Well it isn't like we just started to do video or anything but we have started to have daily broadcasts which are quite good. of course I am biased, so take a look at the TMC Video Newsroom page yourself and let me know what you think.

I have been getting more and more questions on where the communications market stands in light of macroeconomic conditions. It is a constant in my frequent conversations. In most cases, when I get this question, people tell me their business is good but they wonder if the housing market problems will trickle down into the telecom space.

The answer is simply, I do believe there is risk to all sectors of the global economy. For the first time in my memory, US and other political leaders have come on TV and mentioned the term global crisis on a frequent basis. This sort of talk shakes confidence. This is simply the way it works.

The question we need to ask is how do we benefit in such a scenario or at best, how do we tread water so our sales, revenue, income does not decrease?

Most importantly, you need to focus on areas which save your customers money and make them more productive. UC, telepresence, workforce automation, FMC and other technologies pay for themselves quickly. In addition, SIP trunking is a natural in this market... You save your customers money and get a recurring revenue source if you are a service provider or reseller.

Subsets of the communications market are on fire. Mobile banking and WiMAX are a few. Emerging markets and rural America are ripe for wireless broadband.

In fact, these markets are ripe for all forms of communications and penetration in many cases is extremely low. Of course this equals tremendous opportunity.

In a slow market there is pressure to purchase less but we have crossed the chasm of mobile web browsing these past years and we will see more devices with mobile broadband and this leads to the increased use of the internet on the go. As this trend continues - the opportunity for wireless services increases as well. This leads me to the mobile application market. You need to have an application which works on the iPhone, RIM devices and eventually the Gphone. Don't forget about Windows Mobile or Nokia by the way.

I have seen many recessions in my day and the telecom space is one of the few which saw something called a nuclear winter between 2001-2003. What I learned from these experiences is that every slowdown ends at some point and customers do not ever stop buying - they may slow, they may delay, but they don't stop.

In other words, even if things slow down in our space, they will speed up again. The strategy for making sure you come out the other end of a slowing economy in a better position than you are in today is as follows:

Conserve Cash: This is obvious but how you do it is crucial. If you cut your PR, marketing and R&D, where do you think you will be in a slowing market? None of these areas can be cut by more than a few percent. If you have to cut a bit more, R&D is the area to cut incrementally from. The reason is that the feature wars most companies fight are less important than explaining to customers why they need to buy your products.

Keep in mind, every company you sell to now has to go through more internal scrutiny before they buy. You need to reinforce sales with more marketing and sales efforts. In order to last in a slowing market you need to ensure you are still selling. If you are too heavily R&D focused and don't do marketing and PR effectively, hire an agency to help you immediately.

Become More Productive: Every company needs to operate at 100% efficiency. Cut off your dead wood. Do it today. It is time to let the complainers and high maintenance people go. If they aren't happy, you are doing them a favor. Believe me; it will work out better for you and for them.

Rally the Troops: Explain to them why they need to work smarter, harder and faster. Customer service is key. Don't lose customers because of bad service.

Hire PR/Marketing People: If you aren't strong in these areas, you have to hire an agency or top people who can help you market more effectively in slow times. I have witnessed many millions of wasted marketing dollars in my life. Spending a marketing budget and spending it wisely are totally different things. A million dollar marketing budget can be blown stupidly with 10 newspaper ads or used much more effectively in focused media vehicles where your potential customers are actually looking for your products.

Market Analysis: There are hundreds of small companies which are engineering driven in the communications space which do not know how to market. Companies founded by engineers are typically the worst run from a marketing perspective. (Remember - I am an engineer myself so no insult intended - we aren't sugar coating here). These companies - where the engineer runs marketing are likely going to have trouble selling products in a slowdown (or any other time for that matter). Keep your eyes open for acquisitions or weakness in the markets you serve. Keep your ear to the ground. One of these small companies about to go under may have good ideas for products but just no clue how to sell them. You may determine developing a competitive product/service to one of these small companies makes sense.

Speed: It is better to be fast than right. After all, you can't be right every time but if you are fast, you can adjust and become right faster than the other guy.

Optimism: Be optimistic. If you are smart and run things well and your entire team works together to support you, your company can come out of any downturn stronger than it went in. Sure, be cautious --but in the end, business is cyclical. It just is. That is the nature of the beast. Work harder, faster and smarter and you will be rewarded.

Remember, things are still generally good in the communications and technology markets and if you follow these rules you should make it out the other side of any slowdown in better condition than you are in today.

Congratulations to the ITEXPO West 2008 best of show winners here in Los Angeles.

In years past the competition between GIPS and Spirit DSP has been the stuff of legend. While the competitive situation has unwound over the past 18 months or so it is still interesting to see how the companies compete with one another.

For example, some news out of this week's ITEXPO is that exhibitor GIPS has just announced it has been selected by Mail.Ru to have its GIPS' VoiceEngine embedded inside the Mail.Ru Agent, starting with version 5.2 -- allowing affordable calls to stationary and mobile phones.

Of course the interesting thing here is Spirit DSP is based in Moscow -- so this is a win in foreign territory for GIPS and the company can look forward to having its solutions rolled out to about 50 million new Russian users.

I just came across an article by Richard Zippy Grigonis regarding the success of ITEXPO in light of the incredible competition over the years. Reading it, reminded me of shows of the past which I enjoyed going to. Zippy -- as many of you know is about the straightest-shooter there is -- he tells it as it is -- from his vantage point of course.

This is what makes his thoughts are all the more incredible (and humbling) -- and Zippy -- you are part of the team that allows ITEXPO and TMC in general to flourish. Of course while i am in thanking mode -- getting ready to head out to LA for ITEXPO myself -- let me extend a hearty thanks to the entire TMC team, our advertisers, sponsors, exhibitors and partners who have allowed TMC to keep growing.

I look forward to seeing you all and thanking you in person this week. Be sure to register now and come on down.

John Savageau one of the hardest working people I know in the carrier hotel/data center business was just promoted to CTO of CRG West where he will get to focus more on the company's peering and ICT offerings. Perhaps no one is more deserving of a promotion.

John has been an instrumental part of CRG West's expansion from two to eleven data centers and John is a true thought leader in the space. In my many discussions with Savageau, he has explained in intricate detail what separates his data centers from the run of the mill and brimmed with pride when he gave me a tour of the company's famous One Wilshire building which is located literally a few blocks from where ITEXPO will be held next week in Los Angeles.

John was a career US Air Force officer and when you speak with him you get the sense of his military background. There is just something about the precision in the way he speaks.

Many people take for granted that interconnections in facilities like the ones John manages are responsible for supplying entire countries with internet traffic. A single wire cut accidentally in one of CRG West's meet me rooms can actually wipe out internet access for millions of users.

In addition, these facilities are how companies, universities and government agencies are able to communicate directly without needing to go through service providers.

Certainly you will find John networking at the ITEXPO show and I am looking forward to congratulating in person on his new position.

I should also mention that the voice peering market needs interconnections in facilities such as those provided by Telx, CRG West, Terremark, etc. If you are looking to learn more about voice peering be sure to come to the Voice Peering Summit at ITEXPO next week.

Long Island's news 12 just ran a news piece on IP faxing. IP faxing has been around for years but is it enjoying a resurgence? It seems the technology may be getting a boost from the move by companies looking to save money and go green.

See DalCom's Fred Hakim discuss his company's product FaxSer in this video which ran on Cablevision's News 12 Long Island.

I realize this has nothing to do with my typical subject matter but as you know as I get closer to a trade show I do look for nice segues to help me discuss the show. For example, next week, ITEXPO will be held in Los Angeles and coincidentally about an hour or so ago, Kanye West was arrested in Los Angeles.

So coming to ITEXPO can not only be good for your career and help you supply your users with a better IP communications experience, you can come to the show in the city where Kanye West was actually arrested. If you come to the show via LAX, you can actually visit the airport and perhaps gate where Mr. West -- famous for the song Gold Digger and Stronger among others -- was handcuffed and taken away.

With any luck -- being LA and all -- you may get to see other celebrities arrested on your way to the show as well. If you do -- be sure to drop me a line.

Silliness aside -- we are all looking forward to seeing you next week in LA.

I was just reading the Phone.com blog by Ari Rabban where he mentions:


As the founder of ITEXPO, it's been a long road since we first launched ITEXPO in 1999, but my team has worked very hard to make ITEXPO the premiere communications event in the industry.

Currently this show is the only one in the world we know of which attracts resellers, service providers and business decision makers. It has truly become the gathering place of the communications industry and we are busy this week putting the final touches on what we think will be the best show we have ever held.

Remember the show is next week -- September 16-18 in the Los Angeles Convention Center -- West Hall.

Ari I hope to see you at the show and the same goes for all of my readers.

ITEXPO West 2008 attendance for the upcoming Los Angeles, California event to be held September 16-18 is looking great and I just can't wait for the show to start. We are brimming with enthusiasm about this year's event and it will truly be the World's Communications Conference. Perhaps the most exciting thing about this year's show is the record number of companies making news at the show. We are absolutely thrilled about this and are doing our best to help you absorb all the news emanating from the show in an easily digestible format. To that end, we have started producing show dailies which detail news from the exhibiting community.

Here is just a smattering of the news items from  ITEXPO West 2008 Show Daily #1 for your reading enjoyment:

By Tim Gray, TMCnet Web Editor. Hosted on-demand communications and rich media services company IntelePeer is pushing out its latest technology platform designed to make it easy for software vendors, service providers and Web companies to add the interactive impact of voice, video, SMS, data and other rich-media communications capabilities to Web sites and enterprise software applications - even with minimal or no telecommunications experience.

By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Senior Editor. An ITEXPO panel will examine the business case for uniting various SMB communications systems and tools to boost efficiency and productivity while reducing communications-related costs.

By Rich Tehrani, President and Editor-in-Chief. Unified communications (UC) holds a lot of promise for transforming the communications technology landscape.

By Rich Tehrani, President and Editor-in-Chief. RT: What has been your company's biggest achievement in 2008 so far? SJ: Ingate has seen a continuing growth in sales driven in large part by the growth in SIP Trunking adoption.

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor. Officials of Iowa Valley Community College District, which operates two community colleges and a satellite campus, say they have adopted unified communications from Avaya and a network infrastructure from Extreme Networks to link faculty, staff and students across 15 buildings located within a 90-mile radius.

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor. The energy crisis is gaining the attention of many, from consumers to big corporations, politicians and small businesses, all are seeking ways to become more "Green" in their approach to business and to life.