Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Speech Technologies Archives

Blackberry 10 like Siri uses Productivity to Differentiate

2012-05-01T19:24:58Z

Apple's iPhone 4S is perhaps most known for Siri the built-in personal assistant which has had mixed reviews. Still, in-part because of this feature, the company has sold iPhones by the boatload.

RIM, who is fighting to regain market share has come at the productivity game from a different angle - the predictive text technology in its soon to be released Blackberry 10 OS is much-improved and has the potential to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to communicate on a smartphone or tablet.

For information workers - it seems the more you work, the more there is to do. Especially when you consider the huge time suck associated with social networking, watching online video and gaming and book-reading on the go using the latest crop of tablets.

Although it is soon to say that RIM has nailed it with its new OS, it does look better than previous operating systems from the company. Now the question is how long before the functionality is copied by others and the patent war over this feature begins?

See analysis from the AP, a hands-on review from CNet and comments fom USA Today.

Apple's New TV to Force Tech Refresh and Cause More Apple Dominance

2012-03-19T16:36:59Z

Early in the year Samsung wowed users at CES with it’s unveiling of the Galaxy Note, a 5.3 inch wonder with WXGA resolution or 1280x800. To put that in perspective, there are many 15 inch laptops with the same resolution. Apple for its part countered with the New iPad sporting a 9.7 inch display with 2048x1536 pixel density or a full 264 pixels per inch – the same as the iPhone 4s. The iPad boasts four times the number of pixels as the iPad 2 and one million more pixels than HDTV at 1920x1080 pixels.

It is worth pointing out that the iPhone 4 and 4S have a whopping pixel density of 326! The Samsung Galaxy Note has 285 pixels-per-inch but uses Pentile Technology using two sub-pixels instead of three which is said to make these numbers not directly compatible with other manufacturers.

There has been a great deal of talk about a new Apple TV – one which incorporates a screen and there is certainly a division between people who believe it will be wildly successful and others who think it isn’t needed.

But if we look at the progression of the Retina Display from the iPhone 4S to the New iPad – doesn’t it make sense that this same technology innovation will come to a new Apple TV?

And if the argument can be made that more pixels are better on small screens which are used a few feet from your face, wouldn’t it also make sense to use this argument for a TV which usually is 8-12 feet away?

But the problem is that there isn’t programming to drive this resolution.

But will this stop Apple from being successful? Maybe not.

I believe the company is likely in talks with numerous content producers about producing higher resolution content to take advantage of not only the retina display on the iPad but future formats the company is working on.

And when this happens, the demand for bandwidth will increase even faster than it is today. There will be a need for more storage, faster processors, faster pipes, new satellites, more fiber, and a refresh of DVD libraries – assuming people still want their media stored on plastic.

For all the talk of fancy new technologies which were rumored to be incorporated into new Apple devices like some sort of advanced haptic feedback system and a curved screen, the breakthrough technology of the past few product refresh cycles (aside from Siri – if you consider that a breakthrough) has been pixels. Moreover, if we do see an Apple TV, expect it to push the pixel limit and it will have to have content to power it – no doubt much of it stored in iTunes.

And if Apple finds itself in a position to not only be controlling the content distribution but setting video standards, it will make competition that much more difficult.

Richard Bloch at Seeking Alpha recently wrote that Apple could become a $2 trillion company or four times as large as it is today by market cap. And this estimate factors in “the next big thing” which he defines potentially as a new TV.

Certainly we can expect Apple’s new TV to have a simpler user interface and likely make use of speech recognition but it seems a foregone conclusion that the top three selling points will be pixels, pixels and pixels and if I am correct, we can expect a technology refresh cycle of epic proportions and most of this new buying could favor Cupertino.

Read about Apple's plans for its cash stockpile on TMCnet and ZDNet.

Disclosure: The author owns Apple shares.

Chinese Nortel Hack Unconfirmed by my Sources

2012-02-16T01:33:35Z

Although reports have been swirling regarding Chinese hackers breaking into Nortel's computers for over ten years in order to steal trade secrets, I have been unable to confirm such a breach took place. I have tapped into a few high-level sources and they were unaware of anything like this happening - the internal Nortel employees would almost certainly need to know if such an attack was taking place.

After all, reports say that even Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski had a computer which was compromised.

One of the reasons Nortel went bankrupt had to do with Chinese competitors Huawei and ZTE undercutting Nortel on price for carrier wireless and other products. So it easy to understand why many would easily believe that Nortel had been hacked.

And hacks from China are not unusual - they have happened to numerous US companies and even government agencies.

But again, would you not let your company workers know if this was the case?

Siobhan Gorman has a story in the Wall Street Journal on what happened at Nortel and it seems there is enough information to make you believe the hack was real. But still, I remain skeptical that the breach if it happened was on such a massive scale. I reached out to Siobhan in order to see if there are any public documents which would enlighten us. I will advise you if I hear of anything - please drop me a line if you know of anything as well.

The Only Way Google can be Successful in Consumer Electronics

2012-02-10T14:25:30Z

Yesterday I detailed how Google IS the tech news of the day and folks, this search leader is ambitious – more so than Microsoft ever was. In addition to a Dropbox killer and massive Google+ growth I outlined in this recent post, the company is also getting into the home entertainment business through its Motorola Mobility acquisition. Specifically Google will release a self-branded line of consumer electronics allowing you to stream music throughout your home.

Google already has a cloud-based music service so obviously there is synergy there but the only way I see this strategy working is by Google doing things differently.

My loyal readers know I am a fan of Sonos – they sell an in-home audio streaming service which integrates with Slacker, Pandora, Sirius/XM, Spotify and even integrates with iOS devices and iTunes libraries stored on computers. In-short, you have access to all your music and favorite radio from any room. But Sonos products although they are great, are not cheap. The company’s Play:5 for example will set you back $399 and the company’s Bridge which you’ll also need adds another $49 to the total.

Sure this is cheaper than wired alternatives but at just over 1,000,000 rooms the company has a long way to go before it becomes the audio equivalent of Apple.

Moreover the palindromic Sonos taps into existing ecosystems – it doesn’t get involved with them. In other words you have the option to pay for the ad-free or premium versions of each radio service you are interested in.

Google execs woke up today and realized Apple’s market cap just surpassed the combined value of it and Microsoft together. It understands the ecosystem is the future. And Google’s strength is selling ads.

What this means is that Google needs to have its own streaming radio station and moreover needs to get into the radio advertising business again – the last time it tried it had disastrous results but I would liken this sort of radio ad model more similar to YouTube than traditional radio advertising. All of this is great news for Google because they excel at on-demand as opposed to real-time ad selling – for the moment.

So what I see Google having to do is integrate radio ads into its music streaming service but more importantly it needs to one-up Siri by speech-enabling all the devices in the house before Apple beats them to it. Remember that in December of 2009, Apple purchased streaming service Lala and at the time I surmised it was to Get Apple into the in-home streaming business.

The race is on.

Back to Google – it obviously would want to integrate Google+ into any of its new offerings allowing users to share the music they are listening to, the programs they are watching, and everything else.

Sonos for its part has nearly-perfected home audio. Google should think about picking them up rather than reinventing the wheel. Moreover, if Google is really serious about this market it should consider an acquisition of Bose – if the privately-held company would consider such a deal. That way it could have an established brand with retail stores which will allow it to go head-to-head with Apple in malls worldwide.

So I see the only viable future for Google in home entertainment being a subsidized model like the Amazon Kindle Fire. It is just unclear if advertising will generate enough revenue to offset the hundred dollars or more I believe the company will have to discount each product to gain the massive traction it needs in the market. As we know, Google hasn’t been successful in retail and Motorola Mobility has had some moments of brilliance in the past but got its teeth kicked in by Nokia, RIM and Apple.

The Kindle Fire model – “we will give you an awesome deal” is the only one I see working here. The question is can the company really monetize this hardware effectively? Time will tell.

Need a New Car? Win a Mustang at ITEXPO in Miami Next Week

2012-01-27T15:48:11Z

I think I may have one of the best jobs in the world. I admit it is a bit ADHD-inducing as I get involved in lots of areas from new media to the latest technologies in the market as I run this major media company which is TMC. Not only do I get help influence tens of millions of people online I also get to host live events where I meet many of the readers who frequent my blog and TMCnet - the main web portal of TMC where I am CEO.

But the most exciting part of my job comes twice a year when I give away a car to an unsuspecting attendee at ITEXPO. Next week - Friday Feb 3rd at 1:45 pm at the Miami Beach Convention Center, I get to give the next car away and it will be a Ford Mustang. In order to be eligible to win you need to pick up a card at registration and get it stamped by all the sponsors of the car giveaway.

Thank you sponsors for making these giveaways possible. If I were an attendee at a show I would want a mix of solid education, a chance to network with peers, see the leading exhibitors in the space but also to have some fun and that is what events like our various receptions and giveaways are supposed to provide.

The TMC team and I look forward to hosting you next week. Thank you all in advance for coming to our event and hats off to the TMC team who is managing not only ITEXPO but a host of collocated and unparallelled events such as Super WiFi Summit, MSP World, our SUITS technology patents event, M2M Evolution, Mobile LATAM, HTML5 Summit, Cloud Communications Expo, The Channel Vision Expo (CVx), Business Video, Asterisk 123, 4GWE, StartupCamp5, Avaya Tech on Tap, the Blackberry Hackathon, SIP trunking workshop, business development workshop, telecom reseller week, to name a few.

http://itexpo.tmcnet.com/sip-trunking-workshop/miami/

ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Schedule

2012-01-25T20:49:34Z

One of the most frequent question I get regarding TMC’s ITEXPO which takes place next week in Miami – is with all that is going on – how do you make a decision as to which parts of the show to attend. Truth be told I believe the event and its collocated conferences and educational sessions rivals just about any other tech show in terms of education.

Some of the hot topics to be discussed include not only general communications and technology but 4G wireless, mobility, Asterisk, open source, business video, the channel, cloud computing and communications, HTML5, Mobile Latin America communications, M2M, technology patents, the MSP market, Super WiFi/white spaces and much more.

The following is a list of important details you will need to help navigate ITEXPO East 2012 Miami. I warn you – this is a subset of what is happening. To keep you posted on not only these items but other important events at the show please follow @itexpo on Twitter and turn on mobile notifications – it is pretty simple – just follow the menu below. Twitter also allows you to turn off notifications at certain hours in its settings tab.

Also, please download the show directory/guide (PDF) and read through it before you get there to get the most out of the event.

ITEXPO East 2012

January 31 - February 3, 2012

Miami Beach Convention Center

If you are staying at the Loews in Miami or a hotel nearby the best route to walk is down 16^th street making a right on Washington after a block. Most concierge personnel will tell you to walk down Collins which is longer and if the sun is strong may be a bit uncomfortable.

View Larger Map

Registration counters are located in the Hall B Lobby. This is the section of the convention center on Washington Blvd., closest to the show hotels.

When you arrive, proceed to the registration counter to receive your badge. You will need a photo ID.

SHOW HOURS

Tuesday, January 31

Registration: 7:30am – 5:00pm
Workshops begin at 9:00am
POST POTS Special Sessions: 2:00pm
Avaya Tech on Tap: 5:00pm

Wednesday, February 1

Registration: 7:00am – 7:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 12:45pm; 3:30pm
Exhibits Open: 4:30-7:30pm
Free Networking Reception: 5:30-7:30 on expo floor - Sponsored by Broadvox.

Thursday, February 2

Registration: 7:00am – 4:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 9:00-11:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Networking Reception: 4:00pm
StartupCamp5, featuring keynote by Terry Matthews: 4:45pm
ITEXPO Party on South Beach - Mangos Tropical Cafe: 9:00pm

Friday, February 3

Registration: 7:30am – 2:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 2:00pm
New Mustang Giveaway at 1:45pm – Must Be Present to Win

Updated schedule. Visit the show site for additional details

Keynotes and Special Sessions Schedule: (Open to all attendees)

Tuesday, January 31:

2:00 pm: Special Panel Session:

Post POTS Net Neutrality & the Cloud: From POTS to PANS

============================================================

Rumors of the death of POTS are not exaggerated. To build a new model for the future we have to determine the bottlenecks. Come discuss the impact of the cloud and the migration from end to end to any to any services; about supporting access and quality of service; about Net Neutrality and Privacy.

5:00: Avaya Tech on Tap Workshop and Networking Reception

=========================================================

Kick off ITEXPO East with a special pre-conference seminar and evening networking event, hosted by the Avaya DevConnect Program. Join Avaya and our special keynote speaker Judith Hurwitz, co-author of "Cloud Computing for Dummies", as we tackle some of the most challenging technology transitions facing IT organizations today, namely cloud computing and collaboration enablement.

KEYNOTES Wednesday, February 1:

12:45pm: Michael Rouleau, tw telecom
3:30pm: Paget Alves, Sprint
4:30pm: Timothy Wagner, Samsung Telecommunications America

KEYNOTES Thursday, February 2:

9:00am: Rick Whitt, Google
9:30am: Chris Swearingen, Senseaware, Powered by FedEx
10:00am: Dirk Gates, Xirrus
10:30pm: Julius Knapp, FCC
4:45pm: Sir Terry Matthews, Wesley Clover

WORKSHOPS at ITEXPO – Open to All Attendees

Cloud Business Development Workshop

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Larry Dillon and Michael Curry will co-host the first ever pre-show workshops focused towards new business development techniques for resellers, developers and cloud-based service providers.

Asterisk 123 Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Come get a well-rounded and informative introduction to the Asterisk Project. All are Welcome! Whether you are managing a team deploying an Asterisk implementation, evaluating potential replacements for a legacy telephony solution that's on its last leg, or just a general Asterisk "newbie" excited to learn what Asterisk is capable of, then this talk has something to offer you.

Sangoma Vega Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Sangoma Technologies will host a free full day hands-on training session teaching you how to configure and troubleshoot the Vega series gateways for use with IP-PBX and SIP trunking.

Blackberry HTML5 Hackathon

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Join us at the upcoming HTML5 Hackathon to discover how BlackBerry WebWorks takes HTML5 beyond the browser. We'll show you the power and simplicity of the new BlackBerry browser

Ingate’s SIP Trunking Workshop

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Attendees can earn a SIP Trunking Professional Certificate by participating in the Professional Development Program on February 1. Attendees can also earn a Unified Communications Professional Certificate on February 2.

Telecom Reseller Week Presentation Theatre

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Telecom Reseller Week provides you with a forum for you to learn about cutting edge new solutions you can represent, to meet with many new potential partners, and to study proven sales techniques to help improve your team's performance.

MPLS University

Tuesday, February 2 - 1:30pm

MPLS University is a forum for IT and business professionals to bring their questions about network reliability, always-on connectivity, voice, regulatory requirements, security, and cost control. Join us for two FREE live MPLS University sessions at ITEXPO to learn more about utilizing cloud-based solutions

StartupCamp5: Comms Edition

Tuesday, February 2 - 4:00pm

Featuring keynote address by Sir Terry Matthews

The incredibly popular StartupCamp networking event returns. This unique forum is for early-stage entrepreneurs to pitch their communications products or services to a discriminating audience of potential investors, media, bloggers and industry influencers. The event's fast-paced, "ready, set, pitch" format brings early-stage communications companies, developers, industry leaders and investors together to network and validate entrepreneurial pitches in real time.

4:00: StartupCamp5 Free Networking Reception

4:45: Introduction/Event Kickoff by Larry Lisser

5:00: Keynote Presentation by World-Renowned Entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews

5:45: Startup Presentations and Judging

7:00: Networking and Voting

QUESTIONS?

Contact Frank Coppola (203.852.6800 x 131)

Thank you sponsors

Diamond Sponsor:

Digium

Platinum Sponsors:

AudioCodes
Sonus Networks
Sansay
Dialogic
Interactive Intelligence
Netxusa

Gold Sponsors:

abp
Adtran
Broadvox
MegaPath
USAN
888VoIP
Panasonic
snom
tw telecom
Sangoma

I really look forward to seeing you all at the show – it will be fantastic.

Update: My marketing team has a fancier version of this document which they send in emails after you register. It has web links and may be easier on the eyes.

Is That a Personal Assistant in Your Ear?

2012-01-04T21:40:13Z

I really like loud music and while I believe my hearing is good now, I imagine at some point in the future the collective damage of music played on various gadgets coupled with concerts by the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard, Rush, The Police, Joan Jett and others have done some damage which I will have to overcome with – I can’t bring myself to write it… A hearing aid. Ouch… Does that hurt. Did I mention I refuse to acknowledge the aging process is taking place?

So I have this hope that if the time comes when – ehhh, what did you say??? – I may need one of these devices, they will be considered normal… Everyone will be wearing them.

Well it seems like we may be headed in that direction as Panasonic has its new R1-W digital hearing instrument which the company says is designed to fit discreetly behind the ear. But what caught my attention was the device’s ability to record up to five 2-minute and 40-second recorded files for voice memos, phone numbers, etc.

Moreover it comes with a Hearing Hub, a device which allows you to manage the hearing aid so as to connect it to your TV audio or your cellphone via bluetooth. Obviously this Hearing Hub thing needs to become an app at some point and work on a smartphone – hopefully my eyes will hold out long enough to use one.

So what we really have here is a personal assistant and media hub – all in one device which you can honestly tell people is not a hearing aid. What’s that you say? No, it’s not a hearing aid; it’s a personal multimedia assistant. Wait, don’t take it out – or I won’t be able to hear a word you say.

The interesting thing here is if the speech recognition technology which Apple has popularized with Siri continues to improve to a point where it can handle all phone functions we may be close to the world featured in the movie Minority Report where the phone looked like a hearing aid.

So if my ears can just last a little longer, everyone will be wearing one of these. And what a cool world that could be… Instead of fumbling for my cell, I’ll be able to press a button on my hearing aid/phone, cue up my Ozzy voice and sing Mama, I’m Coming Home.

Quad-Core Galaxy S III Rumored to be at MWC

2011-12-29T18:24:54Z

It isn't like quad-core smartphones are unexpected but it is still amazing that the power of four processors can be sandwiched between thin pieces of glass - communicating over 4G networks and doing what a supercomputer of just over a decade or so ago could do.

This past November I wrote a piece equating the absolutely ferocious pace of advancements in the Android space to the same situation back in the eighties where the PC slaughtered Apple in the price/performance wars. The core of my argument was the Samsung Galaxy S II a sleek smartphone sporting a dual core 1.5 GHz processor, 4G and a 4.5 inch Super AMOLED Plus display. It is a brilliant device and immediately gave me Android envy. The story which is repeating itself is an entire industry will be competing, coming out with faster and better devices while Apple will have fewer product rollouts. Apple will have to get every launch just right while the rest of the field coming out with so many devices can afford to have numerous failures before they come out with a runaway hit.

It is worth pointing out that Apple's slower iPhone S processor actually has been shown to perform better at web browsing meaning Apple has done an amazing job regarding making their processor more efficient.

So now it is less than two months later and there is already talk of a quad-core Galaxy S III Samsung smartphone which will likely be at MWC and hopefully ES. I plan to be at both shows and hope to see it live and in-person.

You can probably tell that I come from the more processors is better school of consumer electronics and although such details may not be considered by most consumers - the reality is functions like speech recognition and photo and video editing need powerful processing capability. Siri is a wonderful example as it only runs on the faster processor of the iPhone 4S.

There is also the gaming category of apps which need superior processing power. In fact if history is a guide, new killer apps will emerge which will make use of the additional horsepower available.

Moreover, as mobile operating systems continue to evolve they could strain existing devices meaning less processing cycles available for the apps. Case in point is iOS 5 has made some games on the iPad 2 less responsive.

Avaya's Top Communication Trends in 2012

2011-12-16T20:22:04Z

Recently I had a chance to have an in-depth conversation with Avaya about the trends they see for 2012 in the communications space. In particular I spoke with George Humphrey a Director and Line of Business Owner at Avaya and Diane Royer, Senior Marketing Services Manager.

The trends below are at times augmented or enhanced with my thoughts.

1) Mobility raises the expectation of availability

Voice is morphing in the enterprise and becoming more consumer-driven and as a result everyone is connected at all times and moreover everyone wants immediate action. Consumers want to know right away if that widget on the website is compatible with European power or if the red color of the lamp online is closer to burgundy, beet or pomegranate.

Consumers are walking around with smartphones today that are the computing equivalent of supercomputers of a few decades back. This means we not only can do anything anywhere from a voice and data perspective, we will need to in order to maintain our customers and jobs. This is certainly not a new trend – a huge jump in being able to work around the clock took place in the nineties when voicemail allowed executives, salespeople and others to check messages without being in the office. BlackBerrys continued this trend and the web and e-mail turbocharged it and today’s powerful devices, WiFi and 3G/4G networks have supercharged the trend.

2) Contact centers test the value of voice

More companies will calculate where voice communications fit into their value stream, from pure cost to revenue generation. This is straight from Avaya - I didn’t get into this one as I thought some of the other bullets were more interesting.

3) Contextual data spans the last mile of personal productivity

For those of you were around during the 1980s in the call center space, you may recall the call centers who could invest millions of dollars were able to connect their Rockwell ACDs to their IBM mainframes to allow a database dip when the phone call information appeared via ANI and this in turn allowed a screen pop on the agents desk when they answered a phone call. What could be “popped” depended upon what was in the database but the idea here is we can do “screen pops squared” today because a call can come in and we can leverage CRM repositories, enterprise search tools, social networks, blogs, wikis and you name it. It is really just a matter of organizing it all. The idea is the more information agents have, the better they can serve their customers and in turn the more loyal the customers will be, resulting in higher ARPU and stickiness to borrow some terms from the wireless space.

4) Businesses advance from social media to social business

The idea here is we are about to cross the chasm of social adoption in companies – the social company or social enterprise is around the corner which in tech adoption turns will likely take 5-10 years. Interestingly at a recent conference I attended one vendor told me about a financial company which installed a state-of-the-art social platform for their company to use. Problem was the majority of the company was made up stock brokers who were – let me put this delicately, closer to retirement than college. Basically the old folks couldn’t figure out the newfangled pokes, circles and the like. Who says I have to be diplomatic all the time? :-)

Point being once again, this will be a journey, not a destination we reach in the next few years. Are we there yet? No. Quit your whining and be patient. :-)

5) Social media and customer care enter into an arranged marriage

My family came to this country from one in which arranged marriages were the norm. Let’s just say you didn’t necessarily fall in love you were I suppose “told” to love. Keep that in mind when you integrate your contact center and social strategies as customers have to feel like the two are seamless and agents need to be able to navigate the Venus of the Contact center and the Mars of social with aplomb. Just keep in mind, you really need to get it right the first time as there is no prenup I am aware of.

The rest of these are straight from Avaya – stay tuned for more comments from me after number 12:

6) The SIP is raised again

early adopters have completed implementation of, and captured initial ROI from, SIP-enabled infrastructure; now they’ll begin deploying SIP-enabled applications to gain the next level of value.

7) Social interactions expose customer care’s flaws

Businesses can’t fake who they are in a “social” setting, because social interactions ultimately expose “the real you.” Some businesses will discover they aren’t portraying an image they prefer, so they’ll be compelled to reinvent what customer centricity is all about.

8) IT support staffs converge, part two

In many companies, voice and data support teams converged with the advent of Internet Protocol (IP) telephony; with the deployment of unified communications applications, more companies will blend their applications teams as well.

9) Continuous connectivity drives communications support services

Communications support services increasingly will involve proactive problem resolution via secure access links and live interaction when necessary via innovative Web environments.

10) “True” UC apps proliferate

IT departments will be compelled by business units and enterprise users to adopt more user-centric applications and devices.

11) UC managed services/outsourcing facilitates alignment between IT and business units

As business unit demands increase at an even faster clip, more IT departments will adopt managed services/outsourcing business models to keep pace. IT groups that resist will continue to struggle.

12) Clients take control of managed services

As IT departments better understand industry best practices around infrastructure management, they will become more discriminating about the services they purchase, their expectations for transparency into those services, and how they hold service providers accountable.

-----

A few important points - on number eight, the company believes there also needs to be an evolution in IT meaning the director of infotech for the call center needs to understand data, UC, UC apps and be more savvy about MSP-based solutions. And on number ten, the concept here isn’t CEBP or Communications Enabled Business Processes it is more about BYOD – so think mobility.

I also asked the company how these trends are or aren’t manifesting themselves into sales and the response was more clients are seeing true value in UC and app-centric communications. Moreover, they are looking to more creative ways to procure solutions meaning the manufacturer becomes the systems integrator and moreover they are looking for more MSP-based delivery models.

I also asked about Avaya’s Flare collaboration environment which the company rolled out a short while back and they said it is available on the iPad – I downloaded it and it is pretty slick. In the future we can expect it to become video-enabled on this platform and Flare for Android and PC are coming in the spring of 2012.

I also asked about the company’s A175 tablet and didn’t get the sense this device is lighting the world on fire. Let’s put it this way – I knew it was tough to compete with the iPad at $500 when the A175 costs about $2,000. Now there is an Amazon Kindle Fire priced at $200. Believe me there is no comparison between the capabilities of the A175 and these other devices as it is multimedia-enabled and is really a super-powerful device for road warriors. It’s just that Avaya doesn’t have the appeal or consumer electronics name of an Apple or Amazon and this presents a challenge.

Another interesting point is that customers have seen cloud advertised so often they are interested in these types of solutions but they don’t necessarily need their system to be in the cloud. In other words it can be a solution which is MSP-based and OPEX oriented. In other words Avaya is trying to listen to customer needs and cut through the catchy cloud computing and cloud communications buzzwords to determine how they can solve their customer’s needs.

You can also see Avaya’s original thoughts on these trends if you are interested in seeing them without my added perspective.

You can see Avaya live as part of TMC’s ITEXPO where they have consistently been running their Technology on Tap events. It will take place Tuesday, January 31, 2012 from 5-10 pm EST in Miami Florida at the Miami Beach Convention Center (not the typical hotel setting you may be used to). Moreover the keynote will be given by the Author of Cloud Computing for Dummies, Judith Hurwitz. The company kindly requests you register in advance, thank you.

Google Currents Crashes Newsreader Party

2011-12-09T17:38:52Z

Flipboard calls itself the pocket-sized social magazine and this is an apt description for a social newsreader so popular that this week when it launched an iPhone edition, it was overwhelmed with traffic and crashed. Obviously there is tremendous interest in this category which explains why in April of this year the company raised $50M at a $200M valuation.

Another player in the space Yahoo! has Livestand, an app which has improved over the months but still has a somewhat non-intuitive user interface. And there is Zite… Acquired by CNN this past August, this app is more like Flipboard with a solid UI and available on the iPhone this week as well.

As with any emerging space, Google often throws its hat in. And thus, this week Google Currents was launched and it is a solid entry into a crowded space. The UI is slick and intuitive and it works fast and has a clean layout.

There is no revenue model yet but one can easily imagine ads being overlaid on the pages or proudly displayed atop articles.

Will Google wipe out the others in this category? Maybe but for now it is its second shot at the space. Remember Fast Flip which came out in September of 2009 and euthanized two years later?

I happened to like Fast Flip but never really used it that often. I am generally a Google Reader user and the simple interface allows the rapid absorption of hundreds if not thousands of headlines during a busy day. But as I recall, it wasn’t easy to see lots of news at once with Fast Flip.

But with Currents you can see about five stories per page depending on the source, photos on the page, etc. You could call it a Flipboard rip-off.

The activity in this market shows us how important it is for the tech industry to have control over the reader interface. In other words, there is a race to see who can own the news reading space the way Kindle owns it for books.

The difference of course is quite often, news is free, meaning an ad model needs to be successfully applied to these readers and that works best when you have scale.

Google has the major advantage here as it has the advertisers and the deep analytic behavioral analysis to know what ads work best with what content. Moreover they know everything about you as you login with your Google credentials.

All this means that the other companies in this space will have a major challenge keeping up with Google when it comes to extracting the most revenue per viewer.

Interestingly Yahoo! should be a strong player in this space as they too have tremendous analytical information on users but its execution hasn’t been adequate for much of this decade.

The question you have to wonder is when will some of these companies partner with Facebook to show ads based on Facebook profile information? This should result in more targeted offers.

My bet is on Flipboard founder Mike McCue – I’ve known him for over a decade as he also founded Tellme and successfully sold it to Microsoft a few years back. One would imagine that Microsoft would pick up Flipboard as well in the next few months or years and then work with Facebook on integration of its advertising system with Bing data thrown in for good measure.

One other point worth making is Flipboard is a great way for users to manage their social networking experience, meaning Facebook has got to at some point be concerned about losing the control over the “social experience” its users have.

All the more reason this company too may be interested in picking up Flipboard at some point soon. This as you may recall was the reason in-part Twitter purchased Tweetdeck for $40M this past May.

I’ll keep you posted as this plays out but for now I’m going back to my tablet for some more flipping.

Mood Detection Software Coming

2011-11-29T14:22:33Z

If you haven't subscribed to TMC's week-daily Techfast newsletter fusing together the best of the day's early morning tech news and a recipe of the day, you might want to check it out.

Reading it today I learned about new software which detects your mood through voice analysis as well as challenges Groupon is facing with its stock price and the fact that 150 counterfeit websites were seized on Cyber Monday. Hope I didn't shop on one of them accidentally.

Additional resources:

I Use Google and You Siri are no Google Killer

2011-11-14T21:43:27Z

I worry more it will kill the public’s interest in speech rec

I have been reading with great interest all of the back and forth chatter on the web regarding Apple’s Siri and its merit as a Google killer and as I read these articles I wonder if many of the people writing these stories have followed the speech technology space these past decades. In 2000, I ran a show called Communications Solutions and on stage I did a live demo of General Magic’s Portico calling it a killer app – the next big thing. It was incredible to me and it worked pretty similarly to Siri. Sure, Apple’s speech rec “wizard” Siri has enhanced functionality allowing you to do information searches but in a decade you would expect such advancements, right?

But one has to wonder why is Siri the Google killer and why now? After all, those of us in the tech space in the mid-nineties remember voice recognition phenomena Wildfire, one of the hottest pre-Internet startups that flamed out as spectacularly as it launched.

These general purpose speech technology companies seem to be the fastest rising and falling companies I’ve seen in just about any industry.

The point is voice rec and associated technology has been around for decades in call centers where the technology can save a company millions and in many cases hundreds of millions of dollars per year. And yet, the technology in the contact center isn’t perfect – it is far from it. Ditto Portico and definitely Siri.

In fact, the last Windows Mobile device I owned about five years ago allowed me to tell it via speech recognition to “play Def Leppard” – something Siri can do as well. But when Siri is asked to “play Paul Oakenfold,” it took three tries to get it right. And that is at my desk in a quiet office with little background noise.

The point is Siri still has a long way to go to be useful and in my tests on some days it works much better than others. Sure this could be related to background noise but the technology is far too immature to rely on and users will find after a number of failures that it makes sense to go back to using a keyboard.

Probably some of the best articles on speech rec and how today’s Siri news ties into the past comes from Eric Jackson over at Forbes. He used to work at speech rec company VoiceGenie when they were a customer of TMC (where I am CEO) and on a related article he details where some of the major speech players have gone to over the years – hint, Google. He has two other pieces worth reading. One says Siri is intended to be a Google killer and the other agrees with my premise that Eric Schmidt doesn’t believe for a moment that Siri is a Google killer.

This last point is interesting because Schmidt seems to be positioning Siri as a major competitive threat so US and possibly EU regulators don’t label them as a monopoly. But within Google, many disagree that Siri is such an important development. Perhaps the best comment about Siri came from my wife who said why would Apple release Siri when it is obviously not ready? This was an observation she came to after a few minutes worth of listening to me repeat myself to Siri with ridiculous responses.

In fact, in my testing, Google does a better job of recognizing my voice requests and responding to them than Apple – which of course when coupled with the fact that Android is outselling iPhones means that Apple shouldn’t be considered much more of a threat than Bing.

But Apple has brought much more attention to the speech rec space where we have known for years that small vocabularies are infinitely easier to recognize than large ones. I am just left wondering if we are too early – will we end up disappointing legions of smartphone users with speech rec technology forcing us to wait for the next generation (of humans not devices) before they try the tech again.

So no, Siri is far from a Google killer – if anything it may kill the popularity of speech recognition for years to come. Let’s hope the tech evolves rapidly so we can continue the speech rec momentum.

iPhone 4S Review with Help from Duran Duran

2011-10-27T20:33:40Z

Two days ago I happened upon a new iPhone 4S as a replacement for my current 4 model. On the same day, I had an opportunity to go to Madison Square Garden and watch a Duran Duran concert where I was able to put this state of the art phone through its paces. I found it ironic that Simon Le Bon, the lead singer of the group said he was first in the Garden 30 years ago – and that was around the time I was introduced to PCs and programming in general. Now, here I was using the new phone as a camera in what has to be one of the harshest environments ever in which to shoot photos and videos. It was impressive - these shots haven't been retouched or altered at all. Videos are at the bottom of this post.

You gotta love when a 30 year old band breaks out the Twitter wall!

On the way to the concert I put Siri through its paces. I asked it for restaurants near Madison Square Garden. It replied that it couldn’t search near businesses. So then I tried searching near the address. Again, it couldn’t help. I then went to my Zagat app and laughed out loud when one of the ways you could choose the price range of a restaurant was “My friends have a trust fund.” But before I got through the tedious, mind-bending process of using this app to find a restaurant on the lower west side, I thought the heck with it (censored – my kids are getting old enough to read my blog.), let’s try the Google app. On the first shot I got a list of restaurants near Madison Square garden and put an end to my embarrassment in front of my friends and wife.

This also by the way is probably a great explanation as to why Google bought Zagat – with an awesome voice-based search interface, Zagat data can be very useful. The current mobile app is painful to use.

Once we got to the Garden I realized the battery drain was significant on my device – perhaps because it was backing up to iCloud? I wasn’t sure but I was concerned. When we finished eating and went into the concert I realized I had no signal at all. My friend had an iPhone 4 also on AT&T and she had 2 bars – me nothing. And as typical in such cases my battery was draining very fast as it tried to communicate with a tower. I had to go into airplane mode and also turned off iCloud sync so I could have enough battery for the trip home.

Siri was a disappointment but later I have found it is OK at reading and sending text messages as well as emails in a pinch. The accuracy could be better – but I am sure it will improve. Surprisingly, this is an instance where Google has technology which is much better than Apple – aren’t we used to seeing Apple leapfrog others?

On the way back from the concert I encountered this sign on the train allowing for travelers to see the next few train departures via their phones – pretty amazing tech – simple but helpful. Just send a text to 266266 with the locations you are looking for. For example "GCS to Rye." No more paper schedules are needed to try to figure out when the next train is.

The other benefit of the 4S is the increased processor speed and there is indeed a slight increase in performance when you surf the web, download, etc. Nothing incredible mind you – I still find myself waiting for pages to load – even on super-fast WiFi.

Should you upgrade your 4 to a 4S – the answer is yes if you spend lots of time in a car and you think you will benefit from Siri being able to help you perform some tasks while you drive. Moreover, if you take lots of pictures, the camera is better and the quality of video is far better. Then there is the stability control which helps improve the quality of videos – and in my testing, photos as well.

But it isn’t a must have. On an AT&T network your speed will be dramatically improved according to the specs I have read but in reality, unless you are on a cell tower with lots of capacity and few other users, you may not ever see these download speeds.

The latest rumor is an iPhone which works on 4G will be out next year and it better or the company will fall further behind Android. For many, it may just be worth waiting.

Here are the Google results for the above search - got it on the first shot

Although Siri isn't perfect you can get interesting market info allowing you to compare market caps and see how the market is doing

You can even look at a Honda Accord if you like

If you are interested in what a water molecule looks like, you are out of luck

Duran Duran View to a Kill

Duran Duran Planet Earth

Duran Duran Is There Something I Should Know?

Duran Duran Hungry Like a Wolf

Duran Duran The Reflex

Blackberry Outage: Lives Saved, Accidents Down

2011-10-20T14:46:13Z

Abu Dhabi saw accident rates plummet by 40% with no fatal accidents precisely at the time when Blackberry had its three-day outage in the country. Moreover, in Dubai the accident rate dropped by 20% during the same period (perhaps they have more iPhones and Nokia devices?).

As word spreads, expect even stricter laws to prevent texting while driving. But as studies have shown, such laws tend to increase traffic accidents because it causes drivers not to text less but to hide the phone while they text, meaning their eyes are even farther away from the road.

Will Apple's new Siri on the iPhone 4S be the solution to the texting while driving problem? Perhaps. Speech technologies should certainly help keep drivers spending less time looking at their devices while still allowing them to be productive and communicate effectively.

One thing is for sure - if this news of accidents correlated to smartphone use goes mainstream, there will be more attention paid to speech technologies and companies like Apple will benefit. Interestingly, Microsoft has had good speech recognition technology in their phones for many years and their Tellme acquisition made their speech technology even better.

I am looking forward to seeing how the battle between Microsoft and Apple shapes up on the speech tech front. But sadly for Redmond, they have already lost the speech tech marketing war to Siri - even though they were first. Then again they were years ahead of Apple in producing phones and tablets and that didn't seem to help them very much.

Outage or not, this woman is still going to kill someone

No, I still can't hear you. Have you considered Verizon?

The photo can wait. I'll still be cute when we get off the freeway.

Disclosure: I still own Apple shares - yes, even after the recent earnings miss

New Interactive Intelligence Quick Spin Cloud Contact Center Trial Portal

2011-10-17T14:00:00Z

Coming off the first six months of 2011, Interactive Intelligence enjoyed cloud-based revenue growth numbers of 58% while orders increased a whopping 146% during the same period. Moreover, the cloud accounted for 26% of the company’s total new order dollar volume in the first half of 2011. Company CMO Joe Staples said the following to me in a meeting in New York, “We are seeing a huge shift towards the cloud.” He continued, “It is talked about in every single deal we are in.”

As a refresher – the company started selling a hosted solution in 2005 but relaunched its cloud-based communications as a service or CaaS solution in 2009.

And when you have a successful service, you always look for new ways to expand – in order to bring it to a larger audience. This is why the company has launched Quick Spin – a new trial site which is designed to allow companies to kick the tires of the hosted service before they buy. Staples explained that some of the functionality has been removed – typically items which require training to use properly. What you get is full unified communications including conferencing, desktop call control and enterprise IP PBX as well as contact center functions such as ACD, basic IVR, reporting, analytics and on-demand recording. Some things not included are predictive dialing, workforce management and post-call surveys.

The Quick Spin Start Page

Joe tells me you can set up the service in about an hour – and you can have a total of ten users, 3 workgroups and five skills. Moreover you can have 10 keywords or phrases you can use for speech-analytics.

The Quick Spin Settings Page

Here is the interesting part of my discussion – Interactive Intelligence is chosen by customers in-part because of their long-experience in the market. The reason this is interesting is the company has been in the contact center space since the mid-nineties which makes their longevity years longer than many newer cloud-based vendors. When the company stormed onto the call center scene in the nineties they differentiated themselves by unifying communications across once-disparate boxes for IVR, ACD and PBX… For the first time, you could have a single unified system handling most everything you needed your contact center to do. But for years, the company was considered a newcomer going up against more established players like Melita, Rockwell Electronic Commerce, Lucent, EIS Davox and Aspect. In the cloud-based contact center space they are now an established incumbent.

The Quick Spin Workgroups Screen

Of course there are other reasons the company is winning in the cloud such as their use of virtual machines for each customer as opposed to multi-tenant architecture. Although for most situations, multitenancy works well at isolating user sessions, virtualizing each company’s sessions adds even greater isolation to user data each customer uploads to the Interactive Intelligence cloud. As an added bonus - Interactive allows customers to migrate from the cloud to an on-premise based solution. This feature is obviously a great option for companies who aren’t sure if they are ready to move to the cloud forever.

For companies looking to trial Quick Spin, you will go through a brief qualification phase to make sure you are a real company, not a competitor, etc. Then you are off and running with 2,500 minutes of use or 14 days of service – whichever comes first. Joe tells me companies will likely not use the system in a live environment but rather as a trial system. One of the benefits of note is the supervisor screens and reporting are both of production quality meaning you get a great feel for what it would be like to become a customer.

The Quick Spin Start Configuration Page

Of course any new technology takes time to be taken seriously but hearing that all discussions with new customers mention cloud and moreover that 26% of the company’s approximately $200M in annual revenue comes from cloud-based solutions shows that as far as customers are concerned, the move to cloud-based contact centers is very real and not slowing down.