Recently in IP Communications Category

We are heading into ITEXPO with one day to go and today I got great news from my team who all arrived safely in Los Angeles and are busy preparing the Los Angeles Convention Center for the best ITEXPO ever. The good news? The preregistration for Avaya's social networking kick-off event is over 3X greater than last year's Avaya conference so far. Either this is an indication of the interest in social networking or there are more people coming to the show. Hopefully it's a bit of both.

My weekend in Los Angeles has been great... I have spent time with many relatives - at least 100 and counting. Yes, I have a huge family.

As always, we are looking forward to welcoming you all to what promised to be a great show - full of collaboration tools, videoconferencing solutions, IP communications tools and more. Moreover, there are new areas of the show such as Smart Grid, M2M, 4G and WINOG which I just can't wait to learn more about.

Then there are open source certifications (Digium/Asterisk, Fonality/Trixbox) on all the important flavors of open source communications solutions.

I have said it repeatedly - the way to get the most out of any conference is to not only attend sessions and the exhibit hall but also network with people who can help you. Perhaps they can help you purchase a product or service or even land that lucrative consulting gig. Maybe you are looking for potential customers or partners at the show. Whatever you seek, if it is in the communications space, there is no better place than ITEXPO to find it.

And before the show kicks off this Tuesday, September 1 in Los Angeles I wanted to share the fourth installment of interviews from the show. These interviews provide guidance, allowing you to get a feel for who will be at the show and more importantly, who can help you learn valuable information.rise-voip/articles/63128-dangers-ubiquitous-wireless-networks.htm%20

As a reference, here are interviews, one, two and three.

Here are the details of some of the giveaways at ITEXPO West 2009 and a lot more. I hope it helps. Good luck!

I am here at the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles and it is a
gorgeous day here in L.A. I rented a hybrid car and am still getting
used to not hearing noise from the engine when I accelerate. If you
are wondering if there is still traffic here the answer is yes. Not
too terrible though. Hope to see you next week. More to come soon.

My team and I are looking forward to hosting global business
executives looking to benefit from the latest communications
innovations.



click Play button above to play video

ITEXPO West 2009 will be the first time the CEO of ShoreTel John Combs will be speaking at our show and we are thrilled to have him there. ShoreTel has made a name for themselves over the years by developing simple-to-use but sophisticated communications products and entered a crowded field, became successful, launched an IPO and is now positioned to benefit from the implosion of Nortel and the ongoing interest in cost-saving, productivity-boosting IP communications solutions.

To learn more be at the show Tuesday Sept. 1, 2009 4:30-5:00 pm for the presentation and be sure to check out his blog entry with some details.

Suzanne Bowen over at DIDX is a past ITEXPO exhibitor and I noticed some nice words from her about the show. In her words:

Both conferences attract a huge and robust mix of professionals, developers, early adopters, SMEs, voip companies, anything over IP companies, and more which results in exciting discussions and new innovations. When a conference only concentrates on one type of participant, the results will be the same as always.

Feel free to read the entire post and I hope to see you at the show next week. Suzanne, thanks for the nice words and to my readers - thanks for your ongoing participation.

A recent Forbes survey shows business executives prefer face-to-face meetings over those of the virtual type. As expected 58% of respondents said they were travelling for business less today than they were at the beginning of the recession in January 2008, with more than a third (34%) indicating they were travelling much less frequently.

What seems obvious (to me anyway) is that executives still expressed an overwhelming preference for face-to-face meetings, with more than eight out of ten (84%) saying they prefer in-person contact to virtual.

Even more interesting, those that prefer face-to-face meetings believe they facilitate the following: Building stronger, more meaningful relationships (85%), the ability to "read" another person (77%), and Greater social interaction (75%).

Other tidbits worth sharing, 64% of those who prefer technology-enabled business meetings like them because they allow them to multitask and 87% agree that there are tangible business benefits to in-person, face-to-face meetings that outweigh the cost savings of alternative, technology-based meeting methods such as web conferencing or videoconferencing.

I find this survey refreshing as it confirms what we may all know - that

face-to-face meetings are much better than meeting in any other way.

The timing of these survey results are interesting as I am headed to TMC's ITEXPO (Sept. 1-3, 2009 in Los Angeles) -- (This photo was taken at the last ITEXPO this past winter in Miami) to engage in a live event which focuses on virtual meeting technology based on IP communications. As it happens, the attendance to the exhibit hall portion of ITEXPO is ahead of last year and I am thrilled to welcome the global crowd to the exhibit hall and conference areas.

I take this as a sign that although IP communications technology is gaining more traction by the day, sometimes, face-to-face gatherings are the best way to learn more about how to meet virtually, save money on communications and boost productivity.

Jeff Wiener is President of Digitcom Canada and an Avaya dealer who believes that the DOJ should rubber stamp the Avaya/Nortel merger without much fuss. He explains that the field is extremely competitive and furthermore that the competition is also coming from Microsoft, Skype, Google and hosted VoIP. I agree with all of the above but would say the real challenges for Avaya will continue to be Cisco as they are such a strong data player.

In addition I am surprised open-source didn't even make the list. As I head to ITEXPO which takes place Tuesday through Thursday next week in Los Angeles, I am aware of what a large presence Digium and Fonality will have at the show. I wonder if the companies deploying open-source solutions don't appear on the radar of the typical reseller. This was a surprise to me to be honest.

I am not in any camp on this issue BTW, I say that if any company other than Cisco gets the enterprise assets of Nortel, the market will be safe and there won't be too much anticompetitive power in the hands of any specific company. Here is his letter.