Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - HTML5 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.

Brightcove Sales Reflects well on Video, Cloud, HTML5

2012-05-04T09:54:33Z

What happens when you sit at the intersection of cloud, HTML5 and video - especially when tablets and high-resolution smartphones are being sold by the hundreds of millions? The answer is - if you are Brightcove, that your sales grow rapidly. In fact the company just announced earnings of $19.9 million which is up 53% YoY. Sure, this isn't a huge number but the percentage is obviously intriguing.

Moreover, gross profit for the first quarter was up 56% at $13.6 million. Still, the company reported an operating loss for the quarter of $3.2 million compared to a loss of $4.4 million for the same quarter, last year.

In the video below Jeff Whatcott of Brightcove discusses Brightcove 4, an iPhone SDK and other new offerings with TMC's Erik Linask

New customers added this quarter include Allianz France, Pfizer International Operations, Toyota and Starwood Hotels & Resorts and NBC.

Over my career I have seen many companies look at video as a growing market but few have been able to monetize this space beyond content producers and perhaps YouTube. It remains to be seen if Brightcove will be able to generate large profits in video but their list of top customers, earnings momentum and reinvestment in their business shows they could become a solidly profitable business video company in the next few years.

Comments on Last Week's DevCon5 HTML5 Conference

2012-05-01T20:07:53Z

HTML5 is an important topic as cross-platform development without the need to work with app store guardians means developers are generally free to write apps the way they want without the need to conform to standards or really any rules set by an app store overlord.

This isn't to say that app stores don't have advantages to them - they do... Consider their ability to promote your apps, host the files for you and deal with billing are a few of these. But still, for many, the write-once, run-everywhere nature of HTML5 makes it an important resource in their development.

Last week's HTML5 event DevCon5 (disclosure, TMC is a co-producer of the event and I am CEO of TMC) was well-attended (pictures) and although I wasn't at the conference I felt like I got a great taste of all that happened by reading the 8bitrocketblog by Jeff Fulton.

My favorite part of the post is the page where the HTML5 iOS demos live - I like Brickbasher Mobile but Retro Blaster Touch is my favorite. A coworker saw me using the game in a meeting earlier today and try as I did, I am not sure I convinced her I was actually absorbing the finer points of HTML5, not ignoring her presentation.

NQ Mobile Protects Android Phones from Malware and Viruses

2012-03-20T16:21:45Z

Last year Roger McNamee mentioned that he doesn’t think Android has a bright future because of the malicious apps proliferating on the platform and to his point Android malware is up over 400% with no signs of slowing down. This is where NQ Mobile’s NQ Mobile Security app comes in. I recently met with Kim Titus who described the threat as being greatest over SMS as well as in parts of the world where apps are sideloaded. He believes 10% of Android devices in fact are infected and SQL injection as well as HTML5 are further challenges to securing this mobile OS.

The company’s software available in the Android app store is being downloaded 200,000 times per day and as part of the solution, users get access to the company’s 250 security experts who break down malware and protect customers from it. I mentioned the freemium model and you do get security for free but the advanced features are paid.

Some of these features are financial security information and ensuring specially encrypted data only goes point-to-point ensuring no outside party gets access to it. In addition, paid users get privacy protection and advanced antitheft features like remote wipe, lock and alarm sounding.

The software has a novel way of providing antitheft services and the free model allows you to enter a phone number which is texted in the event of the SIM card being changed. At this point this second device can track and lock the stolen phone.

I am told big features are coming soon in version 6.2 and 7.0 including family services.

Perhaps the most important part of the discussion was when the company explained that users aren’t the customers of the software they download [for free], advertisers are.

In other words the developers making the services users are consuming are first loyal to the people paying them who are the ones advertising. This means there will always be the temptation to cross the privacy line.

None of this is news to the mobile community as software has been found to invade privacy not only on Android but iOS as well. The question is in this mobile war on privacy and security, can users ever be protected enough. NQ Mobile likes to think their software is the answer to this challenge.

AirWatch Highlights MDM in a Post-PC Era

2012-03-08T22:19:58Z

Yesterday Apple CEO Tim Cook showed a chart of how the iPad alone is selling more unites than PCs from any other individual vendor. This is an amazing achievement when you consider the iPad is a few years old and that HP swallowed up Compaq making it the largest vendor in the PC market. Of course with so much device proliferation the question of mobile device management or MDM has to rear its head. As this market is so crucial I am happy I had a chance to sit with Alan Dabbiere the charismatic Chairman of MDM leader Airwatch at MWC 2012.

A good part of our meeting centered around Dabbiere explaining how dominant his company is in the space – with over 500 employees and over 2,000 customers. He went on to say companies like Apple have to share the details of their new products to MDM vendors in advance and they want the market to consist of fewer large vendors. Other growth data points worth noting are the company has seen sequential MDM growth numbers between 30-100% in each quarter in 2011.

Moreover, the R&D team is now 175 people with R&D expense running at about 25% of revenue – a healthy number. Some of the differentiating features the company touts are support for all major OS versions as well as scalability, intelligent notifications, an SDK, an HTML5 console, an enterprise app catalogue and a multi-lingual console.

What Dabbiere spent considerable time discussing is the company’s secure content locker which allows anyone with console access to push content to selected users. What differentiates this solution from emailing content is the inability for users to subsequently take ownership of the content and forward in an unauthorized manner.

A real world example of how it works is adding a tab in the content locker which is sent to the board of directors just prior to a board meeting and then recalled the documents after the meeting is over. In another case an investment bank can use this solution to push research reports to clients without fear of them being able to forward these proprietary research documents to brokers at rival banks.

Of course I know your next question – in the case of a company pushing out content to non-employees – can the locker be branded by the company? The answer is yes. So Goldman Sachs could brand their own content locker and tabs which their clients can access but not copy or forward.

The final use case he shared was more esoteric but certainly helpful if you at a theme park in Orlando in August. Let’s assume you run a theme park where characters with big ears are prominently displayed and you would like to get email addresses for all your visitors but they likely don’t want to share this information with you as they fear spam. So instead you ask them to download a free app which includes a park map and then notify them when a ride is under or over crowded. Utilizing GPS of course would help you target visitors before they head to a part of the park which is overflowing with people.

Likewise you can use the app to help manage restaurant capacity – in other words you can send coupons to restaurants which are under crowded to ensure visitors are more evenly dispersed throughout the part. Another idea is if the park is experiencing capacity issues at all restaurants at the same time you can send a coupon to guests telling them it will be honored at a later time like say 1:00 pm.

Mobile device proliferation isn’t slowing down and neither is the need to manage and control the content on all these devices. One can imagine the MDM space and AirWatch have significant room to grow for the foreseeable future. At the moment the application is available on iOS and Android support should be here in a month with PC access available in the next 3-6 months.

Stop the Licensing Insanity, Cable Companies Need a Slingbox App

2012-02-21T23:41:52Z

Would you move because you wanted a better cable company? The answer is probably not – especially if you live in an area of the country where you are served by a major provider. Cablevision is a relatively smaller cable company serving areas in the northeast like Connecticut and New York and even so they have WiFi-enabled much of their footprint allowing free wireless broadband to customers at many restaurants and shopping centers.

So cable companies aren’t necessarily competing against each other – they are competing against OTT providers, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube as well as phone companies.

So the competition is generally cord cutting and the cablecos have to do everything they can to make their services as sticky as they can be. This is why as TMC’s Peter Bernstein reports today, Tim Warner Cable has rolled out some great new services allowing customers to watch TV on PCs and Macs. This is even better than Cablevision’s Optimum service as it is restricted to iOS and Android. Still, like I said before – and Peter agrees, you aren’t going to move because of your cable provider.

One curious bit of information is the service requires Microsoft’s Silverlight 4, a platform which many thought was going away. Hopefully TWC will upgrade this to HTML5 soon.

Bernstein makes another interesting comment in his analytical piece and that is that what he really wants from his cable company is Slingbox-like functionality. Point being no matter how fancy and sophisticated the cable companies get with their apps and services, you are still restricted to viewing in your home. What is needed is for the industry to move beyond the licensing insanity so customers can watch their programming from wherever they are.

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.

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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.

RIM Quietly Shifting Strategy to HTML5

2012-01-23T22:47:22Z

While it does seem that every company is working on an HTML5 strategy, one of the more aggressive in the space has been RIM. And while the news of the day has to do with the company replacing its Co-CEOs for a single CEO, to me what is interesting is how the company has been promoting its HTML5 strategy.

As a disclosure, my company TMC is co-producer of the DevCon5 HTML5 developer event and RIM has made a sponsoring commitment to the show for a few events in a row – where they give away Blackberry Playbook’s to developers who successfully package mobile HTML5 apps and test them on a device simulator.

The point is the company knows it is at a disadvantage in terms of having the largest platform and they realize this in turn means they will attract a proportionately smaller developer community. As a result they are looking to HTML5 developers to write apps for their platform.

It is a smart move and by giving the PlayBook to developers they ensure they are more likely to be familiar with the platform.

The world knows RIM has a lot of work ahead of it and many investors think the company should be broken up and/or sold. But regardless of whether the above happens the company has positioned itself nicely to tap into the hottest trend in software development – HTML5.

Learn about the next HTML5 Summit here – a DevCon5 Event. You can register for the RIM hackathon here. This event will be collocated with ITEXPO next week in Miami, FL.

Bain Capital, Romney, Vulture Investing and 15% Tax Rates

2012-01-23T17:35:14Z

A shout out to investors everywhere

I haven’t seen this level of funding in the tech space in years – I would go so far as to say the amount of funding is the greatest I’ve seen since 2000. I don’t believe we are exceeding 2000 levels but it is encouraging to see that investors believe that tech makes a solid investment.

Before I begin with which markets have gotten money, let me make a shout out to the investors in the world. You see, me, everyone at TMC and in fact most of the tech world owes its existence to investors who risk their capital against all odds to make a profit. It isn’t unusual for these investors to hit it big in one out of ten deals – meaning 90% of their investment is washed down the drain.

And because of their decision to be investors we get companies like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora and Google which have made the world a better place.

We are in an unusual time in American history – one in which a potential presidential candidate is under attack for being a successful investor. Mitt Romney was the head of Bain Capital and not only is his firm being accused of being involved in vulture capitalism – he is under fire for laying off workers and also for paying a tax rate of 15%.

There aren’t too many people coming to the defense of Governor Romney regarding the above so this is what people need to know.

Investors are good – regardless of whether they invest in distressed companies and have the moniker “vulture” attached to them. If a company is distressed it is usually because it needs money and is potentially facing bankruptcy. When an investor comes in it is because they believe they can either turn the company around and/or they believe the sum of the parts is worth more than the current market value of the company.

So when the “vulture capitalist” comes in and a company subsequently shuts down – it is no worse a fate than would have faced the company had the investor not put up money to help out in the first place. In the best case scenario the company gets the funds it needs and can do an acquisition, invest in a new factory or whatever it must do to become profitable again.

It is worth pointing out the big payoff for an investor – whether it is a vulture, strategic or any other type is when the company they invest in becomes more profitable than when they first invested in it.

This gets us to Bain Capital laying people off. The primary reason for a company to be in business is to generate increased profit over time. If the business goes south (and remember we are dealing with distressed companies to begin with) or there is an opportunity to close a plant and reduce expense, the business has to do what it needs to do to ensure shareholders make money on their investments. Moreover, closing a plant could be in-part the reason the rest of the company can keep their jobs.

Remember, investment funds only get to stay open if they make a profit and most of their investments will fail. Only a single digit percentage will make it.

This gets us to the capital gains and dividend rate of 15%. I have heard countless people tell me this is unfair but my argument is if these investors are responsible for so much hiring and innovation and most of their investments are lost then why would we want to take this money out of the private sector where it generally gets reinvested into more new companies?

After all – the companies which are invested in rent office space – use contractors, hire people by the hundreds of thousands who in-turn pay all sorts of taxes – they buy massive amounts of equipment which not only helps companies like HP and Dell but they also pay sales tax on these purchases.

And if they happen to sell products or services overseas they bring foreign money into the US which protects our currency from going into a free fall due to our excessive dollar printing and overspending as a nation.

The issue many people have is the low tax rate of 15% compared to what they make. A salesperson or executive for example may end up making less income but paying a higher tax rate of 25-35%. To that I respond –why should anyone pay a higher tax rate than 15% – not why should the investor pay a higher percentage.

In other words while I agree the system may not seem “fair” on the face of it – the solution is to bring the tax rate down on all people not punish the people who fuel this economy.

Just today for example three tech companies put out news of funding and it isn’t even noon yet. Polar Mobile received $6M for its HTML5-based publishing platform, Joyent received $85M in the cloud computing space and TRUSTe received $15M in the online privacy space.

That is over $100M in funding and I would wager virtually all of it comes from money which was taxed at 15%. Moreover, on dividend income which is also taxed at 15% - it is money which is already taxed at the corporate tax rate which is as high as 25%. Meaning the money which comes to investors such as those at Bain Capital has been taxed 40% in total!

I understand the divisive politics of jealousy is effective but if you make your living in any way off the tech ecosystem – you should stop and think for a moment about how lucky you are that this industry is thriving while much of the economy is struggling. Moreover, if you use social networking, tablets, Internet or satellite radio or virtually any cloud service, you can thank private equity and investors.

And this doesn’t take into account the investment in pharma or other markets which produces life-saving drugs and the myriad other industries which receive funding, allowing them to hire and produce great products and services we all enjoy.

Some additional thoughts:

Self-promotional message: Next week TMC the company where I am CEO will be hosting ITEXPO in Miami and there will be great emphasis on cloud computing and communications as well as HTML5. You want to be there.

If I had to choose a Republican candidate I am not 100% sold on Romney – I lean towards Gingrich. Neither is conservative enough for me – but I believe Newt more effectively explains the benefits of conservatism for society as a whole.

Whoever wins – this will be a brutal class-warfare oriented campaign by the left and I truly hope the rhetoric doesn’t distract the nation from coming together and competing with China, India and other countries. After all when you lose jobs in this country it isn’t the fault of the rich guy in the corner office it is because the business environment in other parts of the world is better than the US.

The solutions to the problems the US faces are not going after the people who make the smart investment decisions for their employees and investors but instead to ensure we have a competitive workforce which is flexible and educated with minimal regulations allowing us to make the case to corporations about why jobs need to come back to the US.

Analysis of FT and NYT Paywall Success

2012-01-09T15:36:25Z

For newspapers looking to offset falling advertising revenues via increased paid subscriptions one solution is to raise prices of the printed versions of your product in order to gently nudge loyal readers online. A great analysis of how two newspapers the Financial Times and New York Times have been successful in doing so comes from Frédéric Filloux of The Guardian who explains that the NYT has increased their print prices by 25% in the UK and the FT has had a whopping 40% increase over a similar time period.

The article goes on to explain how the FT has a simple strategy when it comes to paywalls – you get less and less free articles per month unless you pay. The NYT has a more convoluted strategy which has a few tiers – and the article says both newspapers have models which work.

I have long been skeptical of most newspapers getting readers to pay but it seems the NYT has a strategy which is working for them considering they have 324,000 digital paid readers which they collected over nine months.

Regarding the FT – it is no surprise to me it is able to gain digital paid readers as the FT and Wall Street Journal are business/investing newspapers meaning you can justify the price due to the fact you are getting investment advice. Less so for the NYT but of the last few years the company has associated itself more with the investment community. Consider for example the fact that Too Big to Fail author and NYT columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin is now a regular anchor on CNBC and also recently launched a site on NYT.com called Deal Book dedicated to M&A. And he has broken some big news in the past which again makes the NYT a more palatable buy for investors and businesspeople in general.

The article also touches on HTML5 and the decision by the FT to rely on this open standard as opposed to the Apple iTunes App Store. In the opinion of the author, going HTML5 is a better long-term solution while the App Store can give you a quick hit.

It would seem to me that all media companies will have to develop HTML5 apps as a way to ensure they reduce development time as ne platforms emerge and fragment the market. Sure, today it looks like iOS and Android are where the action is but over time – who knows what other gadgets and/or form factors consumers will become enamored with.

At the end of the day these newspapers and many app developers have determined the freemium model is the one which is most successful… Hook the reader or user with something free then upgrade them by promising less ads, more content, etc.

The question becomes of course how to manage the paywall – how many articles should you give for free for example. This is where analytics comes into play – and as a result we can expect more big data analysis over time in not only the media and newspaper space but across apps in general.

And I consider the advent of new online business models and more consumers paying for once-free content online as an awesome sign for the vitality of the Internet because as advertising has become less lucrative it behooves content and app providers to get users to pay more for what they consume.

To learn more about HTML5 Development check out HTML5 Summit a DevCon5 Event collocated at ITEXPO in Miami, FL, Feb 1-3. The show is part-owned by TMC where I am CEO.

Gameloft Reinvents Self at 3D GTML5 Game on Google+

2011-12-27T22:23:54Z

I am a huuuge Gameloft fan – which subsequently means my family isn’t. Some of my favorite games are N.O.V.A 2 a futuristic game where you kill aliens and robots on another planet, Zombie Infection, a game where you basically kill zombies (the company recently upgraded the program with a long-play “survival” mode at no cost) and Modern Combat 3 from Gameloft Montreal – an awesome futuristic military game which like the others is addictive and believe it or not has some really funny one-liners.

Modern Combat 3 Fallen Nation, Cold-Blooded, Day 12, Siberia - two scenes - the second with sniper rifle zoom

I just read on HTML5 Report – a venture between TMC and Crossfire Media that the company is now going to look into 3D HTML5 games on social networks such as Google+.

This is very exciting news because the company makes some solid iPad games and HTML5 means a larger potential audience for the new titles they produce. Now, where do I sign up to be notified when these things come out?

Wait, Toggl is why HTML5 is so Important?

2011-11-29T22:08:36Z

Some months back Crossfire Media head Joe Mazzeo came to TMC to tell us HTML5 was the future. He showed us some demos and we decided to extend our event and online partnership which encompassed 4G, M2M and other areas into providing a forum for the community of HTML5 designers and developers named DevCon5.

This all came back to me when I read an article from Tim Beyers aptly titled HTML is Bigger Than You Think on Motley Fool about toggl, a simple HTML5 app which uses the cloud as a timer for projects - allowing you to start and stop it from any device.

As Joe mentioned in our initial meeting - it is HTML5 that brings the true power of the cloud to the user and although toggle is a simple app, it proves Joe was right.

The next DevCon5 HTML5 developer conference takes place in Santa Clara, December 7-8, 2011 and you can register now.

My team put out this cool promo today worth checking out as it details some of the companies you can come meet, learn from and network with at the conference.

Facebook Serious about HTML5

2011-11-14T22:09:51Z

Those of you paying attention know Facebook is serious about HTML5 and the company is not a fan of having to get its app approved by another company such as Apple. But in a sign they are putting their money where their mouth is, the world's leading social networking company just purchased HTML5 innovator Strobe.

You may recall Strobe founder and CEO Charles Jolley was a keynote speaker at the last HTML5 event TMC hosted called DevCon5. The video below may jog your memory.

We are also thrilled that he will be keynoting the next DevCon5 in Santa Clara, Wednesday, Dev 7th, 2011 representing Faceboook. It will be worth the visit to see him. He is really good.

You can register now.

ITEXPO West 2011 Austin Highlights

2011-08-23T19:09:30Z

Before all ITEXPO events I do a final proofread of the show directory and this one may be the biggest ever at 132 pages with tabs (just doing our part to support the economy). We will post a PDF version soon so you can see what’s in it but until then, here are some highlights that caught my eye:

Keynotes & Exhibits Tuesday, September 13^th at 9:15 AM we have Ian Pennell from Cisco and at 4:30 PM-5:30 PM we have keynotes from Siemens and IBM followed by a Grand Opening Networking Reception sponsored by Interact from 5:30-7:30.

Wednesday, September 14^th at 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM we have keynotes from Polycom and DHL followed by exhibits from 11:00 AM- 4:00 PM. Then at 4:00 PM there is a Cocktail reception sponsored by Rackspace Hosting and at 4:45 you could win a pair of mountain bikes from Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop - an Austin Institution ( I am told). Then at 5:00 PM Bob Metcalfe kicks off StartupCamp4 Comms Edition with a keynote and this event continues until 8:00 PM and is free to attend.

Thursday, September 15^th Exhibits open at 11:00 AM and the Jeep giveaway begins at 2:45 PM (see below). Thanks to Jeep sponsors AireSpring, AudioCodes, Windstream Communications, Panasonic, Sotel Systems, Taqua, WildPackets and VocalTec.

ITEXPO West voted #3 fastest growing trade show by Trade Show Magazine – thanks to the fine editors of this publication and to all our loyal attendees who have allowed this conference to honored. We really appreciate your support.

You can win a Jeep – TMC has given away dozens of cars over the years and we will be giving away yet another on Thursday, September 15^th at 2:45 PM. And YES, you have to be present to win.

Free WiFi, as long as less than 5,800 devices are trying to connect at once, I am told the Austin Convention Center will have fast WiFi access for everyone who wants it. Like many of you, I know from painful experience that tech crowds like ITEXPO attendees can bring just about any WiFi network to its knees so I am looking forward to seeing how this network does under heavy load.

Super WiFi & white spaces Speaking WiFi, Tuesday morning 9/13 Super WiFi Summit kicks off and this paid conference will teach you about how white space technology could be as disruptive to 4G/wireless as VoIP was to the PSTN. Imagine if you knew what you know about VoIP today – but in 1998. What investment and career decisions would you have made as a result? And now you see the Super WiFi opportunity. It all takes place in room 5C on the 3^rd floor – learn more here and check out the agenda or register.

HTML5 Revolution In room 6B, Sept 13-15^th you will find the most authoritative conference on HTML5 anywhere and if you are interested in learning how HTML5 will disrupt app stores and allow developers to create broad-reaching apps without having to develop for multiple architectures, this conference is for you. Sessions will allow designers, entrepreneurs, programmers and investors to learn everything they need to know about the future of cross-platform and mobile development. Here is the link to the HTML5 Summit, a Devcon5 Event. Here are some of the latest developments on the show.

MPLS University MegaPath is sponsoring MPLS University on Wednesday, Sept 14th in room 7 between 2:00 and 4:00 PM and it is free to all attendees. Please contact the company with questions and pregister here.

Regulations change everything: Regulatory 2.0 Workshop takes place in room 4A for a half-day on Thursday, September 15^th. The federal government, FCC and other governmental agencies have changed the fortunes of entire industries with the simple passing of a bill. And with the massive disruption in the market taking place with the PSTN potentially being eliminated, OTT set-top boxes eliminating the need for cable operators and wireless eliminating the need for fixed lines and countless USF issues, you need to get a sense of what the feds and state regulators are planning for your future.

Voice peering continues to grow The VIPeering conference takes place in room 5A Tuesday, September 13^th and focuses on crucial factors in the voice peering market like the role of the SBC, number portability and more.

SIP Trunking on a tear Let’s face it, virtually all SMB and enterprise telephony on a global scale will be replaced by SIP trunks and this massive opportunity is why the Ingate SIP Trunking Summit has been such a success at ITEXPO for many years. ITEXPO was the first show in the world with a SIP trunking workshop and we continue to have the most knowledgeable speakers and curriculum designers anywhere. Learn more about this free 3-day event.

Asterisk and open source telephony You know who you are – you prefer to have your telephony be open-source either because you enjoy the added flexibility, want full-control or perhaps you like the cost-savings that comes with this more open form of telecom. Whatever the reasons for your interest, you have to be at Asterisk 1-2-3 training hosted by Digium in meeting room 2 on the first floor on Monday September 12^th where you can learn how to connect SIP phones to Asterisk, how to add logic and even how to compile Asterisk from source code. This is a good fit if you are relatively new to the topic or are exploring your options.

What, more SIP? You know you need to know as much about SIP as possible to ensure you can effectively interconnect your organization’s telecom systems. This is especially true in light of the fact that SIP systems aren’t always interoperable out of the box. And just for you we have assembled some of the best speakers anywhere to teach you at the SIP Tutorial which takes place Thursday, September 15^th in room 5A.

Need talent or a job? We are thrilled that the people from Dice will be hosting a high tech job fair at ITEXPO September 15^th, between 11:00 AM -3:00PM. For more information email Bob Westerkamp or call 800-695-1939.

Dialogic Solution Showcase? On page 53 of the directory there is an ad from Dialogic touting a Solution Showcase. I am not sure what this is but is certainly reminds me of the nineties when Dialogic used to feature its solution partners at shows around the US and world. Anyone else remember the Computer Telephony shows in LA? I’ll be stopping by their booth #407 to learn more.

Send your marketing team Marketing departments have never had to deal with the level of technology and complexity that exists today. SEO, social, deal sites, print, TV, radio, online ads, online communities, resource centers, lead generation, CRM management, analytics and so on. To help, we have launched a CMO Summit on Tuesday, Sept 13, 7:30-9:30 at Fogo de Chao. This event requires an application be filled out and approved so thanks for your understanding.

When a cloudy future is good You mean you haven’t thought about moving your communications in the cloud like millions of others? Well even if you are sure you don’t want to move all your comms to the cloud you should explore moving some of it or at least be educated enough to defend your position in the next meeting with your boss. The best place to learn about cloud communications of course is at Cloud Communications Expo on the level one ballroom C Tuesday, September 13^th and Wednesday, September 14^th.

Some highlights from the above expo are:

International Hour on Tuesday
MidMarket Session on Tuesday
M&A Social Networking Lunch/Track
Analyst Keynote on Wednesday

A 4G future it should come as no surprise that your wireless future will be 4G but how does a company leverage all the opportunities this new standard allows? Well of course by participating in the 4GWE conference where you can learn how to solve picocell issues, deal with backhaul challenges and more. Be sure to come to room 4A and 4BC where this conference will take place and learn more. As part of this event you will also get to hear two awesome keynoters – Cameron Coursey of AT&T as well as Charles Jolley the CEO of Strobe. Here is a link to part of a past keynote Jolly did at the TMC DevCon5 event in Manhattan a few weeks back. It was one of the best presentations we had at the show.

Billions of M2M devices Yes, as amazing as it sounds there will be billions of machine-to-machine devices from tablets to sensors to appliances. Yes, your refrigerator and washing machine will be connected to the network allowing them to utilize power when it costs less and moreover making the world a more efficient place. Opportunity in M2M abounds – witness my recent pieces on Sprint and OnAsset. Life often imitates musical chairs – and if you aren’t quick, you lose. Come to M2M Evolution Tuesday September 13^th through Thursday, September 15^th in room 5B to learn more about the industry.

MSPs are the cloud Recently a managed service provider I was speaking with said his company was the cloud. Of course this sounds a bit silly but he had a point – and that is, without a network of cloud-based providers supplying backup services, payroll, email, collaboration and other apps – the cloud would not only be boring but not as profitable. Leave it to MSPs to act as the glue that makes all the really cool cloud-based apps stick. Come learn more at MSP World Tues-Wed, Sept 13-14^th.

Without the channel, where are we? Starting up companies which make great products is sometimes the easy part of the equation. The tough part is finding a channel to market – a set of resellers who can hold the hands of your customers and walk them though a more complex sale. There is no better place for the channel to gather than at Channel Vision Expo or CVx Wed-Thurs Sept 14-15^th, located on the show floor.

Customers are tweeting and facebooking, are you listening? Social CRM Expo is an event I decided the world needed because to be honest there are so many ways customers can complain and comment regarding your company that if you aren’t engaging prospects and customers in near real-time you risk major reputational and potentially financial damage. Social CRM is the discipline which brings together the art of listening to what customers are saying and engaging them to ensure problems are resolved quickly and your company’s reputation is as good as it can be. Social CRM Expo is the place to be to learn all about it Tues-Wed Sept 13-14^th in room 8A.

Be sure to check TMCnet for the latest on Telecom reseller week – an event all resellers should be particicpating in and of course Avaya has a great event on Monday, Sept 12 at 7:00 PM called Technology on Tap which will explore how the workplace needs to evolve to handle the millennial generation. Oh great, now we need to tweet these kids to get them to do something we want. :)

It should be really great – like all the past Avaya events they have always included great drinks, food and course objective information.

I really can’t wait to see you all at the show – it should be the best one ever. Please register now if you haven’t – and keep in mind you may need to register for multiple conferences if you have interest in their sessions.

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: