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
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

In less than two weeks something extraordinary will happen. Not only will the global communications industry convene in Los Angeles for ITEXPO but there will be over 100 members of the media, analysts, etc meeting with the world's leading vendors in the communications and technology space.

In addition, well over a dozen TMC editors will be on-hand at the show for the first ever TMC Editor's Week. Close to 100 meetings have been set up by my team so far and counting.

If you are interested in having a meeting at the show with a TMC editor be sure to email Todd Keefe ASAP.

Here are a few of the TMC editors present and depending on scheduling, you can meet with them:

• Greg Galitzine
• Rich Grigonis
• Bob Emmerson (European Editor)
• Peter Radizeski (Reseller Channel)
• David Yedwab (Unified Communications)
• Tom Keating (New Product Reviews)
• Brendan Read (CRM/Call Center)
• Erik Linask
• Michael Dinan
• Tim Gray

I missed John Chambers on CNBC this morning. I wanted to hear what he had to say but unfortunately I was being interviewed about ITEXPO at the exact same time Chambers was on TV. Thankfully, Michael Dinan, a TMCnet editor was on hand to listen to Chambers and write up what he had to say.

Chambers seems relatively bullish on technology and anticipates growth between 12-17% for the long-term. In addition, the world's largest networking company announced a net of over 10 billion dollars for the fourth quarter. This is the first time the company has exceeded the $10 billion bogey.

Chambers also spent a good deal of time focusing on visual networking and the growth of this market. Since 1997 the company has predicted a CAGR of 46 percent growth rate in visual networking based upon their Visual Networking Index or VNI.

As many of us know Cisco cites the tremendous growth in wikis, blogs, social networking and video sites like YouTube as reasons for the explosion in the VNI.

For more check out this TMCnet article.

I made a logical leap in my headline -- inferring you can get famous -- in this case, written up in Popular Science Magazine if you come to TMC's Los Angeles ITEXPO conference in just over two weeks. Let me explain.

About a year and a half ago, Ari Zoldan, CEO of Launch 3 Communications -- a company installing global WiMAX networks came to ITEXPO and won an Toyota FJ Cruiser at the show. Now he seems to be popping up everywhere.

I just read an article in Popular Science Magazine (a great pub BTW) where Zoldan in his new capacity as CEO of Quantum Networks, LLC explains to inventors the best way to go about getting VC money from a firm like his. A few points to consider are -- call the CEO directly and don't give up majority interest.

Here is the article (look to the right side of the page).

Oh, and in just over two weeks, ITEXPO will be in full force and this year we are giving away a Toyota Prius to one lucky winner. Will it be you? Perhaps. Come to the show and find out.

Seriously... Five years already? That is how old Skype is? Well time has really flown and I agree with Tom Keating that Skype really made VoIP a household name -- thanks to Vonage too of course who reminded us all of VoIP every time we turned on a TV.

I also agree somewhat with Andy Abramson that Skype is more VoIP 1.0 than 2.0 but what are you going to do? They are theoretically focusing on the things that make instant revenue today and synergy between Skype and eBay doesn't seem to be important. If it was, you would be able to Skype eBay customer service (see item #10).

I am really happy that Skype's Jonathan Christensen will be keynoting ITEXPO on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. It will be very interesting to hear what he has to say and see if the company has a new direction as a result of the new CEO they recently put in place.

The immense potential Skype has is almost impossible to fathom -- at any given point, millions of Skype users are online. As the company looks to the next five years I wonder if we will see a slew of new 2.0 type services or as Andy surmises, will we see less?

For over six years I have been espousing the virtues of 3D, stereo voice conversations with articles  and ITEXPO demonstrations mostly focusing on DiamondWare and the company's patented 3D technology which allows you to have a conference calls with others and place them on the left right, front or rear.

Until you have heard a conference call in 3D stereo, you have not heard a conference call.

In addition, the technology allows the addition of overtones like adding a metallic sound to a speaker or group of speakers on a conference call. This function could be useful if you are looking to find a way to discern what group a person belongs to -- the Los Angeles office for example.

You may recall that on May 15th of this year, I suggested Nortel would even buy DiamondWare. Well today is that day as Nortel did just that... They purchased the company and further explained how they have a portion of their R&D budget devoted to making VC-like investments but of course with a potentially different exit strategy.

Nortel believes the future of communications is likely going to be avatar-based and even if they are partially right -- let's say 5% of all calls, this could be a huge market.

A Nortel Avatar Demo of their web.alive business communications platform:


Nortel is further betting that the technology advantage they have as a result of this acquisition will help insulate them against others in the market who compete. That would be Avaya, Cisco and even to a lesser degree (at the moment) Microsoft. You see, I personally believe that 3D, stereo communications provides such a rich immersive experience that once you have tried it, you will have trouble going back to traditional telephony.

This move is the second acquisition in a few weeks for Nortel as they just picked up Pingtel as well. For the Canadian-based company these moves are bold as Nortel seems to be gaining momentum in the enterprise. Many of us are aware that most acquisitions fail and Nortel's past acquisitions have not seen success above industry averages.

What the company has done these past weeks though is buy easily digestible companies which are relatively cheap. These companies are M&A training wheels and if the company can get better at acquiring, it can present a more formidable resistance to the Cisco onslaught. Over the years, I have heard more than one story of how Cisco has acquired Nortel partners and damaged Nortel in the process.

In order for technology companies to compete effectively against Oracle and Cisco, they need to know how to acquire successfully. So for Nortel, the world is their oyster... They have the DiamondWare 3D technology and  are now a player in open source and have time to practice the M&A game.

How the company handles these two new companies will show me and others if they are able to successfully pull off more deals and become a bigger competitive threat to other industry players.

In the mean time, these moves should serve as a signal to competitors that Nortel seems to have gotten its mojo back and for customers, I suggest you join me in pushing Nortel to get DiamondWare technology into the company's entire product line ASAP.

See Also

Jon Arnold's take
Press Release

I find the debate over FiOS to be incredible. Some Investors didn't think the investment made sense and analysts even say there will be no way to get the investment in fiber to the home (FTTH) paid back.

What these arguments miss is the point. Consumers want faster and faster connections to the internet and this will only become more of an issue as homes get even more computers and internet connected devices.

Remember that the latest televisions at 1080p can provide a viewing experience which broadcasters are yet to support. This trend will likely continue -- hardware vendors will get farther and farther ahead of broadcasters. As it does, consumers will begin to opt for programming which is provided exclusively over very fat pipes.

These fat pipes will compete with the TV delivery of cable and phone companies mind you but that is a different angle on this story I will not delve into at the moment.

If consumers pay thousands more for TVs which are capable of showing higher quality programming, won't they also pay for higher quality programming? The answer to me is is certainly yes. This means there will be incentive for broadband-only super HD channels to exist.

We can also expect virtual world use to increase and this could be another driver of large amounts of bandwidth.

In short, applications which suck up bandwidth at once preposterus speeds are being invented constantly. Soon, the company which provides the fastest broadband speeds will have an amazing advanatage over others.

Just as Verizon Wireless is doing a great job of taking share with a fast and broadly available wireless broadband network, expect FiOS to become a bigger differentiator as consumers start to clamor for gigabit plus download speeds.

The only concern of course is WiMax and BPL -- but neither of these technologies seem to be capable yet of gigabit per second speeds which the future will call for.

Check out this DSL Reports article for more.

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.

What is the future of communications? One acknowledged thought leader in our field is Thomas Howe and his consulting company which bears his name is the place you go when you want to know. Howe and I were recently on a panel together at a conference in San francisco and I was very impressed with what he had to say so I invited him to be be my guest on a podcast.

Some of the takeaways from our discussion are that voice mashups are becoming more common and voice will transcend CEBP or communications enabled business processes to the realm of the consumer as well. As this happens, communications becomes the condment to virtually all applications.

The excitement here is how this will happen. Who will be the winners and losers as communications ends up everywhere? Certainly BT sees this transformation and this is one of the reasons the company purchased Ribbit. Be sure to listen to Howe's perspective on how other service providers will respond.

If you are looking to learn more about the future of communications be sure to come to ITEXPO September 16-18, 2008 in Los Angeles and while you are there you can stop buy booths at the collocated Communications Developer Conference.

While you are there be sure to say Hi to Thomas and me as well. See you soon.

It has been a long while since I had anything to report on RTI... You remember -- the company which has least cost routing and related patents which are being applied to the world of VoIP and in so doing generating seemingly large amounts of cash for RTI.

The first time I covered the topic, I interviewed Jerry Weinberger the founder of Rates Technology, Inc. You may recall the interview ended with a warning that companies should contact him before he contacts them.

Now it seems a number of years later, Chris Lyman the founder and CEO of Fonality details his entire interaction with RTl. He humorously describes what was obviously a painful negotiation for him and his company.

He actually describes the various phases of patent troll negotiation from abusive to kind and suggests a course of action for each. My favorite is listed below:

PATENT TROLL STRATEGY #4:	File a huge lawsuit at almost no cost to them.
SUGGESTED RESPONSE:	Drink lots of water. Cry. Call mom. But, don't cave.

In the end, Lyman did settle but what is interesting is his implication that the amount he settled for was not so onerous.

What is great about the post is that it is perhaps the most detailed description of the patent negotiation process and it could be really helpful for smaller companies dealing with similar issues. I do get calls all the time in fact from small-medium communications companies who are being called by attorneys regarding patent infringement so I know this is going on far more often than is written about.

I am also called on frequently to help provide documentation to lawyers and even asked often to be an expert witness in patent cases.

I would write about the many patent cases I come across more often but my conversations are sworn to secrecy and they sometimes even involve me signing NDA documents only my lawyer understands.

Having said all that, thanks to Chris Lyman for walking us through the process of patent negotiation and helping other companies who have few places to turn.