible things like new product launches – scoops and items you can put in the category of breaking news. Ironically though if you ask most companies what differentiates them from the pack, service and support is typically the most common answer. Yet, I can’t remember other companies asking me to meet their new head of global services.

And yet perhaps one of the most important things you need to do when you have a complex system of networks carrying packets full of voice and video communication is to ensure it all operates at peak efficiency. In other words the area which could be most important to a customer – getting a communications and/or networking system back up and running after an outage is often an afterthought. It is hardly discussed.

But still, I was a bit surprised when the offer came from Avaya to meet Mohamad Ali, President of Avaya Global Services. The company’s PR team was so excited about the meeting I decided to take it. I was tentative – but walked away impressed.

Ali started the conversation telling me he is passionate about service and this is to be expected – but what is more interesting is that he doesn’t come from the service and support space. In fact his background is quite different and most impressive. He worked for IBM where he led and integrated many acquisitions such as Cognos, FileNet, Ascential Software and he also was the program director of the GSM semiconductor business and co-led the PricewaterhouseCoopers acquisition which transformed the company. He has also worked for Adobe and has an EE Bachelors and Masters from Stanford.

The reason this is important has to do with the fact that Ali can be doing anything – he could be heading up M&A at Avaya, managing the design of products and a whole host of other initiatives. When I mentioned this the response was that Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy is a visionary and has said the company should be investing heavily in services and service technology as a differentiator. Moreover he said Kennedy was willing to put a key person in this role – which to me says a great deal.

The cancer connection

So half the story is about the resources Avaya is dedicating to support the other half is that Ali is looking to radically simplify support and to dramatically reduce time to resolution. And where he received his inspiration is interesting. It turns out that he heard a presentation from a cancer researcher at Mass General who spoke of the evolution of cancer treatment. It was once necessary for doctors to try treatment after treatment to determine the correct drug which needs to be prescribed. In other words a hit or miss process. But then a machine was built which matched biopsy results to the right type of gene mutation allowing improved results.

The goal then is to imitate the workings of the machine described above – and in doing so create true service innovation and of course differentiation. One point he made was that Avaya systems have diagnostics and alarms allowing for lots of output on which to perform diagnostic analysiss. He contrasted this to a competitor (he didn’t mention any by name but obviously Cisco) which has a lot of disparate boxes making this task more difficult. Of course Avaya recently acquired Nortel – bringing a few disparate boxes into the mix as well.

The night shift

One technique the company uses is simulating traffic at night in order to pinpoint problems with critical and other systems. This can be done across the contact center products, switches, voice and video systems. Ali tells me Nortel gave Avaya access to excellent diagnostics and these will be incorporated across the product line soon. Moreover, not everything is covered across the product portfolio is covered yet but they are working on getting all the diagnostics to cover all the products.

Streamlining Support Advantage

One of the biggest pieces of news from Ali’s department is the new Avaya Support Advantage model features two packages Essential Support and Preferred Support. Essential Support is the basic level of support. It’s targeted at those customers who require solution level remote technical support, and also software updates and patches. Preferred Support includes all the features of Essential package and more comes with remote monitoring that alerts Avaya within 90 seconds of receiving an alarm, and it can drive up to 20 percent faster resolution times, on average, due to increased visibility via around-the-clock monitoring. Plus, it includes Avaya EXPERT Systems.

Moreover, support pricing has been detached from the underlying product making it easier to determine the price based on a standard schedule. For customers who have multiple support contracts there is the option for co-termination and synchronized billing going forward.

Some of the benefits to customers are easier management and budgeting, less paperwork, less bills, reduced time to resolution and better customer service.

Nortel and Avaya users to benefit

Nortel and Avaya Support are expected to both improve as the best features of each will be rolled out across the other product line. For example there is now lifetime support across the Nortel portfolio and an emergency response program designed to help Avaya customers with catastrophic failures.

A more difficult support future

Ali mentioned the architecture of communications moving from centralized management approach to highly distributed service with multiple servers at the edge and in the cloud. He went on to mention that UC is becoming more unified and voice, data, video, IM and SMS are being used through a unified environment. He mentioned that Aura helps unify these modes of collaboration and Avaya’s diagnostic technology leverages Aura at the intersection allowing multimodal analysis in a holistic manner.

Like I mentioned at the top – service and support is usually a talking a point in my vendor discussions and it rarely comes up in detail. Avaya seems to be committing serious resources into differentiating itself in this important area. Now the question becomes how important does this become to enterprises? We know IT departments are constantly being asked to do more with less – perhaps now is the best time for Avaya to be making this push. In addition to customers, I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of the information technology and telecom market responds to Avaya’s cancer treatment-inspired support improvements.

Jabra Freeway Bluetooth Speakerphone Really Rocks

2011-06-16T21:14:47Z

Somehow when Jabra sent me their new Freeway car speakerphone it came to my house instead of my office and when I opened the box I thought ho-hum – a speakerphone and unceremoniously placed it in the pile of mail which may or may not get looked at. But today I brought it to work and became thoroughly impressed with its features. Virtual surround sound, HD voice support, A2DP music streaming support, voice guidance for Caller-ID, intelligent speech recognition, motion sensing to conserve battery, 3 speakers, support for two simultaneous devices and that sound – oh that sound, you think the device must be much bigger than it is.

Yes, this diminutive little gadget a bit larger than a desktop mouse belted out music like a pro, told me when I had calls and generally impressed me to the point that I brought others in my company to share in the joy of putting the Jabra Freeway through its paces. I immediately paired multiple devices and had them fight to send dueling music streams. BTW Android beat iOS – but it think this may have more to do with the fact that the Android was paired second.

I then played around with the voice recognition which was dead accurate time and again. I didn’t sync my contacts allowing me even more functionality but I played a ton of music mostly from Genesis and it all sounded great. Perhaps the best complement for the gadget was from a coworker who wondered where the device was made. Without thinking I said “China of course,” and he responded – “They don’t make things of such quality in China.”

I glanced over on the corner of my desk at the brand new iPad charging. I got it today for my dad as a Father’s Day present. I then disagreed politely. He turned the Freeway over and turns out I was right.

These are the additional uses for this shiny new gadget beyond the obvious. As a speakerphone in your office, this thing excels and has 14 hours of talk time which is incredible for something which feels as light as a smartphone. In addition, you can throw it into a laptop bag and it will act as a speaker in your hotel room allowing you to enjoy some tunes while your work or play.

Car and male model sold separately

You can optionally have the Freeway transmit to an FM frequency to play via your car stereo system and even use the night mode to reduce the distraction from its built-in lights. An added plus is the fact this gadget uses Micro USB so you likely already have chargers for it lying around your house, work and in your travel bag.

In addition you can have it verbally tell you how much battery is left and download the latest firmware – something I didn’t try.

Room for improvement

I would have liked to have a full guide of all the voice commands I can give the device beyond pairing with a new device or asking it to redial.

Conclusion

I knew this device would cost more than $100 based on its features and when I searched online I did find a street price of about $120. The question is – is it worth this much and I have to answer yes. My concern is that over $95-$99 or so the price is more than what a consumer would expect to pay for something which many will compare to cheap Bluetooth junk wanna-be competitors.

Then again, even a somewhat similar device from Motorola costs about $60 with equivalent connectors.

But still, The Jabra Freeway is the Cadillac of Bluetooth hands free surround-sound high-quality speaker phones and you get what you pay for. I think it makes an awesome Father’s Day present. Wonder if it’s too late to return the iPad.

Skype For Asterisk to Shut Down

2011-05-25T10:31:17Z

One of the more exciting announcements in the open communications space was when Digium inked a deal with Skype to allow the most popular open source communications server to work natively with the most popular Internet telephony software.

But yesterday Digium put out a note telling users that Skype for Asterisk will no longer be available after July 26th, 2011. Current users should be able to use it for a period of two years after that date.

The question worth asking is whether this announcement marks the end of Skype support for non-Microsoft platforms. As Erik Lagerway asks - will Skype Connect for various PBX vendors be next?

In the past I've have heard there were scaling issues with Skype for Asterisk so this move could be a result pruning products which didn't meet certain standards or requirements.

Obviously we will know more as time goes on but this move likely won't be welcomed by the legions of open-source fanboys out there. And Microsoft needs to be careful to not alienate the influencers in the market if it doesn't want to intentionally reduce the value of an acquisition which many say cost too much.

Update May 26, 2011

Skype sent me their official comment regarding Skype for Asterisk from Jennifer Caukin, spokeswoman for Skype.

Skype made the decision to retire Skype for Asterisk several months ago, as we have prioritized our focus around implementing the IETF SIP standard in our Skype Connect solution. SIP enjoys the broadest support of any of the available signaling alternatives by business communications equipment vendors, including Digium. By supporting SIP in favor of alternatives, we maximize our resources and continue to reinforce our commitment to delivering Skype on key platforms where we can meet the broadest customer demand.

This does make sense - with all the things that need to take place with a merger of this size, probably Digium was not at the top of the list of things to deal with. Going forward there is still the potential for conflict between Apple with Facetime and other challenges with enterprise PBX vendors now that Microsoft is Skype's new parent company.

Important HD Voice Research Report Available

2011-04-07T22:16:49Z

You probably know I have been a huge proponent of HD voice as to me it’s an inevitable outcome of transitioning away from the PSTN to IP-based networks which allow us to upgrade CODECs without having to downshift our conversations to technology which was invented many decades ago. When I was a kid, television was an 11 inch black-and-white screen which seemed to always have Walter Cronkite on it and changing the channels was a manual and rotary process.

Yet, the incredible tech advancements we have seen in the television space haven’t yet fully materialized in the world of telephony. Sure, I can have high-quality conversations if a call stays on IP networks and there is no need for transcoding or jumping onto the public switched telephone network. But for most calls we all make, this technology advancement is unheard – so the problem is solved but not in a way which really helps on most of our calls.

My thoughts and a panel of experts from ITEXPO East 2009 Miami on the future of HD voice

The good news is the opportunity to improve the quality of all phone calls will only grow over time as equipment is replaced, IP communications becomes more widely embraced and peering of VoIP networks becomes the norm, not the exception.

That’s why I am thrilled to announce that TMC – the company where I am CEO has partnered with HD Voice News to publish the first comprehensive report on the market and opportunity for HD voice technology and services.

I recently had a chance to look at the report and give the author, Doug Mohney my opinions. It was an impressive piece of work and Doug’s credentials in the market after being a contributing editor here at TMC for years, working at Fierce Markets and VON Magazine in the past make him the go to guy when writing such a report.

The one point I’d like to leave my readers with is why is it we spend so much more money on gear and services which support HD TV but when it comes to voice, we don’t do a good job educating or differentiating services – let alone charging more? The answer is there are still challenges such as HD voice interop and the dreaded PSTN. This report should hopefully help the key decision-makers at carriers, enterprises and equipment companies see where the challenges and opportunities lie in taking the communications market to the next level. Here is a press release discussing the report in more detail and a site where you can order the report.

Brady Bunch Videoconferencing Goes Mobile Thanks to fring

2011-04-06T11:05:53Z

fring has launched a Beta app for mobile devices allowing Brady Bunch-style conferencing with up to four users at once. The importance of this announcement is that anyone can now take advantage of advanced video communications which until recently was not even available in an office without a high-priced videoconferencing solution with dedicated bandwidth and specialized equipment.

Indeed, the power of mobile devices has grown substantially over the years and soon dual and eventually multicore processors will be the norm. And as this evolution in mobile horsepower continues, apps like this one will continue to proliferate.

We have signed up for Beta accounts and I look forward to trying this app out to see how well it performs when all four users are moving around. I also wonder about screen lag and synchronization between audio and video.

The question now is how popular will video become on mobile devices and will the experience become compelling enough to make video the default for phone calls? And of course one last point is are backhaul vendors still undervalued?

Tom Keating has more.

Leading SIP Client Bria Gets Upgrade to 3.2

2011-04-06T10:44:53Z

CounterPath released Bria 3.2 today and the offering has gotten significantly better with the ability to manage multiple accounts in a single view, enhanced contact management GUI, a ribbon for MS Outlook, support for company chat rooms and better workgroup management functionality. Tom Keating has the complete write up and the good news here is a very popular SIP client should make its users that much more productive.