Recently in IP Communications Category

The cash for clunkers program sponsored by the US federal government is now over but you can still benefit from the cash for phone systems clunkers idea I mentioned a few weeks back. As a reminder, using services like SIP trunking, VoIP and IP communications you can save tens of thousands if not millions of dollars (euros, yen, etc) on phone and conference calls. There is an official cash for phone system clunkers web page now with links to important references such as ITEXPO which is the global gathering place for all things IP communications.  

As a reminder ITEXPO is next week (Sept 1-3 in Los Angeles) and it is the equivalent of an automotive supermarket (yes, communications in this case) where you can meet with all the vendors who save you money by replacing your old equipment. In many cases they can replace the "clunker" with something which is hosted meaning zero CAPEX costs.

I should mention others in the communications space have their own "cash for clunkers" programs. Case in point is Grandstream's Cash for PSTN clunker program that they implemented with Megapath. Megapath is running a promo in which they will offer a $250 dollar credit for VARS or End users who purchase Grandstream's PBX. 

Both companies are exhibiting in ITEXPO so be there to connect and learn more. In the auto industry you get a "cash for clunkers" offer once in a lifetime. In the telecom space we do it every day.

Today I will be in Manhattan at this event. More to report soon I am
sure.

It is almost here - one of the largest global events in communications - ITEXPO West 2009 taking place in Los Angeles September 1-3 2009 at the LA Convention Center. Networking is one of the best reasons to come to any event and in order to properly figure out who you should meet with at the show and which sessions and booths you should visit, we have conducted interviews with many of the companies coming to the show so you can get an idea what people are thinking and moreover help align the expertise of others with your needs. The goal of course is to help all attendees make good use of their time at the show.

With that I posted links to interviews one and two and now here is the third installment. I hope you find them useful.

We have been seeing a surge of registrations for TMC's ITEXPO, the hotel room block has been oversold for over a month and we feel the industry getting more excited than ever for ITEXPO - the ultimate event which brings global buyers and sellers together in the communications and tech spaces. Carriers (wired and wireless), enterprise decision-makers, resellers, developers and industry all will be at the show in numbers close to last year. It is virtually impossible to determine show attendance in advance but based on the numbers I saw in the registration database this morning, we could have a show at least as busy as least year if not even busier.

Remember that earlier this year TMC had a record show in Miami - ITEXPO East 2009. The event was up 15% in attendance thanks to you and it was the most qualified mix of visitors ever according to exhibitors.

This is the show's tenth anniversary and the 20^th show! Our goal is to make every one better than the last and it seems based on the numbers we have so far this ITEXPO will be as good as all the other ones which draw purchasing decision-makers from over 110 countries each year.

For more, here are comments (video) from Michael Genaro Executive Vice President of Operations at TMC and below is an email which I sent to TMC's readership earlier today.

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I Keep Finding More Reasons to Attend ITEXPO:
Smart Grid and M2M Conferences; Avaya Social Networking

One week out from ITEXPO West 2009 in L.A., and each time I visit the show Web site, I see more and more  compelling reasons to make a trip to LA for the show.

Here are three more collocated events where you can learn and network - all in an effort to expand your
business and take advantage of growing segments of the communications market.

1. Smart Grid Summit Conference

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Sponsored by Redline Communications - Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Just added to the program a few weeks ago, The Smart Grid Summit is the first event of its kind to address the unprecedented opportunity coming from the intersection of two core building blocks of our
economy - utilities and communications.

The Smart Grid Summit is devoted to a sector poised for the same fundamental transformation that telecom  experienced with the advent of IP communications.

Come understand the role that IP communications technologies will play in how the Smart Grid evolves - not  just for making utilities more efficient, but also for enabling the Smart Home and a new generation of  communications innovations.

2. M2M Evolution Conference

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Free one-day conference sponsored by MultiTech Systems - Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Telemetry has been changing to take advantage of the Internet, where WAN and LAN systems were points of aggregation in the past, today's machines benefit from the ability to connect worldwide. And as the machines continue to look to network, the wireless world represents a large growth opportunity for data communication.

Today, machine to machine solutions are driving data demand with tight vertical integration for specific industries like healthcare, refinery or transportation or supporting the general IT needs and cross industry requirements associated data centers, facilities and security.

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The Social Enterprise - Are you ready for it?

Free Workshop and Reception for all ITEXPO Attendees Monday, August 31, 2009, 7:00pm - 9:30pm - Westin Hotel

This is where you can learn how to integrate Facebook, Twitter and other platforms into your enterprise and customer communications.

You will have a chance to listen to and meet Paul Dunay, the author of "Facebook Marketing for Dummies", and get a chance to check out Avaya Labs innovations.

Social media is becoming a more important element in corporate marketing and communications and I really give  Avaya tremendous credit for choosing to educate companies on the topic.

As an added bonus the event will conclude with some handcrafted ales from the Bonaventure Brewing Company.

Here are more details and event registration.

OK, let's recap. Here is the complete list of Top Reasons to Attend ITEXPO that I've circulated over the past two weeks.

There is a great resource page on the ITEXPO site with links to the pages describing every event, workshop, session, keynote and reception at the show: What's Happening at ITEXPO

• INTERNET TELEPHONY is TELEPHONY; and IP Communications are Communications
• New! Sipera's UC Security Workshop
• TMC University Courses - Microsoft OCS and Network Security
• Free Reseller Solutions Day Workshop
• New! Avaya's Social Enterprise and Contact Center Workshop
• Free Keynotes: ShoreTel - Aspect - Paetec - Alvarion - Clearwire - Interactive Intelligence
• Ingate's Free SIP Trunking Workshop
• Meet More Than 250 Important Vendors
        Exhibitor List
        Speaker List
• NEW! Three Collocated Conferences - 4GWE, Smart Grid and M2M Evolution
• New Jeep Giveaway
• Sir Terry Matthews to Keynote ITEXPO & 4GWE Conference - Wednesday, September 2, 2009
• Asterisk Training
• Fonality trixbox Open Communication Certification (FtOCC)
• Wireless Broadband Training
• Smart Grid Summit
• M2M Evolution Conference
• Avaya's Social Networking Workshop

The complete conference brochure has just been updated to include all of the newest content.

Use this link to Register now.

While at ITEXPO, please visit our sponsors on the exhibit floor:

Platinum Sponsors: Applianx, AudioCodes, 8x8, Inc, Fonality, VoltDelta,

Gold Sponsors: NetSapiens, IntelePeer, Touchstone Technologies, Telco Bridges,

Utilizing the Global IP Solution's VideoEngine, Yahoo! Messenger will now support free video calling to all Yahoo! Messenger users. Over 133 users worldwide can now take advantage of Yahoo! Messenger 10 which includes high-quality video I witnessed a few weeks back. I took some footage below of the service and was very impressed with what I saw at GIPS San Francisco headquarters.
 

GIPS has been a leader in the audio and video CODEC space and I still remember sometime around 2001-2002 when I met with them at ITEXPO in San Diego to hear their PDA CODECS which allow for VoIP on mobile devices. This was pretty big news at the time and it took a short while for the company's solutions to catch on after that point.

From what I saw, the video quality of this new Yahoo! solution is better than Skype - even in HQ mode. But I make this point with some hesitation as it is not fair to compare two different services if you don't see them side-by-side. Besides the point of this news to me is not who might have the best quality today, it is that the video market is indeed heating up and there is now more competition in the market which is always a great thing.

At ITEXPO in Los Angeles last year XD Huang wowed the audience with a video of future touch-screen technologies which integrate the real and virtual worlds. It was quite amazing and I will never forget it. I just can't wait to get these technologies in my current computing experience. Here is more detail - in this video Shahram Izadi explains the future of touch computing called SecondLight from Microsoft's perspective.

What is really interesting is the new user interface Microsoft is developing taking advanatge of ThinSight -- a new LCD display which relies on the reflectivity of human skin and other objects to create interactions between the real and virtual worlds. In addition, objects can be flicked using surface physics. Similar to the iPhone when you push something, it continues to move based on the momentum you created when you originally flicked the object. But where the iPhone allows this functionality primarily for basic scrolling, Microsoft's surface physics allows you to rotate objects and fill boxes with documents and/or photos. It is like a next gen iPhone interface which leads me to believe Steve Jobs and company are furiously working to stay ahead of Microsoft in this regard.

For now this is a research project but we can expect Microsoft to feel extreme pressure to get these technologies in the real world. After all, Google is coming at them and so is Apple. In the case of Google the company has shown their approach to computing is to do as much of the computing in the cloud as possible and subsequently the desktop OS can become much simpler.

In contrast, the next-gen touchscreen technology Microsoft is developing is extremely resource-intensive and at this moment cannot be duplicated in the cloud, meaning more expensive computers need to be purchased to run it and if successful, this interface could put the Google Chrome OS away before it has a chance. Either that or Google could be involved in a quagmire of having to compete with an ever-more complex GUI to stand toe-to-toe with Microsoft and Apple. It is unclear if Google is prepared for this potential shift in graphically sophisticated, resource intensive computing.

Another possibility is that the Google approach will appeal to some and the complex UI approach will appeal to others. This is what happened with Gmail.

I should remind my readers that Microsoft for all its money, research and focus group activity is not able to make user interfaces that can even come close to Apple in terms of usability and likability. So while the technology in this video is really cool, it could be an Apple device which brings it to the mass market.

For the sake of customers and healthy competition let's hope Microsoft gets this one right.

Recently I wrote about Facebook and why the company should scare carriers as they take over the customer relationship and moreover commoditize wireless providers by developing people-to-people connectivity applications which run on any carrier network. As of today the wireless carrier still has the ability to one-up Facebook in terms of adding functionality which may not be accessible to the social networking giant. Areas such as device integration and presence are the domain of the carrier for now and if they don't act quickly they may be bypassed entirely as the keeper of the customer relationship.

Shubh Agarwal the Director of Product Marketing & Partnerships at Mavenir Systems had a conversation with me recently which was enlightening as it included a truly useful demo of their products which play in the IMS space. You see IMS is esoteric and sophisticated and by developing a shiny new Android-based application which can show the true power of their solutions they have enticed carriers to engage in considering their mobile social networking platform which will soon integrate with the common social networking platforms on the market.

Shubh explained how the service can handle automated call control and moreover integrate buddy lists into corporate directories ensuring for example the new accountant can immediately be connected with her peers.

They are working on a project in Germany where they blend presence into the calendar application ensuring calls go to an admin or voicemail when you are in a meeting.

Other areas of interest he is seeing is a presence-enabled feature-duplicate of a traditional switchboard, low powered Picocell presence enablement and 4-digit dialing which he tells me is popular in Europe.

Shubh shows off the rich communications suite -- the next generation of mobile messaging



Please allow video to download and then click Play button above to view video

 

He hinted at a connected home system complete with carrier presence being rolled out in the US next year. As you might have guessed they are hoping their platform is to be the backbone of such an offering. All in all things seem to be getting better in IMS as he says carriers are looking for new ways to take advantage of LTE and  Asian competition has brought the prices of IMS down to a more palatable level.

When I last discussed Tango Networks the company focusing on selling FMC solutions to carriers worldwide I mentioned they were focusing on integrating text messaging into corporate phone and email systems. I have written in the past that selling to carriers as a business model is one of the most challenging ways to make money as carriers can wait so long to make decisions.

This is still the case but it is changing as service providers are facing serious disruptive threats and the need to find new services on a continual basis to offset the slowdown in revenue associated with voice and data.

It has been a number of years since its inception and the company seems to be close to going public with a number of deployments. This is good news for Tango Networks but more importantly for carriers who have become more nimble. And I don't want to understate the complexity in deploying an effective FMC solution from a carrier perspective - there are lots of moving parts and challenges to get right. Still, the concept is not new and it seems like most of the kinks have been worked out meaning with a good provisioning system and solid billing, carriers should be able to get up and running quickly and in the process hopefully they can sell some seriously high-margin services which corporate decision-makers will credit with boosting productivity.

In addition to working the carrier angle, Tango is enlisting companies in a number of spaces to trial the technology - sort a push-pull strategy which will hopefully get wireless operators worldwide to realize they better hop on the FMC bandwagon soon.

Some areas of opportunity according to Tango are healthcare and automotive but I would imagine all knowledge workers could benefit from a strong fixed-mobile convergence solution.

One other thing worth mentioning is you should see some awards bestowed on the company for a number of varied achievements soon.

I was told the company will have a channel partner and presence at ITEXPO/4GWE September 1-3 in Los Angeles so if you want to meet with them or the partner at the show drop Al Leo a line at 214-801-2838 or alleo(at)tango-networks.com.

Here are some before and after FMC shots -- Which do you think is better?
 

On a recent trip to Dallas, Texas I spent time with Raymond Kim the General Manager of Sales and Stacy Rupert the Senior Marketing Manager for ZTE USA and we spoke about the company's ambitious expansion plans in the US. They recently moved to new office space, are expanding in Texas and opening new offices in Atlanta, Seattle and Kansas City in order to be closer to existing and potential customers.

As you might expect from a company providing wireless infrastructure products in emerging and other markets, business is good and the staff is increasing in size. North America is an increasingly important space for the company and in order to generate better results in the area, the company recently restructured. Before the reorganization, the US, Canada and South America were one division but now the US has been pulled out and is in a new "advanced" division with Europe. This makes sense as wireless data growth has absolutely been off the charts in the US thanks to the iPhone and other smartphones and soon netbooks.

With this move, the company has an easier time coordinating resources and can have a uniformed strategy for R&D. Kim explained that 4G presents a huge opportunity for the company and he says the ZTE's technology is as good as any other player in the space. They hope to gain a foothold in the US infrastructure and terminal markets as time goes on.

To that end I had a chance to learn about a new product the AD3700 (pictured) which has subsequently been released by Verizon Wireless. The $130 ($80 after rebate) wireless world modem allows customers to take advantage of EVDO Rev. A in the US and 3G outside the country. As BusinessWeek's Olga Kharif points out, this is the first time Verizon has offered a ZTE product.

Most of the company's technology is developed in China and they will soon have a staggering 30,000 engineers developing products. And ZTE should have little to no problems financing future growth with a staggering 41.9% jump in profits in Q2 over last year as its global marketshare doubled to 8%.

One thing is for certain, ZTE seems to be a major force in wireless networks and with a new Verizon Wireless relationship and the potential to continue expanding in China and other developing markets, they are well-positioned for the future of wireless network expansion into 4G.

To keep up on the 4G wireless market be sure to come to the 4G Wireless Evolution Conference (4GWE) Sept. 1-3 in Los Angeles, CA where you will be able to network with the most important players in the 4G market and hear from 50 of the most knowledgeable speakers in the space.

According to the video below the new Blackberry Storm 2 will perform head and shoulders above the original Storm and the iPhone. With a multitouch screen and Piezo electronics allowing a smoother and faster text inputting system we can expect the sleeker looking Storm 2 to pose a bigger challenge to Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, Google and others. Expect the device to run on the Verizon and AT&T networks and of course WiFi support has been added as well which should allow the smartphone to be a much more worthy adversary to virtually every other competitor on the market which already supports this wireless standard.




My insticts tell me this phone should cause Apple some concern and make it more difficult for Nokia, Google and others to take smartphone share. I am looking forward to using it myself and sharing thoughts and analysis.

See also Gizmodo, Engadget.