What the HP/EDS Deal Means

When you look around the tech market you see factors which suck the profit out of every nook and cranny. In hardware there is a trend towards standards-based hardware which is not slowing down. As this trend continues, prices shrink... continue reading...

Digium Picks Integrics to Power Carrier Solutions

Perhaps one of the biggest misperceptions among those who dabble in communications is that Asterisk is only used in small business environments. The reality is that Asterisk is being used in service provider environments as well. Of course this doesn't... continue reading...

Vonage Record Quarter: Jeff Citron Interview

Vonage has done a great job this last quarter --  posting growth numbers in a slower economy. I just had a podcast interview with Jeffrey Citron where he talked about the company's growth rate and the number of new initiatives... continue reading...

Sangoma's David Mandelstam Shares Thoughts

Sangoma's David Mandelstam always has something interesting to say so I invited him to have a podcast with me. What can you learn from listening is how well Sangoma and other communications companies are doing -- even in a slow... continue reading...

Nortel's Joel Hackney Discusses Earnings

Nortel announced earnings today and to get more detail on the news I had a chance to speak with Joel Hackney, President of the Enterprise Solutions Group at Nortel. Some details worth sharing... The company's net loss widened but revenue... continue reading...

Interop Bound and Thanks

Another year, another Interop. I am off once again across the country to Vegas where I will likely spend more time standing in line than I will sleeping. How amazing is the fact that you can build a city in... continue reading...

Danny Windham Podcast

Yesterday's podcast with Digium's CEO Danny Windham is getting a good deal of exposure and a number of people have been commenting on it to me. There is also a related article written by TMCnet's Susan Cambpell worth reading. For... continue reading...

EsnaTech Grows the Google Ecosystem

One of the latest trends I have noticed is integrating disparate solutions into Google's suite of applications. Just this month in fact, two companies in the communications and CRM spaces have decided working with Google more closely makes a great... continue reading...

Podcast: Danny Windham, CEO Digium

How does a company go from being a leader in the open-source communications space while simultaneously looking to generate revenue? Even open-source purists realize that companies supporting this movement need a way to generate earnings. Digium, the sponsor and maintainer... continue reading...

New TMCnet Record and New Writer

Thanks to our readers -- once again, TMCnet has hit a new record. In this case, we built a Global Online Community in conjunction with Interactive Intelligence and this community generated just under 600,000 page views in one month according... continue reading...

Dialogic Analyst/Media Day

Today I head to New York City for a Dialogic Press and Analyst day. We will be having a function this evening in Yankee Stadium which should be lots of fun. Many people have asked me to bring them some... continue reading...

Fonality Trixbox 2.0 Launches

According to Chris Lyman, the Founder and CEO of Fonality, the brand new Trixbox 2.0 is the "look mom, no hands, reseller version." In fact, the company is doing its best to make sure resellers have to touch these phone... continue reading...

Dimdim is to WebEx like Asterisk is to Avaya

Open source web conferencing company Dimdim is looking to attack the conferencing market in the same way Asterisk "attacked" the PBX space. Although the concept of open source is not new this sort of product just shows how virtually... continue reading...

Digium's New Deal

It looks like Digium's Java based client will be getting commercialized as a result of a five year deal with PhoneFromHere.com. Apparently this agreement will improve the voice quality of PhoneFromHere's products and for Digium this signals another potential revenue... continue reading...

Podcast: Ken Lamneck - President The Americas, Tech Data

Ken Lamneck President The Americas Tech Data Distribution companies are in a great position to tell us what trends to look for in the market. What is hot? What is not and more. It is for this reason I was... continue reading...

Communications Developer Call for Papers

Be sure to submit your call for papers entries for the Communications Developer show which will be collocated with ITEXPO later this year in the Los Angeles, California Convention Center. The specific dates of the event will be September 16-18,... continue reading...

Bob Emmerson: TMC's European Editor

Bob Emmerson joins TMC as out European Editor. We are truly proud to have Bob join the team as he is a communications and technology veteran. Previously, Emmerson was a designer of digital control systems, a journalist, and a copywriter.... continue reading...

TMCnet Podcast Library

Sure you have an iPhone or iPod or even a PC where you like to listen to your music. But have you had a chance to listen to TMCnet's high quality podcasts as of yet? ;-) I know many... continue reading...

Red Hat Takes Anti-Patent Stance

Red Hat, a leader in the open source software market is taking a major stance against the current patent system. An important case referred to as the Biliski Case is now being decided by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals... continue reading...

TMCnet Gets a Redesign

I am very happy to be the first to tell you TMCnet is in the midst of one of its largest graphical overhauls. We are very proud of our new look which emphasizes softer blue colors and shades. There are... continue reading...

TMCnet Hits 100 Sponsored Community Milestone

All I can say is thank you to our loyal readers who visit TMCnet frequently and our sponsors who have launched communities and channels in partnership with TMC on TMCnet. Furthermore, thanks for your loyalty and the nice testimonials many... continue reading...

Polycom's Software Play and More

Depending on the era, if I asked people what the name Polycom makes them think of they would give me different answers. In the nineties it was video conferencing and audio conferencing devices. Around 2000 you could add IP phones... continue reading...

Polycom's Durable 8002 VoIP Phone

I have to be frank… I have never been in a meeting where I saw a product launch accompanied by a phone being slammed on a table. So I was a bit surprised when Polycom's Ben Guiderian did just that... continue reading...

TMC Growth Update

Congratulations to TMC's Kevin Kiley who was just promoted to VP of Finance. Great job Kevin. In addition I would like to thank TMC readers and our partners who have allowed us to continue our wave of growth. In the... continue reading...

Grandstream's Grand GXE502X

Many of us know Grandstream for their IP Phones which offer great value as well as an assortment of analog gateways, ATAs, videophones, etc. I have spoken with resellers in fact who sell truckloads of Grandstream equipment on the show... continue reading...

Asterisk Bumper Sticker

Yesterday I posted a podcast with the team from The VoIP Connection and in the interview we got to talking about the Asterisk bumper sticker. Of course I was shocked to hear there was such a thing but sure enough... continue reading...

Podcast: The VoIP Connection

Today I had a chance to conduct a podcast interview Mike Crown Managing Partner, Olaf Bellstedt CTO and Joe Aiello Strategic Account Manager of the The VoIP Connection. The VoIP Connection has made a practice of installing Asterisk-based systems with... continue reading...

Dan Miller New TMCnet Columnist

As I mentioned a while back, TMC is experiencing record growth and I promised we would maintain our high levels of quality as we grow. TMCnet currently has just under 50 worldwide columnists and most of them write daily or... continue reading...

Dialogic to Support Asterisk

Dialogic has announced that the company's Diva media processing boards will support Asterisk. These boards will help Asterisk systems scale and moreover increase reliability while reducing strain on the CPU. The functions handled by the Diva board include DTMF recognition/generation,... continue reading...

Where is the TMC Team?

This week, we have a total of nine TMC team members traveling to industry events. Dave Rodriguez, Erik Linask and I are headed to VoiceCon while Greg Galitzine will be at VON. I am looking forward to an information packed... continue reading...

Avaya's Huge Unified Communications Push

Avaya has certainly made unified communications history today with a suite of announcements that will certainly rattle the competitive landscape. UC will never be the same in my opinion. The New Jersey-based company's biggest news had to do with affordable... continue reading...

IBM's Big Unified Communications News

Recently I spent a good number of hours at the sprawling Somers, NY campus of IBM where the company announced to the media their intention to spend a billion dollars in unified communications development over the next three years. IBM... continue reading...

Hot News: Ixia, VPI, Wyde Voice, Google, Spirent, Sangoma, LifeSize, Aculab and more

I try not to play favorites with the news and instead of giving you my picks of the week, I defer to TMC editors who picked the following stories as some of the week's best. This week, we have a... continue reading...

WYDE Voice Debuts Better Conferencing Solution

A new product was just announced today and I cannot be more excited as it shows innovation is very alive and well in communications. WYDE Voice is a new start-up venture backed by Free Conferencing Corp. founder and CEO... continue reading...

Ken Camp is Available

Regular readers of my blog and attendees of TMC expos no doubt know Ken Camp. Ken is very knowledgeable in the field of information technology with special expertise in communications and security. He has written books, articles, spoken at shows... continue reading...

Peter Radizeski Joins TMCnet

TMCnet's latest blogger is Peter Radizeski. Peter is knowledgeable and not afraid to say what he thinks. He is direct and has a long history in telecom. He will will write things that ruffle feathers. His views many not always... continue reading...

Communications News March 7, 2008

My editorial team has selected the following stories as some of the most important ones of the week. Hopefully some or all of these news items will be useful to my readers. Some of my favorite ones are how green... continue reading...

AT&T's Bullish Investment

AT&T is making a major telecom investment in many areas of its business. The telecom giant cites the explosion of high-speed networks, data consuming devices and the move to IP as the reason for this investment. The money is... continue reading...

TMCnet's New Vertical Communities

Over the past decade, TMCnet has become the accepted resource for news, product research and analysis in communications and technology markets - including telecom, VoIP, and contact centers. Moreover, the site has become the defacto location online where companies build... continue reading...

Podcast: Joel Hackney, Nortel

If you want some great perspective on Nortel's recent earnings as well as information on which areas of Nortel are doing best, be sure to check out this podcast interview with Joel Hackney, President of the Enterprise Solutions Group at... continue reading...

TMCnet Services

In an effort to allow TMCnet readers easy access to the breadth of TMCnet services such as the personalized MyTMCnet and TMCnet Mobile, TMCnet has launched a new TMCnet Services page which will allow you to instantly access the... continue reading...

Tech Moving From Hardware to Software

As I sit in more and more meetings with companies in the IP communications hardware space I keep hearing that these companies are moving from hardware to software because that's where the money is. In fact, at a recent conference... continue reading...

Bain and Huawei Resubmit Bid

Bain and Huawei are changing their bid for 3COM in a manner that does not change the financial elements of the deal but it minimizes Huawei's access to certain Ethernet technologies. Last week, the parties pulled their application with the... continue reading...

Some Webinars to Witness

If you aren't aware, it seems like my responsibility to at least mention some webinars worth attending. They happen to all be webinars that are hosted by TMC. I am going to try to attend them all. Some of the... continue reading...

The US Entrenched in the Communications Third World

A year ago I wrote an entry titled Living in the Third World of Communications and boy, I must have been really pissed off on that day because I usually don't tell politicians they need to be sure they... continue reading...

TMCnet Continues to Grow

Thanks once again to our loyal TMCnet readers. Because of you, TMCnet has broken more online records. In January of 2008 TMCnet experienced 38,368,961 page views (meaning total number of web pages viewed on TMCnet in January alone. The total... continue reading...

Intel's Skulltrail Motherboard

I just have to wonder if Intel's latest motherboard code named SkullTrail will be useful beyond the gaming market. The device can be outfitted with two quad-core processors and multiple graphics chips from AMD (yes, AMD) and Nvidia. Obviously the... continue reading...

You *Really* Get What You Pay For

I have to kick myself because I did it again. Sometimes I think I will never learn. Nobody wants to pay more than they should so when I somehow pulled a muscle in my neck while sleeping, I found myself... continue reading...

Regulators Reshape the Internet

It is pretty amazing to see how many separate issues are surfacing that could affect the future of the internet. The FCC and government have their plates full deciding what to do with telcos and their potentially anti-competitive practices. The... continue reading...

Increase Marketing Spend in a Recession

I just couldn't help but sharing this article about how companies who increase their marketing spend in a recession come out of it doing better than when they went into it. I am not advocating that there is a recession... continue reading...

ITEXPO East 2008 Video

If you missed ITEXPO this past month in Miami, you missed a great opportunity to meet with VARS, service providers and many companies looking to purchase IP communications products and services. I am truly humbled by the unsolicited comments... continue reading...

Forbes on Mobile World Congress

Forbes does a good job of detailing the happenings at Mobile World Congress this week. In summary, the Android phone is not ready for prime time (not much of a surprise here) and there are a plethora of devices from... continue reading...

Digium Guarantee Program

Good news for the open source market as Digium now offers a slew of new warranty related announcements meaning that purchasers of Digium software and hardware will get better warranties and and a money-back guarantee if a product does perform... continue reading...

Open Source in South America

I was pretty blown away at just how much South American traffic there was at the recent ITEXPO a few weeks back. Much of this traffic was in the booths of companies who focus on the open source space. Digium... continue reading...

Aretta's Hosted Asterisk Tastes Great

In the nineties when communications manufacturers gave the market few choices and there were many proprietary options, companies like Dialogic, NMS Aculab and others came on the scene and gave users choice by allowing them to purchase DSP resource boards... continue reading...

Open Source, Schmopen Source

Tom Keating takes us through an interesting tour through Shmooze and wonders aloud if this product is the Yiddish Asterisk. I'll give you a hint... It is not the Yiddish Asterisk but it is no chopped liver either.... continue reading...

Dell/Fonality Phone System

Russell Shaw has some analysis of the new Dell Fonality VoIP Phone System launched at ITEXPO this week and talks a bit more about the product and how it compares with the competition. Best of all, he has some screen... continue reading...

ITEXPO West 2008 Day One - Andy

We are looking forward to the best three days of IP communications excitement this year here at ITEXPO in Miami. I just saw Andy Abramson's post and it reminded me that he won't be able to make it to the... continue reading...

Dell Chooses Fonality

Fonality has some huge news to share with us here at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. The company was just picked to be the small business communications offering by Dell. What is perhaps most amazing regarding this news is the... continue reading...

Internet Buffet Closed

Greg Galitzine heads up the editorial team at TMCnet and recently he and I were discussing the all you can eat internet and how it may soon be gone. During our talk, I had trouble seeing why this is different... continue reading...

ITEXPO East 2008 Schedule

Here are some of the happenings this week at ITEXPO. My team is already down in Miami, making sure the new Mustang convertible is prepped and ready for the raffle Friday. I wish you luck in winning the car and... continue reading...

Have a Safe Trip to ITEXPO

I hope everyone has a safe trip down to Internet Telephony Conference & Expo. The registration numbers are trending nicely above estimates and we expect a stellar event. As always, we have done our absolute best to assemble the most... continue reading...

ITEXPO Giveaways

Here are some of he giveaways from next week's ITEXPO in Miami, FL. Will you be one of the winners? Hope you will be there to find out. Remember, you have to be present to win these prizes. Tom Keating... continue reading...

White Space Internet Closer

Although we unfortunately will not be able to take advantage of new and exciting internet devices utilizing "white space" technology next week at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo in Miami... It does seem that at some point in the future,... continue reading...

Open Source Momentum

By now, you may have heard that Sun has agreed to purchase open-source database company MySQL for one billion dollars. Many companies are betting on open source as the future and open source companies operating in niche markets such as... continue reading...

Open Source PBX Redesign

For you open source communications aficionados -- you know who you are --   ... I have some great news for you. TMCnet has recently worked with Sangoma to redesign the open source PBX Global Online Community. I hope you like... continue reading...

Jon Arnold

TMC's newest contributor is Jon Arnold. Jon is is one of the most methodical and knowledgeable people I know in the IP communications space and I have always admired him a great deal. TMC has worked with Jon for many... continue reading...

ITEXPO - Huge International Draw

As Tom Keating mentioned earlier today we are proud to announce that Internet Telephony Conference & Expo which will take place in just under a week in Miami Florida has registrations from 74 countries, a 15.6% increase over last year.... continue reading...

Important Interviews

Recently I was fortunate enough to be able to interview a number of thought leaders and others who have given me their perspectives on the communications market, the future, the entry of Google, Apple and Microsoft into the space and... continue reading...

Tech News 01/16/07

It has been a pretty big news day so far this early morning. Intel perhaps is responsible for the biggest portion of today's market movement as last night they announced earnings which were not all that bad but the stock... continue reading...

Quantcast Update 01/08

On November 6, 2007 I had a post (see bottom of post for chart) where I showed how TMC compares with other IP Communications sites. I did this by pulling numbers from Quantcast, a web service which tracks web traffic... continue reading...

Sangoma Interview

When you listen to David Mandelstam the President and CEO of Sangoma, you get the feeling you are speaking with a hybrid scientist/entrepreneur. Mandelstam's company is a pioneer in both open source and unified communications and he is a good... continue reading...

Service Provider Opportunities

Service providers are being extremely creative in using technology and ingenuity to launch new and enhanc