Recenty I heard from old friend Brian Mahony (pictured), the VP of marketing at localcasting (in-home broadcasting) company ZeeVee. Mahony has worked at a number of companies on the cutting edge of technology in the decade in a half or so I have known him. When I met him in the nineties, he was working for Tundo - one of the first IP PBX companies which like so many others, ran out of funding during the dotcom/telecom meltdown. He then worked for a number of IPTV companies including Espial and Netcentrex  which was eventually acquired by Comverse Technology.

Now at ZeeVee, Mahony is about as full of energy as I have ever heard him and he seems to be revved up by the opportunity in front of his company which is becoming the defacto way to broadcast internet-based HD content to all televisions in a home.

What Zeevee does which is different from other approaches is eliminate the premise that a standalone TV box is the answer. In other words, it does away with the notion that you need an internet-connected box on all the TVs in the house. In addition the company does away with the notion that the standalone box should be a computer. In fact, instead of putting a computer in a box and connecting it to the internet, the company's ZvBox connects to a PC in the house and broadcasts HDTV internet video content throughout the home's cable TV cabling. Thus the term localcasting.

Once connected, the user sits in front of the TV with an RF-based remote control

and watches virtually any Internet-based video content. In addition, the customer can use the box to watch locally stored movies and DVDs. This gets us to the next point which is elimination of what Mahony refers to as the digital octopus (pictured) - referring to the tangle of wires and devices which live near your television. Mahony further explains that the new televisions with their wall mounts have become like artwork and many people are not happy with the tangle of wires near their TVs.

The logic of using the PC as the heart of a converged solution is the PC can decode any content on the web. Mahony reiterates it is the best device (as opposed to a standalone box) for streaming television and videos and he is right. I should mention he says this because the PC can decode anything and specialized equipment would have to be constantly upgraded to achieve the same functionality. Basically the standalone box has to be a PC to function properly.

Mahony further explained that many of the networks do not like to have terms dictated to them by cable companies and moreover do not want to share their revenue with such partners. In addition they are yearning to get more internet viewers as these viewers can identify themselves and as such provide a basis for more targeted ads which can mean more revenue.

One network has even told Mahony (he wouldn't say which) that they are now making more money online than they are on cable. This is partly because viewers seem to be more loyal online - watching more episodes and in addition, old content which is posted on websites is generating massive amounts of traffic and generating new viewers as opposed to cannibalizing existing ones from TV.

Mahony explains the box works with all content and various formats such as Amazon Unbox (now called Video on Demand), TiVo, Netflix, iTunes and others. In addition, the company has something called a Zviewer (soon to be released in Beta) which allows all videos to be watched from any PC. One of the benefits of this viewer and this solution in general is menu system which allows access to a slew of content types which are updated regularly and is hopefully easy to navigate.

The system also supports Dolby high quality audio and Dolby 5.1 is in the works.

In addition, the remote allows web browsing meaning all HDTVs now have access to web surfing. So while watching a ball game you could use Picture in Picture or PiP to surf your fantasy sports stats.

The downsides are minimal - it is possible that configuration could be a problem but Mahony says it is pretty seamless and most users shouldn't have a problem. It is also a PC-only solution for the moment. In addition, a cable company or other broadband provider could make a stink about using bandwidth and limit your download speeds. This wouldn't be surprising to me as this box cannibalizes their primary revenue generator. I hope the FCC and politicians are reading and weighing the pros and cons of ISPs throttling bandwidth and in the process reducing the likelihood game-changing technologies successfully get into the hands of US consumers.

Mahony also points out the solution may not be the best for sports as IPTV and cable solutions provide better quality sports than what is available online at the moment.

In addition, you need an HDTV to work with this system but this is a minor challenge as well. Perhaps the last drawback is the price but even though the company feels the $499 price tag may be high for a consumer electronics device, it really isn't. I say this because to get a wired solution which does everything ZeeVee does for such a low cost is a bargain. Sure, we could argue all day about other ways to accomplish what Zeevee is doing but their different approach is also embraced by the IPTV carriers who also repurpose the in-house coax wiring. I consider this a major validation of a well thought-out product.

It is also worth pointing out there is no per-month fee to use this service and the company is purposely trying not to put up any walled gardens, meaning you can access any content for free once you have the box. Still, Mahony does not discount the idea that a lower-priced box subsidized by a monthly fee and long-term contract won't be available in the future. In addition, ZeeVee is in discussions with partners who may be able to provide more flexible pricing terms and other distribution models. I wouldn't be surprised if the networks themselves started subsidizing these boxes.

From my perspective this is a very intelligent and elegant solution to bringing the best of the web to the TV. There are certainly many ways to accomplish something similar but the combination of web access on the TV and the ability to access many types of media seamlessly from any HDTV in your house make the ZeeVee solution a real winner. I can't wait to try it myself.

As a major supporter of open source -- especially in the communications market, I cannot be more thrilled to announce that Digium will be co-hosting Digium/Asterisk World at ITEXPO this February in Miami.

It is well-known that open source companies consider ITEXPO an important event and one where they come to meet service providers, resellers and other companies looking to deploy open-source solutions. This news solidifies TMC's commitment to open source as a solid choice for companies looking to not only purchase today's solutions but to resell and develop tomorrow's breakthrough products.

Mark Spencer, founder and CTO of Digium and original creator of Asterisk had this to say about this news. "Hosting Digium|Asterisk World at ITEXPO East 2009 will allow us to share the vision and power of Asterisk with a broad set of customers who might not be familiar with open source. By giving them their first taste of Asterisk, we empower them to not only save money but to use and create new technologies that never existed before."

For my part, I salute Mark and his company which has brought open source communications so far, so quickly. The entire open source communications market has gained massive credibility due to Digium and the many other pioneers who supported Asterisk over the past years.

As always, all members of the open source community are welcome at all TMC expos and to learn more about this news, please visit the Digium/Asterisk World section of the ITEXPO site.

We looking forward to seeing you all February 2-4 in 2009.

If you are looking for business opportunities, you may want to think about mobile banking as the market is set to take off. When you consider analysts estimate over 100 million mobile banking users will be created in the next few years, you realize -- wow -- there is serious money here.

The question is -- who will be the leaders in the space? PayPal and credit card companies are naturals. But there will likely be niches held by players in security, authentication, etc.

If you have a novel mobile banking application -- be sure to drop me a line so I/TMC can consider coverage. Thanks.

You know what? I was looking at Tom Keating's blog today and there is some good stuff worth sharing. First he points to an Om Malik interview of Josh Silverman the CEO of Skype and then reminds us of how to get Skype to run on an iPhone (sort-of) until Skype releases an official version.

The interview is great -- it shows Skype is laser-focused on profit, mobility and embedding itself into other applications. Malik pushed Silverman on a few fronts -- explaining that the telcos aren't a monopoly (contradicting my thoughts and those of Silverman) -- he also pushed Silverman on why they are still part of eBay and finally on why Skype is boring. If I were an eBay shareholder though, I would be less interested in being amazed by the company's products and more interested in profitability.

Silverman sidestepped this point a bit but did say they are focused on innovative products. He went on to say, people want the product to be more reliable and easier to use -- rather than something with more features.

This gets me thinking -- is there a disconnect between what us bloggers want and write about and what Joe-sixpack needs?

Getting back to Keating -- in his blog --  he does a great job reviewing the Pika Warp appliance for Asterisk which is not a turn-key Asterisk IP-PBX but rather a platform which developers and VARs can use to configure Asterisk 1.4.x to their liking. In fact, the main concept behind the WARP Appliance is to offer resellers and VARs an inexpensive Asterisk hardware platform that they can OEM and offer under their own brand name.

It is worth mentioning the WARP Appliance also works with FreeSWITCH, so developers can also choose to embed FreeSWITCH instead of Asterisk. In fact, any telephony application such as IVRs, call logging, predictive dialer etc. built using PIKA's telephony APIs can be integrated onto the appliance, whether it is a proprietary application or based on an open source platform.

Finally there are some thoughts in the blog on wireless Zune and you can bet Tom will be listening to his on the flight out to ITEXPO next week.

And yes, you will find Pika at the show as an exhibitor (booth# 102 and a Gold Sponsor -- Communications Developer Pavilion) -- which takes place September 16-18, 2008 in Los Angeles as well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whenever I go to a conference, I learn a tremendous amount from the people I meet at the show. I really enjoy the impromptu networking which takes place at events as it allows me to learn so much about what is happening in the market. Ironically, I generally learn things I didn't think I would learn ahead of time. Quite often, I wish I would have known more about peoples' experiences before I met with them as it would allow me to be better prepared to ask pertinent questions.

I further wish I knew who was coming to events and and moreover I wish I could get a "brain dump" from them before the event so I could have a frame of reference before our conversations take place.

Imagine how much better networking at a show would be if I had an idea what people were generally thinking about the market before I even say hello.

In less than two weeks the world with gather at ITEXPO -- The World's Communications Conference to help select products for purchase, learn about the latest events in the telecom market and network with peers.

It is this last area where this blog entry should be of maximal benefit. You see, over the past month or so I have been interviewing the telecom movers and shakers who will be coming to ITEXPO. I certainly didn't interview every mover and shaker (exactly what is a telecom shaker anyway  ;)  ) but this list should give you a good idea who some of the speakers and exhibitors will be at this year's show.

The questions each person answered below may be slightly varied but what is common is the person's thoughts on their markets and where they think things may be going. I truly hope you find these interviews useful and I hope to see you at the show September 16-18, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

   

NAME	COMPANY
Don Palmer	Sip Print
Jim Beuoy	OKS
Mark Stacy	Touchstone
John Nam	Phonevite
Jim Beuoy	OKS
Barry Sher	IVR Technologies
Ari Raban	Phone.com
John Doyle	CommuniGate Systems
David Mandelstam	Sangoma
Sharone Ben Levi	AudioCodes
Rupesh Chokshi	AT&T
Jeff Gallino	Callminer
Dr. David K. Schrader	Teradata
Mark Ricca	Intellicom Analytics
Xuedong Huang (XD)	Microsoft
Rick Dell	Mitel
Mark Lepko	Altitude Software North America
Liz Amaral	Enkata
Francis Carden	OpenSpan
Kevin Murphy	NEI
Chris Gravett	Aculab
Brian Schwarz	RedSky Technologies, Inc.
John Konczal	Sterling Commerce
Stefan Winkler	Symmetricom
Eric Thomas	FreedomVoice
Albert Chu	ACCESS Systems
Bill Miller	Digium (corrected -- sorry)
Randy Busch	Jazinga
Jeff Hicks	NetQos
Scott Charter	WBS Connect
Jim Slaby	Acme Packet
Dean Jordan	Telesphere
Justin McLain	Endeavor Telecom
Asif Rehman	Mitel
Steve Safley	VoIPConsultants
Frank Paterno	Intelliverse
Warren Sonnen	Epygi Technologies
Jim Jenkins	IQ Services
Jonathan Christensen	Skype
Mark De Clerq	Sitel Semiconductor
Ken Kuenzel	Covergence
Chris Lyman	Fonality
Michael Hermann	Cincinnati bell
Brough Turner	NMS
Shelley Veazie	CTI Group
Abdul Kasim	Critical Links
Eran Gal	Xorcom
Robert Messer	ABP
Todd Woodstra	SpinVox
Mike Coward	Continuous Computing
Laura Serna	Dialexia
James Rafferty	Dialogic
Ken Lowe	Sigma Designs
Rob McDougall	Upstream Works Software
Mary Boyd	Intrado
Henry Danser	Aspect Software
Gregory Giagnocavo	Vitelity
Vikram Saksena	Sonus Networks
Alastair Westgarth	Tango Networks
Greg Rothman	Cbeyond
Vivek Khuller	Divitas

The financial news networks seem to thrive on giving us the negative news regarding the economy. Jobs being lost; wages decreasing and all sorts of other negative bits and pieces.

Well there is something you won't hear about if you focus all your time and attention on the network news. It seems in fact that there is some great economic news in the world of IP communications. In fact, VoIP jobs are rising in salary at a time when so many other jobs are not.

OnForce Inc., is an online jobs mart where employers and workers meet on the Internet and agree on an hourly rate and a recent report from the company shows growth in VoIP rates have increased from 1.5 to 1.95 between Q1 and Q2. This basically means VoIP jobs are now paying twice the average of all IT jobs.

Get this... Jobs in the field of printers and point of sale systems (cash registers, etc) command 1/3 the salary of those in VoIP!

If you are in the VoIP space, your time is now. Sure these salary levels may not be this high forever but it is great to see demand and salaries increase so rapidly in a time where news in other markets is generally not as good.

If you are looking to get into the VoIP market or enhance your skills, the time is now. Don't wait... Don't delay.

There are many certifications you can look into and many are very good but only one is offered by TMC -- the company which publishes the only VoIP-related magazine -- Internet Telephony and puts on the world's only IP Communications event ITEXPO...

And of course that would be TMC University. Frankly, you cannot find a better certification anywhere IMHO and as you may have noticed it is tough to be humble when you think your product is so great.

Below is a list of VoIP-related courses and certifications which will be available to you September 16-18, 2008 in Los Angeles, CA. By the way, these courses come with a satisfaction guarantee and I have heard many times that resellers and others have found the certifications at past events valuable and responsible for increased business and rates.

I hope to see you at the show.

	Date	Course	Hosted by
Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Microsoft OCS Tuesday, September 16, 2008 FMC/Mobility   Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Open Source   Tuesday, September 16, 2008 SIP in the Contact Center   Wednesday, September 17, 2008 IP Network Security   Wednesday, September 17, 2008 SaaS Thursday, September 18, 2008 Unified Communications   Thursday, September 18, 2008 SIP: The Foundation for Building Enhanced Services Thursday, September 18, 2008 Next-Generation Call Center Management

Two days -- two shows, two cities and two trains which left at dawn. Wow... What a rush. What I picked up from the Channel Partners (Boston) and SpeechTek (New York) shows is  the communications market and the call center market are doing well, based on what companies in the space tell me.

Yes, of course some sectors are doing better than others but some are amazingly strong... Open source anything for example is a good place to be. The speech market too is doing well as companies are looking to automation as a way to save money.


In addition, businesses have begun to realize the contact center is extending its presence within the entire corporation making almost all people within the company call center agents. Seems like Nadji Tehrani was right when many decades ago he proclaimed, Every Company is a Call Center.

As this happens the need to monitor quality by companies like Empirix grows and a conversation Susan Anderson at the company showed this to be the case.

A discussion with Jim Jenkins at IQ Services -- a communications testing company also confirms that the testing market is growing.

Discussions with Nuance were interesting as well, as the company seems to be transcending the world of speech and embracing a larger portion of the customer interaction pie. Not unlike Nortel, Cisco, West Interactive, IBM and others, the company is looking to capitalize on the growth of 3G devices and the convergence of outbound, inbound calling and voice portals.

Nuance is even helping companies design user interfaces which marry the best aspects of speech recognition and the GUI, allowing for example to tell a GPS device that you want to find a local Italian restaurant and rather than listen to 10 responses which you have to pick from, you see them on a screen and at this point can say, "Pick number 3".

My conversation with Nuance's Lynda Kate Smith and Michael Wehrs was very instructive and since Smith represents the call center line of business and Wehrs represents mobile, it was interesting to hear how technology developed in one area helps in other parts of the value chain. Our discussion even got into using speech on the device and within the network to interact with stored information in the cloud. For example telling your mobile phone to play music which could reside on your device or in the cloud and having the software be smart enough to figure out how to get the right information back to the user.

Voice biometrics too is gaining traction for things like password resets but I don't see this space as taking off -- rather it will grow slowly but surely and in the process, save companies tremendous support costs in areas like password resets and others.

What I am most excited about however is ITEXPO as I am seeing a resurgence in call centers and massive activity in the communications API space. This means that not only with ITEXPO have a very strong showing (early registration numbers show this to be the case) but the two simultaneous events, Communications Developer and Call Center 2.0 should also have nice attendance levels.

Remember that the purchase of Ribbit by BT has really legitimized communications APIs and development. We now see that major world power service providers are interested in extending their networks to developers everywhere and in doing so they will extend their importance in the new world of communications.

What communications will look like in five years is tough to know for sure but what I can tell you is the thought leaders in the communications and technology space will be at ITEXPO in a matter of weeks (September 16-18, 2008) in Los Angeles and if you want to know what is important in the market today and tomorrow so you can do your job more effectively, you should be there.

I hope to greet you all personally.

One of the hottest areas in the communications space is wireless expense management and as entire wireless costs worldwide continue to skyrocket, companies really need to do anything and everything they can to get a handle on what they are spending and why. It is for this reason I am happy to say TMC has partnered with Rivermine Software to launch a wireless expense management channel.

The goal of this microcommunity is to have a single place online where you can come and learn about the latest in the wireless expense managment space.

I should also point out Rivermine also sponsors the telecom expense management channel on TMCnet.

Feel free to bookmark them now and visit as often as you like.

Todd Keefe always did a great job managing the press room, etc at the VON events and now that the VON events are gone, we thought it made sense to have Todd join TMC in promoting ITEXPO, the World's Communications Event. Officially, it is Keefe's company, For Immediate Release who will handle the PR and we are happy to have him onboard and we look forward to hosting you all at ITEXPO September 16-18, 2008 in Los Angeles.