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We are thrilled to announce a slew of top notch keynoters for the upcoming ITEXPO which takes place in Miami, FL Jan 20-22, 2010. I will share them with you by first explaining why they were invited:

A keynote picture from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

Open Source

One of the biggest trends in tech this last decade has been open source and while you may not know this, I was a UNIX (the Linux precursor) system admin at TMC back in 1982 or so and I am a big fan of this OS which is reliable, stable and the strong basis for cost-effective solutions in a number of fields. Without a doubt, Asterisk is the major force in the open-source communications space and as such, Digium's CEO Danny Windham (the company behind Asterisk) was the perfect choice to address the audience of businesses, carriers and resellers. By the way, Digium Asterisk World (DAW) is collocated at this show and I hear it just sold out of exhibit spaces and my team is looking for ways to get the waiting list
of companies into an expanded DAW pavilion on the exhibit hall floor.

Digium Asterisk World Photos from ITEXPO East 2009 this year

Google Voice vs. AT&T

Google Voice has been one of the most disruptive influences in telecom these past years and this service has single-handedly become a point of public argument between the search leader and Apple and AT&T - with the FCC acting as referee of sorts. The argument revolves around net neutrality - the concept that carriers will apply discrimination to traffic on their networks based upon traffic, application type or source. Google obviously wants their services to run on any network in an unencumbered fashion while AT&T has said since 1995 when they were SBC that they want to charge for their pipes. AT&T actually then pointed out to the FCC that Google Voice does not terminate all calls on its free Google Voice service meaning it is not adhering to the principles of net neutrality. The reason of course as Google points out is traffic pumping and bizarre intercarrier compensation rules which allow some rural carriers to charge exorbitant rates for calls terminating in their areas. Craig Walker founded Grand Central, the company purchased by Google and the basis for Google Voice and as the Group Product Manager for the Real Time Communications Group at Google, he was a natural person to invite to speak with us at the show. It seems his accomplishments have unleashed a firestorm of controversy which should hopefully clean up some of the ugly mess that is telecom policy and regulation.

Exhibit hall pictures from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

HD Voice/SIP and Video

Another major trend in our markets is that of HD voice, video adoption and of course SIP endpoints. AT ITEXPO last year, we had the first panel in the world focusing on HD voice (video) and since then I am excited to see other conference organizers throwing their hat in the HD ring. A major player in all of the above spaces is Polycom and they have done an amazing job of working with disparate vendors on interoperability issues which has moved the market forward by reducing the friction caused by proprietary endpoints. In the world of video, the company has been a major player - developing telepresence systems all the way down to video phones. To get a bead on where this market is heading we invited Polycom Co-Founder, and the CTO of the Voice Communications Group Jeff Rodman to join us as a keynoter.

HD Voice Panel I moderated from ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami

Skype

No matter how you break out the IP communications market, Skype is likely a factor in changing the market in a pro-consumer manner. By giving away global voice calling with quality which far exceeds the PSTN, they have disrupted while getting users used to better voice quality. On top of that, they give away video calling as well, making them a company which excites consumers and scares carriers and anyone else who dares compete with their network of hundreds of millions of subscribers.

Interview I had with Skype's Ian Robin

Skype has been making a major push into the enterprise and is working on enhancing relationships with carriers as well. They are even looking for channel partners who can share in the newly created revenue streams from a number of products like Skye for SIP. When you take all of this into account, it does make great sense to invite Skype Chief Strategy Officer Christopher Dean to speak, doesn't it?

Smartphones, Wireless and Smart Ecosystems

One of the biggest trends in the world of communications is smart devices and ecosystems. What is an ecosystem you ask? Well it is a group of companies who develop products which work with a product or service offered by a host company or companies. The iTunes App Store may be the best example but certainly Avaya's DevConnect or Cisco's Partner Programs are good examples as well. You may know that TMC has focused a tremendous amount of resources on educating the world on smart ecosystems via our new SPEC site. I truly believe ecosystems have a bright future.

In order to bring attendees up to speed on all these topics we invited two top keynoters to present on the matter. Sprint's Mathew Oommen is the vice president of device and technology development at the company and uniquely positioned to share with us his company's view on the future of wireless technology. Oh and by the way, be sure to check out my recent interview with Sprint's Wayne Ward who heads up the company's M2M activities (did I mention there is a collocated M2M conference at ITEXPO?).

To get a handle on wireless devices as they pertain to ecosystems we invited Brian Higgins the Executive Director for Ecosystem Development within Verizon Wireless to join us so we can learn where the company thinks the market is headed. Verizon has been very ambitious in its goal to develop an ecosystem of products and applications which interoperate in the hope of one-upping the iTunes App Store.

We continue to work to add fantastic new speakers to our roster and you can expect this ITEXPO to be the most comprehensive and educational ever and a must-attend. I personally hope to see you there.

Oh and by the way, we have secured great rates this year at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel - you can save $150/night if you book now - the rate is $249 vs. what is typically a $399 rate at prime season. There are many advantages to staying at the show hotel such as networking, etc - and I have always been a fan of the Loews. In fact I was a guest the first day the hotel opened about ten years ago or so.

Today I am headed to Huntsville, AL where I will be giving a presentation on the state of the industry to Adtran customers and I am really excited to be meeting with a number of carrier representatives and resellers at the event. Typically to get from New York to Huntsville I drive from Nashville, TN which a direct flight from New York but a 131+ miles away. Today I am connecting via Detroit directly to Huntsville - I am a bit surprised that there is such a direct flight when there isn't one from NY to Huntsville but then again I know there are auto plants in Tennessee which could explain why there are flights from Detroit.

Anyway, I was reminded of the importance of face to face communications as I saw this video interview of Scott Kargman by Suzanne Bowen. Suzanne works for DIDX, a company supplying DIDs to carriers worldwide. Scott runs Crossfire Media, a TMC partner in our M2M, 4G and Smart Products initiatives or SPEC. Check out the interview which took place at Supercomm 2009 in Chicago.

At Supercomm 2009 in Chicago I had a chance to speak with MRV Communications a leader in the carrier Ethernet market boasting among other things, access solutions for 10/100 GE, 10GE, SyncE, 1588, SHDSL and fiber which share a common OS and management interface. The 20-year old company was an early innovator in the field of lasers and now employs more than 4,000 engineers, has 6 R&D divisions and $538 million in revenue coming from a broad range of connectivity products primarily targeted at carriers and campus networks.

A common theme at the show was backhaul solutions and MRV too is looking to help carriers as they transition to 4G networks and more importantly the company like others in the market is helping service providers leverage packet-based technologies while giving up little the more expensive and proprietary circuit switched world has to offer.

Case in point is the company's new synchronization over packet addition to its Optiswitch 900 product line. The goal of this entry is to facilitate the migration to 4G/LTE in mobile backhaul networks. Specifically the environmentally hardened (allows it to be installed almost anywhere) 904-MBH is a compact carrier Ethernet demarcation device supporting IEEE 1588v2 and synchronous Ethernet.

Company execs explained that they didn't want to have two separate boxes and this new device is the first to to enable synchronization-gateway functionality between synchronous and asynchronous physical layer networks for both 3G and 4G networks.

In addition, this device supports traffic management for enhanced QoS meaning carriers can ensure timing packets have ultimate priority over other packets.

The company also announced its new LambdaDriver IP switching module (OPN 800/1600) for migration to packet optical transport networks. These new carrier Ethernet aggregation switches have 8 GbE ports for access to XFP-based ports for backbone network connections. The products tie into the GMPLS control plane and allow MPLS enforcement and are tunable as well.

The company has put a big focus on SLA assurance and their new OAM techniques are embodied in their new network provisioning ands management software. Among other things this new solution hopes to squeeze fault isolation to minutes instead of hours in order to facilitate more rapid truckrolls. The GUI-based Pro-Vision software platform is touted as an easy-to-use tool allowing central management. In addition, it is designed to allow quicker time to revenue for carriers through its use of pre-defined individual service platforms.

A constant theme recently has been using Ethernet in carrier networks whenever and wherever possible. Logically this is what has to be done as the cost per bit is continuing to decline and margins are being eternally squeezed. Lowering the cost of network infrastructure is the best way to combat this trend. MRV has a suite of solutions they have been successfully selling in the space and they hope to continue in their pursuit to provide more and more strategic solutions to carriers worldwide as they transition to next generation networks.

Carrier Ethernet ring network standard allows potential SONET/SDH replacement at as little as 1/10^th the cost

As smartphones and netbooks proliferate and drive more wireless data traffic, the need for better backhaul solutions only grows. In fact this week the new Verizon/Motorola Droid will be released with a new version of Google Maps which includes free turn-by-turn navigation. Expect it to be a single application which is called out as a bandwidth hog in the future.

One company looking to help provide carriers with less expensive and more reliable solutions which support this massive bandwidth growth is Actus Networks. Recently at Supercomm I had a chance to speak with company execs about their ITU-T G.8032 and G.8032 2010 compliant ring protection products which bring many of the benefits of SONET/SDH to the world of carrier Ethernet.

In addition, Actus has equipment which allows carriers with circuit switched networks to use their equipment to access both their legacy and new Ethernet networks. As carriers move to IP-based 4G/LTE networks they will have to explore using IP in their backhaul applications as well and this is where the Korean-based company comes in.

The current product offering consists of a NEBS level 3 compliant, 16-port, 1U G200 carrier Ethernet access device which supports QoS, PBB-TE, OAM, ring protection, E-Line service and circuit emulation (discussed above) as well as the G300 Carrier Ethernet Access Platform.

To learn more, you can read this article, view a recent press release and/or watch a video interview (get popcorn   )I had recently with Kevin Rhee CSO and Peter Cho CEO/President.

I conducted dozens of videos this week at Supercomm and many were done in the TMC newsroom. I posted a few of them below for you to see. Feel free to check out the complete list of Supercomm video interviews performed by the TMC news team and others. Expect them all to be posted by October 30, 2009.

I wanted to alert my readers to some exciting news happening at TMC. As you likely know TMC is among a handful of media companies growing at a time when the media landscape is in dramatic decline. As you might imagine this growth is primarily online. Over the last decade and especially in the last few years we have focused on building online communities (Channels and GOCs) for customers who sponsor these areas as they rapidly attract focused decision-makers from around the world.

The visitors who come to these communities benefit from a massive amount of free content which helps them make informed purchasing decisions. For example people looking for products in Call Recording, Smart Data Centers, IP communications, HD Voice, Fixed Mobile Convergence or Next Generation Communications can come to the respective communities focused on these topics and have access to hundreds and in most cases thousands of TMC written articles detailing the news in their specific area of interest. Our business model is straightforward; aggregate massive amounts of focused and quality content using custom-built content targeting technology - make it relevant and pertinent so as to attract the right readers who need this information as they research the products and services they are looking to buy.

For our sponsors, these communities allow them to rank high organically on search engines to get their message out to a focused audience while simultaneously being able to measure the traffic to ensure they can justify their spend to the sales and executive management teams.

Basically, this suite of communities replicates the trade show model online and just like a trade show that attracts more attendees as the exhibitor base grows; the 120 monthly sponsored communities on TMCnet attract a massive audience which in turn attracts more sponsors.

In short, I am very confident we can continue to provide free quality content in all the areas we enter. Meaning while other media companies are beginning to charge for their once free content and many others are reducing their editorial teams, TMC is adding to its editorial, sales and marketing teams as we have a model which works exceptionally well for our readers and sponsors.

We are growing our team as we enter a slew of new markets with our business model of providing laser-focused content - backed by over a decade of proprietary content targeting technology; essentially building targeted online communities which rank high on search engines as they attract large amounts of focused traffic.

Here is my quote from a press release we put out today mentioning the hire of a brand new position - VP of Business Development. Matt Weiner is filling this position and his background of working for Penton and Yahoo! make him a good fit for the position."Over the last decade, TMC has invested in the technology and people necessary to build a next-generation media company which creates communities online, in-print and in-person," Tehrani continued. "By providing our audience with top quality news, training and information, we have attracted global purchasing decision-makers to our communities. As TMC's global communities have increased in size and quality, they have attracted hundreds of advertisers and sponsors who receive regular measurable results for their marketing and SEO budgets. Our future strategy involves continuing to build communities which draw large amounts of targeted traffic as we continue to connect buyers and sellers -- and adding Matt to the team is an integral element of that strategy."

Aside from Matt, we have added a number of other positions and just as importantly we continue to ink partnership after new partnership as we enter new spaces where we leverage our community building engine in combination with the thought leadership of individuals and/or corporations in new markets.

Thank you for continuing to support our rapid growth - thanks to our readers and existing and news sponsors - we look forward to helping all of your companies grow with ours.

GlobeCast is a division of France Telecom and is a broadbast service provider handling content management and delivery for broadcasters and other companies. According to Mathew Rosenstein, the company has an extensive satellite and fiber network and they are expanding their fiber footprint quickly into Latin America to handle the burgeoning sporting events market in the area. Speaking of sports, they are also upgrading their network to ensure the best HD possible.

The company looks at content management as a burgeoning area and recently made an acquisition of NETIA which means they can now help broadcasters organize their libraries as well as distribute their content.

One final bit of worthy information is their work with Inmarsat to allow it to interwork with their Content Exchange network allowing content from the field to be sent back to stations. Check out the video for more about how the company looks to add value to media asset management solutions and HD optimization.

In the last two weeks I drove (well I was in the car anyway) for more than 1,500 miles meeting with tech companies in Montreal, Ontario, Massachusetts, Rochester, NY, Los Angeles and San Diego. The last stop on my latest trip was at CTIA where I saw dozens of companies from around the globe.

Most of my travels involve learning about companies in the communications and technology space and often advising them on how they can be more successful. Sometimes I get to see some very innovative solutions which I can't share at the time for a multitude of reasons (embargos, etc) and other times I get a firsthand look at things which I share as soon as I can. In many cases, companies ask me about TMC's experience in helping companies with their thought leadership, branding and lead generation activities.

As CEO of a media company which builds online, in-person and print communities for millions of global purchasing decision-makers each month, I have an unusual role of also writing about many of the companies, products and services I see. What is fun for me is finding new ways to bring buyers and sellers together. Buyers want to quickly learn about which products they should consider before purchasing and sellers are looking to sell as much as they can while spending the least amount in doing so.

It is an amazing place to sit because extremely often I see industry-changing technology which languishes because an engineer sets the marketing budget and has the corporate communications skills of sheetrock. Remember, I have an engineering degree so I feel I am uniquely qualified to beat up my brethren. Then there are the companies I visit where their products shouldn't be accepted for free, yet they sell in volume and make massive margins because they are able to communicate the benefits properly.

Then there are a slew of "Hail Mary" companies which have really cool products but no business model to speak of. Sometimes I can convince the founder of such a company to modify their offerings to actually make money but other times the companies die on the vine because they think they know best - after all, I just meet a thousand companies plus like them a year - what do I know?. Sometimes though the amazing happens and they  get purchased by a Google, Cisco or Oracle and thus the "Hail Mary" designation.

I am thrilled to act as a trusted advisor on PR and marketing issues and I figured it is unfair for me to only share information with people I choose to visit and subsequently I spoke on a webinar a month or so ago about hosted SEO which was well-attended and generated lot buzz in the industry. So many companies wonder about search engine optimization and what the trick is to ranking high. While there are lots of factors to consider, the basic premise is to write lots of content which people want to read and share with others.

SEO consultants get paid to help companies rank higher and in some cases they can boost a company's search rank for a while. But in the end, steady and relatively large amounts of content are what companies need to generate to rank high on various terms.

I could go on about building communities and improving SEO for hours - I am truly passionate about figuring out how to instantly bring a group of people with similar interests together on a single web portal. Coming from the world of magazines, it used to take TMC six months to build a mailing list and in many cases you really needed 18 months to do it right. Oh and did I mention you had to mail at least half a million subscription offers and it would cost you about $400,000 at a minimum to rent lists, print and mail your subscription forms? To show you how much things have changed, TMC has been involved in projects in the past few months where we built communities on new topics which are up and running and attracting hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of a few weeks. It is truly amazing to see how media has evolved through the use of news-generated, laser focused community building.

Again, these topics are a major passion of mine and something my team at TMC has gotten great at focusing on. The next webinar I will speak on takes place Thursday of this week, October 15^th at 12:00 PST and on it I will discuss how you can partner to boost your search engine marketing. I look forward to seeing you there. Be sure to register now so you don't miss it. As a reminder, you can view the archive if you aren't around at this exact time. Just be sure to register. Also, be sure to bring any questions you have. I look forward to answering them this week.

Where is my Mobile Data?

An overwhelming amount of wireless, communications and tech news is the best way to describe the last few weeks. Perhaps one of the most important nuggets is a catastrophic loss of T-Mobile USA Sidekick customer data and if you have one of these nifty little gadgets, be aware the wireless carrier asks that you not reset it. This issue highlights the problems with SaaS and cloud-based services. Google, thought to be the gold standard of hosted data companies has suffered outages and so have Amazon and Salesforce.com. The one constant here is cloud-based services seem to be as error-prone as CPE equipment which makes sense. If it can better, it will gain a larger share of the data center pie.

Android is Everywhere

But for Google, cloud computing is just one of many projects they have their hands in. Last week at the CTIA show in San Diego I witnessed Google Android everywhere... Android has even caused Verizon to start getting along with the search leader. And you wondered why that Nobel Peace Prize was awarded. At the same time, Microsoft rolled out Windows Mobile 6.5 and this platform is just not cutting it as it is tired and old. Once upon a time I marveled at this OS but then again I did the same with my Commodore 64 back in 1982. Yes it's getting better, but I used it myself and wasn't too impressed. One thing for sure is the web browsing on an iPhone 3GS seems to be far superior to either competitive mobile OS.

Will a Mobile Search for "Microsoft" Show Results?

The scary part of this equation for Microsoft has to be that they are in danger of losing the mobile device OS race altogether. And this is where Google and Microsoft will tell you the future of search is. In fact, Google is looking to tightly couple search with mobility in a way which will offset their inability to effectively compete with the sheer slickness and elegance of the iPhone.

AT&T Hates Google and Apple Learns From Decades of Defeat

Two points worth mentioning are that AT&T may be distancing itself from Google (hint, they aren't friends) and moreover, Android has some challenges ahead of it - primarily figuring out what Android really means in a world where open source platforms are able to grow in various and competing directions quite rapidly. The problem of course is for users and developers looking to easily roll out apps across a broad range of platforms which are all supposed to be equivalent. In reality they aren't and developers have to deal with individual phone models when programming for Android. The process is not as easy as it should be. Finally the concept of Apple owning the hardware shows how this can be superior to the open hardware scenario. Sure, it can cost more for non-open hardware which is controlled by a single provider but Apple seems to have learned from its experience of getting kicked in their rear by Microsoft in the eighties. They have realized it makes sense to price mobile devices reasonably (or have the carrier chip in as needed) so they can profit from software and music. Back in the eighties when we were all listening to Journey, Apple didn't get a cut of every piece of software on their platform. Now (what do we listen to nowadays?) they do. So for Apple, they have to be price competitive with their phones as they make it up on the backend.

Microsoft's Acquire or Die Mobile Strategy?

Going forward, Microsoft has its work cut out for it if it wants to be a major player in mobile search. After all, they are losing share and quickly in the mobile world. It seems they need to try and pick up Nokia and/or RIM and tell those pesky regulators this is the only way they can compete effectively with Google Android.

Why Develop a Revenue Strategy, We are having too much fun Prematurely Aging Ballmer?

Then again, some will point to the fact that Google hasn't figured out their mobile search strategy - and to some degree they are right. But to me the model is pretty obvious. Dominate the apps and service market by giving it away and then experiment endlessly by showing ads in various formats until you find a way to make money without upsetting (too many) users or advertisers. This is not rocket science as Adwords was born in this manner and YouTube is the latest Guinea pig. Just recently in fact, the company started to insert ads in the Google Maps application of the iPhone. Of course this is likely the reason Apple decided to buy a mapping company - they either don't like the idea of the company behind Android profiting from their platform or they are interested in getting a piece of the advertising pie for themselves. Maybe both - stay tuned.

Spare some Change? Here's a Decade's Worth

The one constant in communications is change and more change. We have ourselves an industry where new paradigms are invented constantly and new competitors emerge from unlikely areas. All the while, existing players have to learn how to navigate alliances and competitive sets to emerge as credible and profitable players in a mobile, broadband and fixed-line ecosystem of dizzying complexity.

From where I stand, fewer things can be more exciting. But for the companies making the products and those looking to partner and purchase, try not to blink or you could miss major and ground-breaking news. This is not Internet time, we have gone to the next level - things are happening at optical or photonic speed. Boy is it exciting. I'll have more to discuss soon but for now I need to brew a fresh pot.

Leveraging Ecosystems Eclipses Developing Products

Widgets for TVs, application stores for wireless phones, applets for the connected home and automobiles... The trend is clear as smart ecosystems have emerged on the scene as a new way to generate revenue while locking in customers to specific hardware/software solutions. For many manufacturers such as Avaya, Cisco, RIM, Nokia, Apple and makers of televisions, it is no longer adequate to focus exclusively on the products your company develops. Now you have to figure out how to build a smart ecosystem around your offerings in order to leverage an able and willing (hardware and software) developer community who will evangelize your platform and develop long-tail applications, services and add-ons which boost the value of your ecosystem.

In order to help educate the emerging smart ecosystem community, TMC has partnered with Crossfire Media and distinguished college professor Mary Cronin PhD to launch a smart ecosystem portal containing news, thought leadership and analysis called SPEC which stands for Smart Product Ecosystems Connection and located at www.specosys.com.

As you may recall, Crossfire Media is home to Carl Ford and together we have already partnered to build online and live communities (4GWE and M2M Summit) in the 4G and M2M spaces.

This partnership also includes Mary Cronin, a professor in the Information Systems Department of Boston College's Carroll School of Management. Mary is a true thought leader in the space and you can expect to hear her prescient thoughts on how ecosystems will take root and evolve. Her first article is titled Five Rules for Smart Product Ecosystems.

The coverage areas will extend into a variety of industries and for now they include Telecom & Mobile; Health & Medical; Automotive & Telematics; Home Automation and Connected Home Entertainment Devices; Energy Monitoring and Personal Energy Management Solutions. We are open to adding new areas so drop us a line with suggestions.

It is evident that as time goes on, companies in all industries will be looking to tie their products and services into more and more ecosystems. They will either develop their own and/or leverage others on the market. In order to stay up to date on the investment, partnering and other opportunities ahead, be sure to bookmark the new SPEC smart ecosystem site and check back often.