Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Patent Archives

V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai - Did He Invent E-Mail or Not?

2012-02-23T21:56:08Z

I have to admit that I had never heard of V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai prior to meeting him recently in Boston just prior to the video interview below. But he and his PR firm told me he had invented e-mail – with the proof being in-part a copyright from 1982 relating to electronic mail. He spent a few years building this email system which he says were more or less the evolution of text messaging systems which existed at the time.

Specifically V.A. Ayyadurai says his invention was related to the To, From, CC, Subject and Date.

In my research I found a story from Time Magazine proclaiming he was the inventor of email and I also read a copy of the copyright. So everything looked credible.

V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai discusses the specifics relating to his invention of e-mail as well as how the US Postal Service can leverage its brand to increase its sales and remain solvent

To further reinforce this credibility, he is a lecturer at the Biological Engineering School of MIT.

But I must admit, it was a bit suspicious – only because I have been in tech my whole life – and in 1982 I too was a programmer on a UNIX system made by a company called Zilog.

I wondered why I hadn't heard of him as the inventor of email sooner.

Speaking of suspicion, Mary Jander at Internet Evolution penned a piece today which shines a spotlight on V.A. Ayyadurai – specifically on a wave of claims that email existed in various forms in the 60s and 70s.

Jander’s article is inconclusive but Ayyadurai's Wikipedia entry is interesting because it begins with something I have never seen on the site:

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The above most certainly has to do with a section titled Email Claims which begins as follows (bold added my me):

Ayyadurai falsely claims to have "invented" email^[11] despite numerous previous inventors and users that are well documented. While a high school student at Livingston High School (New Jersey), he implemented an email system for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Email had been previously sent on many other computers and networks such as CTSS, AUTODIN, PLATO and the ARPANet. In 1981, a year in which every Unix system included networked email^[12], Ayyadurai's short paper on his software^[13] received an award from the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. In 1982, he copyrighted his software, which was called “EMAIL”, but he did not copyright the word "EMAIL" because copyrights do not apply to single words.^[14]

So the jury seems out but the above video shot on December 14, 2011 should certainly shed some insight on what he believes. Perhaps a body language expert will be able to analyze the discussion and let us know more.

Regardless, he seems to be a brilliant man and based upon this interview which delves into areas like how to fix the Post Office, you can see he continues to think big and attempts to tackle some huge challenges.

Google+ Growth, Dropbox Killer: Google IS the Tech News

2012-02-09T16:04:09Z

Google has entrenched itself is so many areas of tech they have become the technology news of the day. First off, Google+ growth has been nothing short of fantastic, in part because the company has altered search results to put more emphasis on this social network. Every SEO/SEM professional has had no choice in the past few months to get up to speed on the latest social network from the search giant. And this in part is the reason why it has half the unique visitors of Twitter according to web traffic tracking site Compete.

In other unrelated news in the mobile market – hey wait, it isn’t unrelated at all – once again it features Google whose Motorola Mobility acquisition is about to get OKed – perhaps as early as next week.

The bad news now for those companies selling products with technology covered by Motorola/Google patents – you’re on the hook for 2.25% of every sale. This includes iPhones and even cars which utilize H.264 or UMTS. Think that one through – that is $2,250 for a $100,000 BMW or Mercedes. Of course if you don’t agree to these terms, you get thrown off Google’s search home page – just kidding – you actually just get sued by Google’s ever-expanding army of lawyers. It may be preferable to just get booted from the first SERP.

It is worth mentioning this is the same standard set by Motorola – many in the industry hoped Google would ease up on these requirements.

By now you have followed the trend – we will move on to yet another unrelated space – cloud storage where Google is set to release a Dropbox killer – its new Drive service. Really though this move was necessary as Google has to have an iCloud competitor as well if it plans of allowing Android to copy all the cool functions and features of iOS.

Google is into so many things and as a result you have two groups of people. First are the users who are happy to see the company expand because they rely on Google’s free services for everything from email to RSS reading. And then there is the second group – competitors and investors who worry Google is suffocating the rest of the tech space with its ever-expanding growth into new and perhaps unrelated spaces. This latter group includes privacy advocates who worry that these moves coupled with Google’s new “shared data” privacy policy allows Google unprecedented access to personal information.

But whatever your feelings, you’ll be happy to know that Google has even more news which will allow you to voice your thoughts in person to a Google employee. You see, the search leader is said to be opening a new retail store in Dublin. And I am sure your Android device will have no problems giving you step-by-step directions on how to get there once it’s built.

Innovation Speed = (Moore's Law*Metcalfe's Law)/Patent Lawsuit Activity

2012-01-25T16:42:09Z

Yesterday I was engaged in a conversation with TMC senior editor Peter Bernstein and we were discussing the pace of innovation and whether there is some formula which can explain how much more quickly things are happening today. Interestingly I also had a conversation today with TMC webmaster and author Robert Hashemian where we were going over Apple’s earnings and how fast mobile leadership has changed – from Motorola to Nokia to Motorola to Microsoft to RIM to Apple to Google. And all these massive marketshare swings took place more or less in the last decade.

Back to the discussion with Peter – my takeaway from the conversation (I feel he has a slightly different opinion which hopefully he will expound upon in the future) is that Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law working together are accelerating innovation and lubricating new business models. Obviously email is just one tool which has benefitted from these laws – think about how you can now create and respond to virtually all your email from a smartphone now. Think of the productivity gains from this advance alone.

Then there are services like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn which all leverage both laws and as they grow in users they become more powerful and useful.

Then there are ecosystem plays which allow a developer with a good idea to become rich overnight. Think Apple App Store or using Facebook as a gaming platform.

To me these laws need some sort of multiplier because they amplify one another. In other words a quad-core smartphone in your pocket has the approximate computing horsepower of a supercomputer just over a decade earlier. And when they are cloud-connected to a 4G network or WiFi it makes pint-sized gadgets very very powerful. So the formula would look roughly like this:

Innovation Speed = (Moore’s Law*Metcalfe’s Law).

This isn’t really a formula – so let’s say the equal sign is defined as “roughly proportional to.”

But there is more to it – there are unions, government regulations and taxes which could add drag to business and innovation. Then again tax credits could act as accelerant. For the sake of brevity I will leave these and other related factors out of my analysis.

Patents however is an area worth delving into – after all Google more or less purchased Motorola Mobility because of its large patent pool. I realize the company says this isn’t the case and the other products in the organization are very important but I must respond by borrowing a line from Tom Hanks in “Big” – “I don’t get it.”

So back to my formula – there are patent lawsuits all over the world – many being initiated by Apple, Microsoft and Oracle. It is really tough to keep track of them all.

So my formula could be modified as follows:

Innovation Speed = (Moore’s Law*Metcalfe’s Law)/Patent Lawsuit Activity

You can see that I assert that Patent Lawsuit Activity is the denominator of the equation which means that given enough legal fighting the entire effect of Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law can be wiped out. I do believe this to be the case but this wouldn’t necessarily happen in reality. The reason is businesses typically would rather settle by paying a royalty instead of fighting lawsuits to the death.

It is worth noting that in the case of patent trolls – roughly explained as entities which charge patent licensing fees and don’t currently sell related products, is interesting because quite often companies settle with them as opposed to going through the lawsuit exercise. And smart trolls try to price their fees in a way that keeps them out of court.

As a disclosure my company TMC has partnered in a patent lawsuit conference to be collocated on February 1st at ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami. It is called SUITS which stands for Synopsis under IP/Patents Telecom Sourcing Conference. It is a first-time event and we recently started to promote it. The agenda looks impressive and if your company plans on being successful it more than likely will have to face the prospect of a patent lawsuit. It is generally better to be prepared for these things before they happen and that is the point of the SUITS event – to bring you up to speed on the legal issues you must know as part of operating a tech or communications firm.

And I would love your feedback on my formula - does this make sense to you? If not, how would you modify it?

With Rypple Acquisition Salesforce on Track to be Cloud-Based Oracle

2011-12-16T15:11:29Z

In the early nineties I was and SQL programmer in a market dominated by companies like Oracle and Informix. At the time these database companies stuck to their core competency. Fast forward a few decades and Oracle sells software in virtually every space. Moreover they are a revenue generating machine as they have gobbled up so many companies; there are few other choices in the market. This in-turn has allowed the company to raise maintenance costs nicely over the years.

Marc Benioff having worked at Oracle realizes how successful the model of owning a software ecosystem is. Sure there is AppExchange but Salesforce realizes owning much of the ecosystem is even better as you have more control. Moreover, not all the successful apps live on AppExchange.

Today the company has extended its ecosystem of cloud-based solutions with its purchase of cloud-based HR company Rypple for what they say is the first step toward human capital management for the social enterprise.

And how’s this for a marque customer – Facebook reviews its employees using Rypple.

The new HCM business unit, including Successforce, will be led by John Wookey, salesforce.com's executive vice president of advanced applications. Wookey came to Salesforce.com with more than 20 years of experience in senior leadership at Oracle and SAP.

This follows recent news that the acquisition of social listening company Radian6 has resulted in creating the company’s social marketing cloud offering.

At this rate it is worth noting the company will butt heads with Google who also wants to be a major player in the cloud-based application space. I would be surprised if Google isn’t considering purchasing Salesforce… Then again they have collaborated closely for years, it is unclear to me other than recent Salesforce momentum from what the M&A catalyst would be.

Then again there has been tremendous Java-related legal pressure on Google’s Android after Oracle acquired SUN. So how's this for killing two birds with one stone? You get cloud-based software and customers as well and what can be described as a "cloud-based Oracle." What better way to compete against Oracle?

Of course Google may need to digest Motorola Mobility first.

Google Pays Half Million Per Patent for Motorola Mobility

2011-08-16T11:58:14Z

Google just purchased patents as part the acquisition of Motorola Mobility – 24,500 of them to be exact. At a $12.5B valuation that puts the value per patent at $510,204 apiece. But the search giant also gets 19,000 employees on top of the 29,000 it already has.

The question is does Google want these employees or to manage a business which is so different from software and advertising that it makes your head spin. I spoke with Kris Kendrick of Sonus who used to be with Motorola and he sees this acquisition as Google picking up the hardware “wedge” into software.

But I just can’t see Google wanting this hardware business and if the company does want to enter this space, picking up Motorola seems odd as the company has had management issues for over a decade and although the company has always had great technology, they have never been able to execute properly. After all, when Apple collaborated with Motorola on a cell phone, it was a flop – it was so bad that Steve Jobs realized how dysfunctional cell phone makers were and subsequently embarked on his own phone design.

Yes, Motorola can boost Google TV but again, I don’t see it – does Google want to get into the low-margin hardware business? Especially after failing with the Nexus one – a phone of their own design – manufactured by HTC?

It seems far more likely that Google wants to open-source everything Motorola has and do it for the express purpose of having a platform across phones and televisions where it can show its ads. The best way to do this is to white-label everything Motorola makes and OEM it all to the tech ecosystem.

With all these new patents, the company has ample protection from Oracle, Apple and Microsoft so now the hard work begins of taking products which are generally sold to or via service providers and instead wholesaling them in the hopes of taking Android to the next level and moving upmarket with regards to hardware design.

There are many moving parts here and I am looking forward to seeing how Google procedes with this major purchase.

First the Unabomber and now Steve Jobs

2011-04-08T22:33:22Z

You know you may have bad luck when you open up a package which was mailed by unabomber Ted Kaczynski and smoke starts to come out of it followed by a flash. Yale Professor David Gelernter survived a horrific attack from the deranged madman and the good news is the company he co-founded won a settlement for patent infringement from Apple worth $625M.

A happy ending to a terrible story right?

Not quite... Today TMCnet reported that the settlement was overturned and instead of having to pay $625M, Apple would have to pay a total of zero. This is an unusual occurrence according to Southern Methodist University law professor Bill Dorsaneo, overturning a verdict like this and eliminating instead of reducing the amount of an award is unusual.

This is a story of pretty bad luck it seems and the professor has vowed to fight on. Heaven knows this poor man has been through worse.

How US Immigration Policies Kill Jobs

2011-03-07T14:19:14Z

It isn’t a new idea – I have covered it a few times in the past – but as time goes on, the policies of the US government – in both parties really, has been extremely unfriendly to immigrant entrepreneurs. The argument is that these workers will take away jobs from Americans but the reality is many startups are founded by the best and brightest foreign-born workers who come to the US either to go to college or expressively to get a piece of the American dream.

TechCrunch has more on why Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs are returning home – and at a time when joblessness is so high, forcing job creators to leave the US while so many countries are actively pursuing/recruiting these people makes even less sense.

-50F With Wind Chill. Escape to ITEXPO in Miami

2011-01-24T20:01:54Z

You know I would never stoop to reminding you about the weather to persuade you to attend what I believe to the be the best tech and telecom conference in the world - OK, maybe I would.

So I was driving along this morning on the way to work and noticed I couldn't feel any of my fingers. I decided to check to make sure I was wearing gloves. I was. Then I realized I couldn't feel any of my toes and yes I had shoes on.

I then looked at the temperature reading and it said one degree. I decided to risk my life to take the picture above while driving - I could have pulled over but hey, I was late for my first meeting and I would do just about anything for you, my faithful reader. Attention law enforcement professionals - some elements of this blog post may have been overly sensationalized in order to provide dramatic effect.

But getting back to Connecticut where TMC is based - one coworker who lives in Danbury, CT said it was -11 degrees when she left her house this morning. And that's nothing. If you can believe it... CBS News reports temperatures with wind chill hit as cold as -50 degrees F!

BTW, in AP biology back in high school we learned that -40F is the same temperature as -40C - this little bit of trivia courtesy of Mrs. Beers my 11th grade teacher. Hope I spelled her name right.

Oh, but back to the point of this meandering post... It is freezing out. There is one show in Miami next week where you can go to network with those who matter in the world of tech and telecom. Almost forgot to mention it is called ITEXPO East 2011. Every important topic is to be discussed from super WiFi to SIP to open source to virtualization and cloud computing. It is all there - in Miami under a single roof where you will also get to hear keynotes from former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin as well as executives from BT, Adobe, Aculab, GENBAND and Digium - the creators of Asterisk. Its the only industry event with a networking party at Mangos, one of the hottest spots on South Beach. Yes, there are other places to network as well.

So I hope to see you there and I look forward to greeting you in person.

Here is the ITEXPO show site, collocated events, free workshops, exhibitor list and giveaways you can win such as a new Jeep.

New Editorial Additions to TMC

2010-11-03T15:03:05Z

Here are some new additions to the editorial team here at TMC which you may want to be aware of. Thanks to your support - readers and sponsors - we have been reinvesting more and more into improving all of our products and services - and we will continue to do so as it is part of our culture and DNA which has kept us one of the longest-running media companies under single ownership in the world.

We've been serving our readers since 1972.

Dialogic Merger with Veraz Closes

2010-10-01T21:46:48Z

Update - Oct 4th 12:18 PM EST. Below I reference the market cap of Dialogic to be around $60M as this was the number publicly available at the time. The company informs me the value is closer to $160M with the Dialogic shares combines. I apologize to my readers for the error.

---

Dialogic's merger with Veraz has officially closed and and the new company will be called Dialogic and have the symbol the company used in the nineties before it was acquired by Intel - DLGC. The company also quietly cut some heads recently and put out a press release mentioning a 5 for 1 reverse stock split leaving about 31 million shares available.

The new headquarters will be in San Jose and consists of many once-standalone companies such as Cantata, Excel, Brooktrout, Rhetorex and NMS. Moreover they power carriers supporting over 2 billion mobile subscribers worldwide and supply the lion's share of fax enabling technology.

Wall Street for its part is in show-me-the-money mode valuing the company with a market capitalization of around $60M $160M on Pro Forma revenue of over $250M and 3,000 global customers. The value seems very low considering one would imagine the patents alone would would be worth in the many tens of millions of dollars.

The company has pegged its future on providing more video and SBC products and without a doubt they are leader in the former space but to date it has been tough to monetize. Still, video transcoding and transrating are crucial areas for carriers looking to better monetize their networks and Dialogic is a major player in this space.

The SBC market is a different story as Acme Packet has it sewn up for now but ferocious competition is coming from every direction so stay tuned.

Nick Jensen the Chairman and CEO at the old Dialogic will continue with this title at the combined company and he told me recently the market is always right in terms of valuation but he hopes it hasn't factored in the value of the Dialogic acquisition. I am sure there are many people including employees and current investors who hope he is right.

Time will tell of course and I am sure the topic will be part of the buzz at ITEXPO Monday-Wednesday of this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

ITEXPO West 2010 Hotel Situation

2010-09-21T14:58:54Z

I just received word from my operations team that show hotel blocks are sold out but the hotels (below) are taking reservations and doing their best to accommodate as many people as they can.

The Westin has been since August as my readers know.

Reminder - ITEXPO is October 4-6, 2010 in Los Angeles. Please book soon. We hope to see you there.

Genband Perspective 2010 Live Blog

2010-09-21T13:48:52Z

CMO Mehmet Balos takes the stage and gives overview of the day - the goal is to better explain the company's goals and future.

President and CEO Charlie Vogt takes stage

2/3 of marquee SPs in 80 countries use Genband.
We are the single largest private company in telecom.
Takeaways from this event:

We are innovating more than anyone else
We are growing
We are global

Class 4 and Class and 5 switches were not forklifted as fast as we thought - but we see an opportunity as switching in the core becomes a bigger deal for carriers.

We consolidated 2,000 COs for Verizon to 200 - same features and functions with 10x less central offices.

Traffic and policy management will become big area of growth for us as well as:

switching
networking
services

Other areas of focus are network tranformation, convergence and broadband.

We have already shipped 200,000,000 IP ports!

Company founded 1999 under name General Bandwidth. We still ship original G6 gateway - has evolved into VoIP.

Packet line gateway - allows you to take all traditional interfaces and connect it to a softswitch. We acquired legacy technology from Siemens. We developed relationships with TEMs in tier 2-3 market.

There still needs to be more consolidation.

In 2008 we acquired ReefPoint - put us in networking business - we were in switching business before this.

We spent the last 18 months working on S9 - SBC - and it has twice the density of anything on the market.

We acquired the gateway division of NSN.

All the media gateways NSN uses in fixed world are from Genband.

We also have relationships with Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent. We are shipping gateways through both - Ericsson as they upgrade BellSouth.

We spent 20k staff hours looking at Nortel transaction. We spent twice as much time looking at this than anyone else according to Nortel.

We had to raise $400M in a recession - a challenging time to do a significant transaction.

This put us in a unique switching position.

the CS2K has been transformed and is a subset of our new Genius platform. We have market leading app server and softswitch and we are proud of this.
130% growth compounded annually for last 6 years.

We secured 99% of employees we offered jobs to and we are adding more people than we are subtracting.

Nortel had 700 legacy IT systems - we had invested in a state of the art IT system and we needed one that made it easy for us to make acquisitions. Similar to Cisco we are a company that fully integrates on day one.

Operating in silos like other companies make it very challenging. We have made a strategic investment in Oracle - and this will be a case study for them. We integrated 700 legacy IT systems in nine months - and we'll do it spending $20-$25 less than we thought we would. That is the culture of Genband we want you to get to know.

We will grow orders 10-12% this year and we did $700M in sales last year. We think it can growth 8-10% long-term.
Genband is in a unique place.

We have a total of 2,200 employees - made some tweaks to business.

We are leading the market in cable We will have a renewed interest in tier 2-3. the C15 is a Nortel product and we have a great opportunity to compete with Metaswitch via this offering.

Prior to CVAS 70% of our products were sold through channel - via large equipment providers. CVAS acquisition allows us to fulfill directly 80% of what we sell.

This gives us global reach to service and support our customers. Our DPI and other products such as SBCs can be pulled through now.

We feel over 18 months carriers want an end-to-end solution and Acme Packet has most of their sales via the indirect channel 70-80%.

$265M in R&D spend - we think we spend twice what anyone else does on innovation.

Fred Kemmerer CTO takes stage

Most exiting time to be in telecom over last 25 years.

4G, WiMAX, etc will allow broad deployment of IP-voice across mobile network. Washington and regulatory agencies are seeing that we should sunset PSTN.

Networks become seamless and IP oriented.

PSTN will disappear in North America. Carriers and over-the-top companies (Google, Skype, etc) will collaborate - Verizon and AT&T have strategic relationships with Skype.

They see this collaboration is essential to meet end-user's needs.

It is essential that SIP be used to allow for converged services platforms - same services with similar user interaction and features - the stable common denominator.

FMC becomes more important - need to use these services wherever they go.

Google and Apple have the first two developer platforms locked up and there is room for three - will carriers react quickly enough to be the third?

Carriers must court development communities to make their networks more valuable.

Customers want to go a-la-carte and not have bundled software like Microsoft Office.

Dedicated apps will change computing.

Genband is adding APIs to work with over-the-top and carriers - are reaching out to Skype and others to help carriers get to where the developers are.

Carriers will likely move to tiered pricing models and carrier profits will likely grow when this happens. Why?

Occasional users will eventually pay less - and heavy users "like me," he said will pay more.

Mass customization will ensue and create a stickiness between you and the carrier - to ensure you have it set up so it is tailored to your preferences. "The last thing you want to do is switch carriers when you set this all up."

Carriers must work with social networking companies because that is where developers are.

Carriers must sell advertising to be competitive.

The business model in the long-run is to be an enabler of ads and apps and take a small piece of each transaction.

Internet ads are not saturated - local is a huge market.

Subscriber growth and time on internet is growing faster than Internet ad spend - there is more opportunity.

Keith Landau Chief Product Officer Takes Stage

What we're known for is: High-scale, high-capacity fault-tolerant platforms

A series platform is about applications
C series is call control C15, C20 - class4 & 5 capabilities

G series: media gateways - G6, G2, & G9 - next gen IP media gateways

Generation one was ATM based
Many put IP on top of ATM
G9 was based on IP

P series: packet - DPI-based packet technology

S series SBC - market leading - high capacity - tie into femtocell
D series TDM - less than 10% of business - less than 5% of R&D is here - all support is out of Istanbul

Genius - unifying force in these platforms - unified apps on Genius platform
Security gateway is a product but IPSEC is a functionality which will reside on Genius platform.

In old days - there were few telecom companies - things moved at coordinated and organized pace - allowed levels of quality and control.

When Internet came along - data became king.

More start-ups, more innovation - gave SPs headaches

IMS was to allow best-in-breed products to be mixed and matched

Networks need to be simplified

Genius: high availability middleware

Linux based

ATCA based - rackmountable and blades in future

We needed to finder a better way to deal with software, faults, etc. At its core - unified management framework - too many systems try to cover up sins of products with element management layer. We are trying to eliminate differences at platform layer.

Open-slot - allows us to integrate other solutions on our products. A light integration - allows them to take advantage of software loading and alarming. Likewise they can integrate their products with Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent, etc. Great for product mix and matching.

Application development to become easier.

Genius has been deployed in CDMA and GSM networks - under a different name for four years so far.

We will reduce costs for us and customers while accelerating time to market and time to money for partners.

C20 and A2 application server will have it first.

CS2K became C20 - in a single-shelf of ATCA equipment - simplified element management - double capacity, footprint and power reduction - and can now integrate other products via blades - no new box needs to be added with new management etc.

40k simultaneous IP calls at one time in one chassis - put two together and double this. We are adding video - and now you can take video in large screen format and adapt it for end-to-end sending without bandwidth waste. We are adding intelligence back into network.

P series - traffic and policy management - look at header and payload at edge of network and helps you to manage the traffic - allows consistent QoS - user and application aware - looks for anomalies in network - you don't clog up network - finding traffic should have gone to the Internet in the first place.

This is where portfolio comes together in a converged network.

Mobile broadband - G9 - 80% are GSM and UMTA - also in femto space - Samsung and NEC and Alcatel-Lucent are integrators - 30% of commercial deployments and trials run on our security gateways and G9s.

Last thing in femto space which is needed - is a way to hide complexity - when you realize these solutions can be deployed in communities - you can deal with security at edge or upgrade packet infrastructure.

Our solutions are mobile aware - we take it off at edge of network - we don't wait for it to hit the middle of network and then find it should have gone to the Internet.

By using user and content aware - we can personalize services based on TPM technology - we can look at content and location to show ads for example.

Mobile-data offload solution will be based on this - a new product.

Summary:

Hardware independent - use COTS technology - we ride processor technology from Cavium, Intel and others
We are software-centric - individual apps on Genius platform - common look and feel, patching systems - and simpler way to deploy complex systems.
Flexible architecture - seamless interconnection - faster solutions and time to money for customers.

Jeff Townley, President of Operations

Breadth and depth of services organization
Ability to innovate
Ability to transform and migrate network

We have support people in Shanghai, Mexico City

Professional services and maintenance services - customers include AT&T, Telefonica, Verizon and Cox

15,000 IP projects have been completed to date.

40M lines converted to IP so far

We help customers save CAPEX - do extensive analysis - we can rebrand our website to look like theirs - and perform services on their behalf.

Traffic and policy management - is a services play as no two customers will use it the same way.

Earlier this year Hurricane Alex - got on the phone with customer - talked about how to disengage equipment in lower racks - they flooded bottom units. Walked them through process to dry equipment - they did and 95% was still working. they had supply chain ready to ship replacements if needed.

Supply chain is critical - "We sell solutions" you really have to have world class supply chain and our performance delivery is 95% - this means 95% of time 100% of material gets there on time. The other 55 a day or two late - they work to get it there as fast as possible.

Summary:

This is about an evolution not revolution in network - networks will keep transforming. We are in business to transform networks. We have expertise to understand interop to deploy and support netyworks with 100% reliability.

Experts in IP Evolution
Leaders in Transformation
Innovators in Services Practices

Customer Panel

Bob Finely, AT&T
Alon Glasman, Hot Telecom
Hai Turner, pac-West
Don Poe Telepacific
Mark Ianuzzi, TelNet Worldwide
Tim Dwight, Verizon

Lots of discussion about replacing other equipment from Acme Packet, Siemens and others with Genband. Pac-West - Announced Telastic - based on Genband - they seemed very happy. Other talk of replacing Acme and Broadsoft with Genband equipment from Telepacific.

Genband has good relationships with customers according to Poe.

Ianuzzi said TelNet is an MSP and CLEC - over 100,000 voice paths being processed on monthly basis. Everything will be IP, mobile and personalized.

Verizon and AT&T careful not to get themselves in trouble by promoting any vendor - smaller carriers seem more free to speak their minds.

Audience of financial and tech analysts begin to ask questions:

End-to-end solutions are great but so are solutions based upon best-of-breed solutions from smaller vendors. Glasman says time to market is crucial - and end-to-end is easier to integrate but you need to also get the services and features you are looking for.

Turner says Genband is best-of-breed and end-to-end and their video vision is important to them in a converged mobile and app strategy for end users. professional services are very important to them - especially as they move to SIP.

AT&T mentions they are moving to IMS. Verizon says that new services need to drive new infrastructure. They aren't building IMS to offer POTs but new services and at some point it becomes the single fabric for legacy services as well.

Need to build IMS core before you can add services - this is what Verizon is doing now according to Dwight - and we're moving pretty fast - a point he reiterated which he also said in response to an analyst question as to why network transformation is taking place so slowly.

Genband Executive Panel

MSO operators are looking at mobile now that voice is eroding in share. One consortium group in US is deploying A6 for FMC - our IMS solutions play well in this space. Traffic and Policy management gaining traction at one MSO - replacing a marketshare leader.

We are enhancing softswitching base. C20 - smaller footprint, higher scale.

Voght:

Network transformation is happening first and foremost in North America. Verizon and AT&T have 6,000 TDM switches - need to collape 600 TDM switches per year. This is why Nortel CVAS was a good acquisition as this transition happens.

At some point the network collapses and the old network goes away. We are seeing this with a lot of carriers.

We are in a unique position to elegantly transform switches to IP over ten years.

Question about antitrust "When will you have to deal with this issue?" - Vogt says he would love [to be so big] to see that happen. "We are a little sub-billion dollar company from Texas," we have a way to go before we become as big as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, etc. Still, we are very focused and want to dominate our part of the market.

Vogt:

Margin profile increasing 1-2% every quarter. Low to mid 50% gross margins is target. Want EBITDA profile to be 16-18% long-term and we have a path to get there.

---

In summary the event was high-energy and much-needed as Genband has become a mini Alcatel-Lucent for all practical purposes. And most of the analysts in the room found it a beneficial meeting as they are able to much better understand how all the Genband pieces fit together for customers. The company is more like a TEM 2.0 - all the patents and history associated with a legacy company through acquisitions but the agility of a much smaller and more hungry organization.

Perhaps the most similar companies are Cisco and Oracle - which is the highest form of praise. Moreover the company is laser-focused on a number of areas but taking share from Metaswitch and Acme Packet seems to be high on the priority list and one can imagine that taking these companies on while improving margins will be an interesting challenge.

If Genband has an IPO and it is very successful it could with the assistance of a strong Skype IPO help add even more fuel to the fast-growing tech sector and bring even more investment into the space.

The next few months and years will be interesting to watch as the company is one of the few strong acquirers in telecom and tech and they have a global platform which enables them to quickly add on new products and solutions.

Similar to Cisco, the company is in a position to quickly acquire a company for a relatively low valuation and instantly increase sales via global distribution. Just the arbitrage game they can play by doing this repeatedly can add tremendous value and help them grow their carrier relationships worldwide. In short, kep watching this space and company.

I am off to the Metaswitch Forum in Orlando next and then to IT EXPO in Los Angeles - conference registrations for the expo today were off the charts and we have sold out every hotel block we have booked. It should be a solid few weeks of education and networking and I can't wait.

iPad goes to China, Crooks Mine Facebook and ITEXPO Highlights

2010-09-14T00:52:48Z

As the first week of the fall begins, there is a wealth of news to share such as China getting the iPad, Facebook status updates leading to burglaries, another high- level departure at Nokia and GoDaddy.com looking to sell itself for a billion dollars.

The pace of acquisitions hasn't slowed as of late - HP just announced it will acquire ArcSight to bolster its security offering and PAETEC will pick up Cavalier Telephone.

Perhaps the biggest news of all is Wal-Mart's entry into the MVNO space - they will be reselling T-Mobile's service.

If there is a common theme here - it's that technology continues to be full of opportunity as it becomes more common. When Wal-Mart decides to become a phone company and thieves start mining social networks you know we have crossed the chasm.

TMC educates millions of readers each month and twice a year we gather 8-10 thousand of the movers and shakers in tech in a single place - at ITEXPO and a number of related events. Our next event is October 4-6, 2010 in Los Angeles.

I've kept you updated on the event and will continue to do so with this post.

Here are the new exhibitors:

· BlueTie added to MSPworld Exhibitor List

· Pangea Communications Contracts for a booth at ITEXPO

· Ciena Contracts for a sponsorship at Lightwave One

· Star 2 Star Contracts for a booth at ITEXPO

· APEX Voice Contracts for a booth at ITEXPO

Here are the latest speakers which were just added:

OS-03 Open Source Telephony for Everything BUT an IP PBX (ITEXPO)
Darren Schreiber	CEO	2600hz
SC-13 Untethering The Contact Center (Social CRM Expo)
Daryle Lamoureux	Product Marketing Manager	VXi Corp.
SP-07 Drive Revenue, Increase Profit Margins, Reduce Costs, and Build Your Subscriber Base (ITEXPO)
Brian Worthen	CEO	Mammoth Networks
OS-05 Open Source IP PBX Roundtable/Shootout (ITEXPO)
Tristan Barnum	Switchvox Product Marketing	Digium
CC-01 The Next Generation of IP-Based Conferencing (ITEXPO)
Jim Courtney		In Store Solutions
CCS-12 Using the Cloud to Support Social Media Strategies (Cloud Communications Summit)
Nitin Badjatia	Customer Experience Strategist	RightNow
CC-04 Videoconferencing QoS: Removing Barriers to Entry (ITEXPO)
Simon Dudley	Global Strategist	Lifesize Communications
D-03 Beyond the Browser Adding Voice & Real-Time Text to Your Web Apps (ITEXPO)
Adam Kalsey	Manager Developer Network	Voxeo Corporation
APT-06 Mobile, Multiplayer, Multimedia Gaming
Nathan Richardson	Executive Producer	CCP Games
OS-02 Open Source in the Customer Service and Contact Center Environment
Corey McFadden	Managing Partner	Infradapt
OS-05 Open Source IP PBX Roundtable/Shootout (ITEXPO)
Andrew Gillis	trixbox Founder	Fonality
B-05 Meet the HD Handset Vendors
Kim Murtagh	Director - SIP Communications	Panasonic
Lots of MSP World Sessions added Below
MSP-02 Winning Strategies to Sell Managed Services
Karen Sage		CA Technologies
MSP-03 Managed Services Accreditation Program and SAS 70: Charting a Path
Cody Griffin		Frazer Frost PLLC
MSP-04 A Network Security Value Meal Your Way: How a Burger King Franchise Solved its Network Security Needs
Nathan Austin		MyTech Partners
MSP-05 Choosing a MSP Pricing Model: Does one size fit all?
Lane Smith (Moderator)		Do IT Smarter
MSP-06 Building Your Pipeline Through Networking Events and Email Marketing
Barbara Dove		Dove Help Desk
MSP-08 How to Do Cloud Computing Securely
Scott West		CloudSway
MSP-09 Trojan Horse Approach: Acquire New Clients Using Security Practices
John Verry		PivotPoint Security
MSP-10 Increase Sales by Fueling Your Lead Generation Engine
Brian Sherman		Tech Success Communications
MSP-12 Regulatory Compliance and the Role of the MSP
Saylor Frase		Nuspire
MSP-13 Don't be Afraid of Twitter: How MSPs Can Use Social Media
Gene Fay		Nine Technology
MSP-14 Navigating the New Normal
Lawrence Walsh	President and CEO,	The 2112 Group
MSP-15 New Revenue Sharing Models: How MSPs and the Channel Will Benefit from Cloud Services
Jay Hallberg		SpiceWorks
MSP-16 Using the Internet to Automate your Marketing
Mike Cooch		Kutenda
VC-06 Virtualizing Your Contact Center (App Time)
Jason Hochman	Director - Enterprise and Channel Sales	Angel.com
APT-03 Show me the App Money
Eric Hernaez	CEO	netmobo

You can see there is tremendous activity around these events and we are now on the 4^th hotel block as the last three have sold out. Be sure to book your travel soon and we hope to see you in LA.

Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Google and ITEXPO News September 1, 2010

2010-09-02T16:30:04Z

It has been an extremely exciting week again for tech news and moreover for me personally as I got a chance to open up my Sony Dash and it is a very cool addition to my desktop as it allows me to view my photos and take advantage of widgets of all kinds which among other thinks allow me to see the pandas at the San Diego Zoo. This handy gadget has a slew of communications, social networking and calendar features as well but for now, I just want to see the pandas.

The big news from yesterday of course was Steve Jobs onstage pushing a slew of new iPods and a rental-only model for Apple TV and a social network integrated into iTunes. The presentation began with Jobs showing slides of new Apple stores in China and France - which were architectural wonders blending new and old-world architecture in ways which other tech companies can only dream of.

Steve Jobs seems to be one of the only tech CEOs who has both the left and right brain working at optimal capacity.

Then there is the hurricane - this time Earl which is scheduled to slam into TMC's headquarters this weekend. These tips for IT could prove useful before the roofs cave in. Most of my coworkers think the weather reporters are wrong by the way.

Response to Apple's dominance from Microsoft consists in part by the launch of the Arc Touch Mouse which seems like it could be the cousin of an Apple product.

Comparisons between Apple and Google have stepped up as well with a recent article comparing iOS web devices to those of the Linux variety - iOS beats Linux and also beats Android six to one. Moreover, there have also been comparison articles pitting Google TV against Apple's offering and it seems the less disruptive Apple approach has a better chance to win in the long-term unless Google does something radical to spur adoption.

On the Smart Grid front, Cisco and Itron are working together to standardize the industry by ensuring wired and wireless communications work seamlessly.

In terms of TMC, it has been a very busy week since my last communication on the matter. Here are some recent corporate press releases including those about ITEXPO and collocated conferences such as 4GWE:

TMC Announces Major Expansion of TMCnet Editorial Team (4 new editors added)
ITEXPO's Cloud Communications Summit Reaches for the Sky
Netformx Now Supports ShoreTel Products
ITEXPO West Speaker: Anything-as-a-Service on the Horizon?
4G Wireless Evolution - Wi-Fi Leader Xirrus Becomes the Latest Sponsor of 4GWE Conference in Los Angeles (See related blog entry from Tom Keating - this is how the release looks with graphics)
ITEXPO West Speaker: CDG Director Explores Innovations and Challenges in the Wireless Market
Brough Turner to Keynote 4GWE, Monday, October 4
Beth Halvorson to Keynote 4GWE, Tuesday, October 5

In addition, Carl Ford sent out communication on the wireless backhaul market and explains how capacity is still an issue as a result of the mobile device explosion. Jon Arnold sent out session information on the upcoming Smart Grid Summit Oct 4-6 in the Los Angeles Convention Center and moreover explains why it is a can't miss event. Finally, Stephen Hardy talks about the Lightwave One event taking place during the same week and why it is important to attend.

Some of the new exhibitors from the last few days are worth noting as well:

Nuspire Networks added as MSPworld Exhibitor
Qualcomm Contracts to be Platinum Sponsor of 4GWE
Acme Packet Contracts to be a Gold Sponsor of VIPeering

Here are the new speakers to the various events

MC-03 Roam Free - The Future of Mobile VoIP

Bill Yaman

Senior VP of Sales and Marketing

GoAhead Software

SP-14 "Self-Service" Telecom and Beyond

Chris Berluti

Sonus Networks

SC-09 The Work at Home Model for Customer Contacts: Strategies and Best Practices (Social CRM)

Michele Rowan

President

Customer Contact Strategies

OS-03 Open Source Telephony for Everything BUT an IP PBX

OS-04 I Didn't Know You Could do That with Open Source: A Technology Focus

Frederic Dickey

Director of Marketing and Product Management

Sangoma

MODERATOR OF THE OPEN SOURCE TRACK

Jeff Dworkin

Enterprise Marketing Manager, Dialogic Corporation

Dialogic Corporation

Smart Wireless Workshop

Bruce Bowers

Vice President, Business Development

MedApps

CC-01 The Next Generation of IP-Based Conferencing

Andy Abramson (Moderator)

CEO

Comunicano, Inc.

Here are some of my famous ( :) )interviews with speakers, exhibitors and sponsors of ITEXPO and the related events:

NAME	COMPANY	Excerpt
Mark Ricca	Intellicom Analytics	"2011 will be a better year than 2010 in every respect. It will be a year marked by an increased number of IT acquisitions and mergers."
Ian Colville	Aculab	"Apple's products always look good, but they don't necessarily have the edge when it comes to functionality, which is more important for business users."
Perry LaForge	CDMA	"The continued hybridization of wireless networks to include femtocells, pico cells, micro cells, remote radio heads, Wi-Fi (802.11n) and LTE will have the greatest impact in 2011, as operators seek to handle the ongoing rise in enterprise and consumer wireless data consumption."
Doug Mohney	The HD Connect Project	"Ignoring the political posturing, the has presented a decade-long roadmap of sorts for a migration to an IP majority world in telephony, including the reworking of USF and intercarrier compensation. Hopefully, the important changes that need to be done will be done in a decade, rather than having it turn into a Digital-TV-style fiasco with someone's grandchildren dealing with settlements."
David Byrd	Broadvox	On smartphone wars: "Long term, we anticipate the Android will obtain equal share in the consumer market and eventually take the lead over Blackberry in the Business sector. In the Tablet wars it is still too early to determine a victor. Many, including me, question the need for another standalone device."

Once again, we look forward to welcoming you to ITEXPO which takes place in about a month in Los Angeles - Oct 4-6, 2010. Show hotel room blocks continue to sell out at a rapid clip so book now to avoid a hotel room in Timbuktu.

Actual photo of Timbuktu :)

Technology and TMC Happenings August 26, 2010

2010-08-27T03:02:54Z

SkyFire Comes to iPhone

I was a huge fan of SkyFire on Windows Mobile as it approximated the iPhone Safari browser on a Windows Mobile device while also supporting Flash. Now it seems this browser is coming to the iPhone and I wonder if Apple will force the company to disable the Flash support to ensure it abides by the company's rules of not allowing other "programming languages" to run on it.

TMC Communities Continue Growth

Over a decade ago I had the idea that every Web site in the world would need content in the form of articles, audio and video and in order to help customers meet these needs I launched a company called infofill.com which I eventually decided would make more sense as a series of content-based communities living under TMCnet.

Over the years, I realized this product was the future of media and for a decade TMC has focused on building technology - specifically a proprietary content-targeting-engine which optimizes news and opinion pieces as well as videos for readers who in turn consume the content and help these micro-communities rank high on search engines and social networks.

I just received word that TMC has currently sold 199 of these news-generated communities and we are hiring to accommodate our growth as these custom communities are built and populated. I am fairly certain this is the largest collection of monthly sponsored news-generated communities on the planet. I'd love to hear from you if you believe this isn't the case.

Once again a major thank you to my readers and of course sponsors - without you, TMC would be like a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it and we are always looking to do whatever it takes to improve our products so you can rely on them when making purchasing decisions. We will likely put out a press release when we hit 200 and you know I like to keep my readers updated ahead of the rest of the world. :)

In terms of ITEXPO and related events it has been another solid day.

I can't recall if I mentioned lately that we are still giving away a car at this show - this year a Mustang Convertible. You have to be present to win Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 4:45 PM. TMC has been giving away a few cars a year at our trade shows year fairly consistently for about 15 years. Here are the details.

I am not precisely sure the Mustang you win will have the exact options seen in this photo or will be this color. Oh and I am pretty sure the cowboy costs extra

Our new speakers from today are as follows:

MC-03 Roam Free - The Future of Mobile VoIP

Karl Good

Director of Consumer Applications

Truphone

ITEXPO

CCS-16 How Service Providers can Benefit from Cloud Communications

Mark Denny

Senior Product Line Manager of Service Provider

Brocade

Cloud Communications

SP-11 Meet The New Voice Mail

Felix Gofman

Vice President Sales & Business Development

Yap

ITEXPO

We released updates on the following events at the show today:

SIP Tutorial: Carl Ford sent me a reminder about all the benefits of this session which include learning about SIP messaging, SIP Server types, SIP trunking, UC, security, firewall, NAT issues and more.
MPLS University: I just learned there will be giveaways of Amazon gift certificates and Starbucks coffee cards - in addition to well-regarded education on a red-hot subject area.
MSP World/ITEXPO - a general information update on these two events.
SIP Trunk-UC Summit: A great event with A+ sponsors including Dialogic, Broadvox, Iwatsu, Mitel, ShoreTel, Intertex and the SIP School.
Smart Products - Learn all you need to know about mobile health, smart health products, smart autos and smart homes from industry leading companies:
Ed Daniels (Moderator)Consultant -Point of Care Partners
Wayne Guerra, MD, MBA Chief Medical Officer -Healthagen, LLC
Carol Glennon CEO -Renu Mobile
Ronald J. Pion MD Clinical Professor -UCLA School of Medicine
Robin Wright (Moderator) Partner -MedHealth World
Dr. Philip Low Chairman, and CEO -NeuroVigil
David O'Reilly Senior VP, Corporate Development -Proteus Biomedical
Adam Kaufman Co-founder, COO -DPSHealth
Sanjeev Gupta General Manager -Avaya Healthcare Solutions
Ralf Hug (Moderator) Consultant
Sascha Simon Advanced Product Planning -Mercedes-Benz USA
Henry Bzeih Manager, Connectd Car -Kia Motors America
Andrew Poliak Co-founder, COO -DPSHealth
Sanjeev Gupta Director, Automotive Business Development -QNX Software Systems
Jason Rodriguez (Moderator) Director of Research -Zpryme Research
Seth Frader-Thompson CEO -EnergyHub
Doug Smith Chief Administrative Officer -City of Annapolis
Fred Taylor Senior Marketing Manager -Broadcom

We also added two new ITEXPO Exhibitors today:

Sansay
Strategic Products and Services

Here are two interviews I conducted today with ITEXPO participants:

NAME	COMPANY
Jim Dalton	TransNexus
Mykola Konrad	Sonus Networks

Wow - what a day and you wonder why I didn't have time to deal with my new Sony Dash? I thought I would get to it tomorrow but turns out I have a meeting in New York with Cisco so expect more soon and be sure to make plans for ITEXPO West 2010, Oct 4-6, 2010 in Los Angeles ASAP and we'll see you there.