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Better M&A, management and marketing skills always win the war

As Ron Gruia pointed out this morning, the Nortel fire sale continues and a once-great company with a market cap of $250 billion is effectively being sold off at bargain-basement prices. In fact NSN picked up the ailing Canadian company's CDMA and LTE business for about one times revenue or $650 million. At this rate the entire company will be sold off for a total of $2 billion. The silver lining in this dark news is that customers will be able to have a solid company behind them in NSN and thankfully at least 2,500 employees working in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and China will be able to maintain their jobs working for NSN.

As a show of support for the deal, EDC or Export Development Canada is throwing in $300 million toward an NSN credit facility - a full 10x more than the agency was willing to commit to Nortel!

For NSN the deal means a stronger North American presence and also they go from not having a CDMA business to becoming number two. They will have to work hard to maintain this business as Asian rivals are coming on strong. An additional benefit of the deal is a number of LTE patents, technology and expertise which will come in very handy as the world transitions to faster wireless broadband networks.

I have seen some surmise Nortel went down because of open source and the Internet and to some degree this is part of the problem. But perhaps the biggest problem at Nortel was failure to adjust to a market that moves faster than ever coupled with the inability to effectively integrate acquired companies. Some Nortel employees told me the company was too flexible with the companies they acquired and should have set tougher rules regarding integration.

The major take away from this ordeal is how a company with superior technology got beaten by other companies with inferior technology but better M&A, management and marketing skills. At the end of the day the products are important but as Nortel continues to show us, having great technology alone does not a long-term successful strategy make.

I have to admit I was impatient and when I learned I could follow some easy steps to upgrade to the shipping version of the iPhone 3.0 software before the June 17 general availability date -- I just had to try it. Of course it helped to have fellow TMC blogger Tom Keating there to step me through the process. You see Tom wrote a piece yesterday detailing exactly what you need to do to get ahead of the pack and be the first in your neighborhood to type emails on your iPhone in landscape mode.

The instructions are here but I should warn you that although the process is dead easy it can take many hours to go through the upgrade. It took me about six hours for the new OS to be downloaded, the software to be restored, the apps to be loaded, the podcasts to be downloaded and the photos to be synced. Then again I have thousands of contacts and photos and over 50 applications.

Apple has done a wonderful job of backing up and restoring the iPhone devices so OS upgrades are smooth. However, one past pain point of iPhone OS upgrades was having to reenter the WEP keys needed for secure WiFi. To my happy surprise I didn't have to reenter a single WEP key as a result of this upgrade.

So is the upgrade worth it? I have to say yes. The push email works great and the landscape keyboard in email makes typing on this device infinitely better. It is also less clunky when sending a URL to someone as in the past you had to switch from landscape to portrait when opening the email application for a send. In addition, when looking at a list of emails you can now tell which is a Cc, Bcc or direct send which is signified by a "To" symbol. Ironically there is no Bcc symbol meaning if there is no symbol you have been Bcced. This is an important addition to the OS as quite often mobile devices make it more difficult to know if you have been Bcced meaning users can accidentally reply to all without realizing they probably shouldn't.

There is also MMS support but this won't work on AT&T Wireless for now. Copy and paste is a much-needed function and works as advertised - the fact that one of the most advanced smartphones on the market "forgot" to add cut and paste sooner still baffles me and I am sure I will be telling my grandkids about it someday.

Spotlight search is another much-needed function - especially when you realize there is no way to organize applications, and is activated when you scroll all the way to the left from the home page. Searches will sift through contacts, programs, calendar, email, songs and other data on the phone but unlike the Palm Pre will not check the web if the device search comes back empty.

Voice Memos are a great addition allowing you to record your voice and send the recordings via email if desired. Third-party apps did this in the past but like many other operating systems, upgrades entail taking popular software packages and replicating their functionality.

The calendar has been improved as well with the ability to add repeating reminders but these are limited to fixed time periods like every week, 2 weeks, month or year. Ideally you would be allowed to enter recurring reminders for selected days - like every Monday or the first Wednesday of the month. In addition - what if someone wants a three-week reminder? You may think at first that they just don't have three-week recurring meetings in Cupertino... The reality of course is this was a design decision which gives most of the functionality you need in a clear and uncluttered interface.

Then there are calendar reminders... I would have preferred to have the ability to set a reminder more than two-days before an appointment and a version 3.0 upgrade would have been a great opportunity to add this option. Microsoft Windows Mobile has had this ability for years so there seems to be no technical reason to exclude such a feature.

Safari is supposed to be faster and it may be I haven't been able to verify this- likely because with push email turned on the device is constantly getting new emails so I am getting less processor for my foreground applications. I did check out the browser's ability to remember passwords - this worked out fine and is a welcome addition.

Internet tethering could not be tested because AT&T doesn't allow this functionality. I will be in Europe tomorrow and if the carrier allows it I will give this a try. I gave Bluetooth stereo a shot and found it paired with both the Plantronics Pulsar 590 stereo headphones and Sharper Image Bluetooth Speakers. For some reason the sound would not come out of the Sharper Image speakers but the Plantronics headset worked fine.

Other functions such as accessing multiple iTunes accounts, shake to shuffle, notes syncing, syncing multiple email folders and YouTube login were not tried. Remote wiping wasn't tried either for obvious reasons.

Apple took a very good phone and made it much better with this upgrade. Typing emails in landscape mode is a veritable pleasure compared to portrait and when you combine this function with cut and paste and push email the iPhone becomes a more credible corporate smartphone meaning Palm, Nokia, Microsoft and RIM have more to worry about.

So now heavy iPhone users probably don't need to be concerned about the keyboard as much as before but they will need to start thinking about spare external batteries. The reason is simple. The iPhone 3.0 is more usable and with push email and bluetooth stereo enabled, you can expect even less battery life.

It is worth explaining that Windows Mobile also drains battery life quickly for heavy email users in push mode. The alternative is RIM devices which do much better in push mode and are optimized in many ways to maximize battery life regardless of mode.

Should you upgrade? Yes. Should you do it early? That is up to you but you should be really happy with the new iPhone 3.0 software, it is a winner.

There is nothing that builds a resume more like an award and if you are a developer, you definitely want to keep an eye on the new Dialogic Innovator Award contest which will not only give you some great bragging rights, you could win some prizes as well.


Dialogic was nice enough to ask me to be one of the judges in fact and I am looking forward to being part of this program. Winners get a free one-year service and support contract, a $5,000 credit towards future Dialogic products, t-shirts, press releases and an Innovator logo which I imagine can be invaluable in boosting a company's marketing efforts.

Sure it isn't a $75,000 motorcycle - which makes a great gift for your favorite blogger by the way, but hey, times are tough.

The catch? None really - you have to apply of course and Dialogic wants to also take a moment to invite you to participate in the Dialogic Exchange Network while they have your attention.

At one point in my career I was a programmer and I wish I had the time to participate in this contest. If I did, I would write an app that taps into all my social networks and then monitors my cell phone's GPS to determine when I am in the car. When I am driving, I would want it to call me every 15 minutes and update me on what's happening with my friends and relatives. I would want my news alerts tapped as well in case there is breaking news I need to know about.

Oh and of course I would want WAV file to social networking integration in this app so I could speak and have the files live on the net with links from Twitter, etc.

But that's just me and you don't need to do what I said to win. It wouldn't hurt of course. You have until September 30^th 2009 to apply so open a new window right now and get started. Good luck!

On a recent flight back from Europe I marveled at the ice littering the North Atlantic. A flight attendant told me it was sad as what appeared to be ice cubes from a mile or more in the air used to be icebergs. I am concerned about the environment but I am not sure I agree with the carbon cap and trade system being proposed in the US as it could adversely impact the economy.

But last I checked, regulation gets passed without my express permission and in a world where CO2 is becoming a pollutant, you need to be more aware of energy use and carbon emissions than ever before.

I am especially looking forward to the upcoming sponsored TelcoBridges webinar on TMCnet which will help educate the market on how data centers can lower their energy use.

Even if cap and trade does not become reality this year it is apparent that governments are more and more likely to impose penalties for carbon emissions. Since reducing energy use saves money as well, it behooves everyone with data center decision making authority to be part of this timely event.

For nearly 13 years, Greg Galitzine has been a tremendously valuable part of the TMC team. His career started as an editor for CTI Magazine in 1996. Where he reported on the collision of the computer and communications spaces including what we called IP telephony back in the day. In 1997 we convened a meeting with Greg to explore whether it made sense to launch a publication in the IP telephony space. The outcome of the meeting was to launch what we hoped would become a cornerstone of what we hoped would be a new industry - Internet Telephony Magazine.

Greg became the editor of this publication and had the vision to see this is where the industry was going. Many companies in the communications space told us we were nuts for launching this publication as at the time there was no industry, just a few nerds calling each other on softphones.

Lo and behold, over the past decade this nerdy, niche technology revolutionized telecom to the point where business models have changed, new entrants have come into the telecom market and entire industries were transformed through international outsourcing made possible by inexpensive VoIP-based telephony.

In the last few years, Greg did a great job helping transform TMCnet into a major web force in communications and technology news. We are grateful to him for the years he has put in.

I am very happy for Greg as recently he has been given a great opportunity which involves a move to a new industry altogether. Galitzine has accepted a position with ISA, Inc., a prime contractor to the National Nuclear Security Administration and working in about 18 countries through Central and Eastern Europe to identify and interdict the illegal movement of materials for weapons of mass destruction. Greg will be taking his analytical and editorial skills to a higher level, contributing to national-level policy and operational support analysis for these major international nonproliferation undertakings.

While we all selfishly wish Greg wouldn't move on, we are happy for him and are sure he will make a tremendous impact in his new position.

It looks like Nortel could be gone as a standalone company in the next few weeks according to published reports. The news is sad but true. It looks like Avaya or Siemens could pick up the enterprise pieces. The optical division could go to Fujitsu, Huaweii, Alcatel-Lucent or potentially a private equity firm. The wireless unit could go to NSN.

What is terrible about the situation from my perspective is the communications and tech spaces are doing well relative to most other markets. In other words, this downturn for these markets has not been terrible. And there is a chance we could see these spaces bounce back faster than other industries.

This IMHO makes the Nortel assets very valuable as they are going for bargain-basement prices and their upside potential is probably good.

I should mention that some of the companies on the list above are not known for their customer facing marketing... If you are one of those companies you will likely not see the value from the assets you pick up.

The real value here is to put a better sales and marketing engine in front of some of the best engineering around. If that is done it will be the best possible outcome for employees, customers and the acquirers.

While wandering around VoiceCon recently, I was struck by how many different kinds of communications platforms are available for organizations, and many companies attempting to tackle unified communications must eventually find themselves in a multivendor environment needing "unified management". How does one administer and do "Moves, Adds, Changes and Deletes" (MACDs) under such conditions?

Fortunately, I ran into Unimax at the show, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based, privately-held company specializing in unified voice administration applications. Their flagship product, 2nd Nature, replaces the native interfaces of your multi-vendor PBX, voice mail and other business systems with a single, easy-to-use administration tool. 2nd Nature can unify the management of MACDs, password resets (assisted and self-service), automated provisioning, automated voice mail list management, transaction auditing, reporting, and other things. Unimax' 2nd Nature also makes possible integration between your voice network and business systems such as Active Directory, HR, call accounting, E-911, and so forth. By concentrating such administrative abilities into a single point, companies can further reduce operational costs, strengthen security, increase visibility and control, and improve internal customer service.

At the show, Unimax "pre-announced" their release of 2nd Nature Version 6.8. This most recent version of 2nd Nature will have support for AVST's CallXpress and Cisco's Unity Connection. Version 6.8 also enhances existing compatibility with PBX and voicemail systems from Avaya, Cisco, and Nortel. For example, there's now compatibility with Avaya's Modular Messaging Version 5.0 and Cisco's UCM Version 6.1.3 and 7.0.1. Support will also be added for Nortel's 1200-series phone sets. It also enhances compatibility with Microsoft Active Directory, contains a few new workflow productivity enhancements, and other types of business systems will also be supported and enhanced in the new version. Hence, Unimax 2nd Nature is now compatible with systems from quite an array of vendors: Avaya, AVST, Cisco, Nortel, Aastra, Microsoft, and others.

Todd Remely, Director of Marketing at Unimax Systems, says, "In addition to having 2nd Nature support AVST's CallXpress, we're also partnering with AVST. Adding AVST and Cisco to what we're compatible with has come in response to industry demand. Enterprises and managed service providers now have a way to inexpensively unify and simplify administration of complex multi-vendor voice systems. In terms of cost reduction alone, 2nd Nature now not only offers multivendor visibility and management of PBX and voicemail systems, but customers can use their system to gain visibility and control and management of all those platforms. There's improved internal customer service, password resets are easy, security has been improved, and 2nd Nature now has a single sign-in. In this way password proliferation is kept under control, since there's easier password management now available."

Unimax' only competition are genuine native systems, the administration of which are still independent. But don't worry, Unimax' partners are helping to get the message out.

If you look at TMC from the outside and find yourself asking how you can get a job as an intern at this global integrated media company which builds communities online, in print and in person while gaining marketshare regardless of economic climate, I have some great news to share. We are looking for a small army of interns who want to learn what it's like to take on major multibillion dollar media companies with infinite resources and consistently win.

We will teach you how to sell collaboratively - how to listen and to be loved by your customers (well most of them anyway).

We will teach you integrated marketing and online marketing - not theory but ever-evolving practice.

If you love media and want to work at the company that is light years ahead online, contact us ASAP. We are very picky so if you aren't a super-hard worker and collaboration and hat-wearing are not your middle names, let's end our relationship now as friends (it's not you it's me).

One last thought about TMC - our culture is unusual - we have the financial stability of a 37 year-old company with the energy and enthusiasm of a start-up.

Let's just say if you're thinking of contacting us, please don't delay


Here's more:

The Sales & Marketing internship position at TMC is designed to provide hands-on experience that will be mutually beneficial for both the intern and the organization. The internship position is designed to challenge students and provide them with practical experience in the advertising and media industry.

TMC is looking for a dynamic, creative, enthusiastic, high energy professional to support the Sales organization, to help build advertising and marketing presentations for prospects and clients.

• Work with sales & marketing team to assist in the implementation of various campaigns
• Contribute to the creative input in building campaigns and support the campaigns
• Copyediting and proofreading
• Communicate with customers and peers
• Minimum Qualifications:
• Working towards completion of a college degree program in business, marketing or communication
• Excellent communication skills verbal and written
• Proficient in Microsoft Office suite, specifically PowerPoint and Excel
• Excellent communication skills
• Detail Oriented
• Initiative and proactive thinking
• Team player
• Ability to multi-task and work in a fast paced environment meeting deadlines

Updated 7:56 PM EST, April 20, 2009

We are in what we may want to call an open-source friendly economy and in such a market companies are more likely than ever to be persuaded that free software is worth serious consideration. But what about support? Sure you can get it from your local reseller or consultant but what happens when he is on vacation in Alaska on that fishing trip where he doesn't take his phone? Even this economy may not be enough to convince that VAR with a solid customer base that he needs to communicate with you while wrangling that 25 pound Chinook salmon into the net.

If you are a self-respecting fisherman, would you give up this

To answer this?

By now we all know the Chinese symbol for crisis and opportunity is the same and as you worry about your next Asterisk crisis, I would like to present you with the opportunity to learn more about Digium's Support Services. Digium's Bill Miller and Leslie Conway took some time from their busy schedules to brief me on the new offering and were very excited to say it allows companies to get support on a subscription basis with discounts for multiple year sign-ups. Until now, support was on an incident basis and now you can have support for 12 hours a day, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM in your local time for five days each week.

Found bugs will get entered in a bug tracker and yes, this is the first time Digium has chosen to provide support for open source Asterisk. And furthermore, even if you don't use the company's hardware, they will support you. This includes solutions such as Trixbox CE, Elastix, PBX in a Flash, etc. Of course this applies to the core Asterisk portion of such solutions. Also, if you happen to have Digium cards you get advanced replacement.