One of the people with a long history in the communications space is Neal Shact (pictured) -- CEO of Communitech Services. In the past, Shacht has been a distributor in the headset market and has been early in many new markets such as VoIP, call centers and others.

Shact points out it is impossible for customers to know what they want in UC. He mentions the old story that Henry Ford once said people when asked what they wanted in transportation said, a faster horse.

His point: you need a communications roadmap. Don't rely exclusively on your UC vendor to dictate what you want and need.

You want to check out this podcast as it is rife with references outside communications -- and the tie-ins are fascinating. In addition, he has a way of bringing tech and communications together.

I truly hope you enjoy it.

I have been getting more and more questions on where the communications market stands in light of macroeconomic conditions. It is a constant in my frequent conversations. In most cases, when I get this question, people tell me their business is good but they wonder if the housing market problems will trickle down into the telecom space.

The answer is simply, I do believe there is risk to all sectors of the global economy. For the first time in my memory, US and other political leaders have come on TV and mentioned the term global crisis on a frequent basis. This sort of talk shakes confidence. This is simply the way it works.

The question we need to ask is how do we benefit in such a scenario or at best, how do we tread water so our sales, revenue, income does not decrease?

Most importantly, you need to focus on areas which save your customers money and make them more productive. UC, telepresence, workforce automation, FMC and other technologies pay for themselves quickly. In addition, SIP trunking is a natural in this market... You save your customers money and get a recurring revenue source if you are a service provider or reseller.

Subsets of the communications market are on fire. Mobile banking and WiMAX are a few. Emerging markets and rural America are ripe for wireless broadband.

In fact, these markets are ripe for all forms of communications and penetration in many cases is extremely low. Of course this equals tremendous opportunity.

In a slow market there is pressure to purchase less but we have crossed the chasm of mobile web browsing these past years and we will see more devices with mobile broadband and this leads to the increased use of the internet on the go. As this trend continues - the opportunity for wireless services increases as well. This leads me to the mobile application market. You need to have an application which works on the iPhone, RIM devices and eventually the Gphone. Don't forget about Windows Mobile or Nokia by the way.

I have seen many recessions in my day and the telecom space is one of the few which saw something called a nuclear winter between 2001-2003. What I learned from these experiences is that every slowdown ends at some point and customers do not ever stop buying - they may slow, they may delay, but they don't stop.

In other words, even if things slow down in our space, they will speed up again. The strategy for making sure you come out the other end of a slowing economy in a better position than you are in today is as follows:

Conserve Cash: This is obvious but how you do it is crucial. If you cut your PR, marketing and R&D, where do you think you will be in a slowing market? None of these areas can be cut by more than a few percent. If you have to cut a bit more, R&D is the area to cut incrementally from. The reason is that the feature wars most companies fight are less important than explaining to customers why they need to buy your products.

Keep in mind, every company you sell to now has to go through more internal scrutiny before they buy. You need to reinforce sales with more marketing and sales efforts. In order to last in a slowing market you need to ensure you are still selling. If you are too heavily R&D focused and don't do marketing and PR effectively, hire an agency to help you immediately.

Become More Productive: Every company needs to operate at 100% efficiency. Cut off your dead wood. Do it today. It is time to let the complainers and high maintenance people go. If they aren't happy, you are doing them a favor. Believe me; it will work out better for you and for them.

Rally the Troops: Explain to them why they need to work smarter, harder and faster. Customer service is key. Don't lose customers because of bad service.

Hire PR/Marketing People: If you aren't strong in these areas, you have to hire an agency or top people who can help you market more effectively in slow times. I have witnessed many millions of wasted marketing dollars in my life. Spending a marketing budget and spending it wisely are totally different things. A million dollar marketing budget can be blown stupidly with 10 newspaper ads or used much more effectively in focused media vehicles where your potential customers are actually looking for your products.

Market Analysis: There are hundreds of small companies which are engineering driven in the communications space which do not know how to market. Companies founded by engineers are typically the worst run from a marketing perspective. (Remember - I am an engineer myself so no insult intended - we aren't sugar coating here). These companies - where the engineer runs marketing are likely going to have trouble selling products in a slowdown (or any other time for that matter). Keep your eyes open for acquisitions or weakness in the markets you serve. Keep your ear to the ground. One of these small companies about to go under may have good ideas for products but just no clue how to sell them. You may determine developing a competitive product/service to one of these small companies makes sense.

Speed: It is better to be fast than right. After all, you can't be right every time but if you are fast, you can adjust and become right faster than the other guy.

Optimism: Be optimistic. If you are smart and run things well and your entire team works together to support you, your company can come out of any downturn stronger than it went in. Sure, be cautious --but in the end, business is cyclical. It just is. That is the nature of the beast. Work harder, faster and smarter and you will be rewarded.

Remember, things are still generally good in the communications and technology markets and if you follow these rules you should make it out the other side of any slowdown in better condition than you are in today.

I came across this great article on SIP from John Carroll over at ZDNet which summarizes some of his thoughts from last week's ITEXPO. I like this article because it goes into depth on SIP, SIP trunking and more. I liked the article so much in fact I now follow this blog in my news reader. You can do so as well.

You may have noticed some posts regarding Skype being for sale and possibly acquired by Google this past weekend. While a few people have speculated Google would be the only purchaser, Andy throws in Oracle and Cisco. I agree with Andy and would add IBM, Microsoft and SalesForce.com into this group as any of these companies would want to strengthen their subscriber bases and having Skype in their portfolios means a strong integration with a very popular software package which can be leveraged to provide a great unified communications solution.

Oracle and IBM especially would be able to leverage Skype in this fashion. Of course yes -- Skype is a consumer play but I hear over and over how often Skype is used in the corporate environment. I haven't seen a study on how many customers do use Skype at work but I think the company is very valuable and combined with a partner who can realize the true synergies, there is likely much hidden potential here.

In years past the competition between GIPS and Spirit DSP has been the stuff of legend. While the competitive situation has unwound over the past 18 months or so it is still interesting to see how the companies compete with one another.

For example, some news out of this week's ITEXPO is that exhibitor GIPS has just announced it has been selected by Mail.Ru to have its GIPS' VoiceEngine embedded inside the Mail.Ru Agent, starting with version 5.2 -- allowing affordable calls to stationary and mobile phones.

Of course the interesting thing here is Spirit DSP is based in Moscow -- so this is a win in foreign territory for GIPS and the company can look forward to having its solutions rolled out to about 50 million new Russian users.

I just came across an article by Richard Zippy Grigonis regarding the success of ITEXPO in light of the incredible competition over the years. Reading it, reminded me of shows of the past which I enjoyed going to. Zippy -- as many of you know is about the straightest-shooter there is -- he tells it as it is -- from his vantage point of course.

This is what makes his thoughts are all the more incredible (and humbling) -- and Zippy -- you are part of the team that allows ITEXPO and TMC in general to flourish. Of course while i am in thanking mode -- getting ready to head out to LA for ITEXPO myself -- let me extend a hearty thanks to the entire TMC team, our advertisers, sponsors, exhibitors and partners who have allowed TMC to keep growing.

I look forward to seeing you all and thanking you in person this week. Be sure to register now and come on down.

The second installment of the Microsoft Bill Gates Jerry Seinfeld advertising campaign is surprisingly better than the first. It is just as confusing but there was something about it which compelled me to watch and have real interest in what the characters are all about. After a short amount of time I admit I threw in the towel as to trying to understand some of the characters.

I should also mention the ad was 2:30 long making it five times longer than a typical commercial.




I do agree the acting of Bill Gates was good and Seinfeld -- well he can't seem to be bad -- even if he tries. With the exception of course being the first installment of this commercial series.

I suppose the point of these commercials is to reposition Microsoft as hipper and more interesting without responding directly to the Apple ads. I would think in this respect this ad more than the first one succeeds.

One last thought is the ad actually casts Bill Gates -- known worldwide as one of the most successful people around, as super-intelligent while simultaneously approachable person. To the extent Bill Gates personifies the Microsoft brand to so many people, this is exactly what needs to be done and perhaps this campaign is only going to get better -- after all it, it couldn't get worse.

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.

On a recent call with Jim Machi, Senior Vice President Marketing Dialogic Inc.I had a chance to ask a number of questions regarding his company's pending acquisition of the platform division of NMS. The deal is subject to shareholder approval and comes a few weeks after NMS received a delisting notice from the Nasdaq exchange due to the company's stock price being under $1 for more than 30 days in a row.

Machi tells me the deal will allow the two companies to pool resources and as a result they should be able to get products out to the market faster than ever. He further cited the video and mobile value-added spaces as other areas where the companies will be able to compete more effectively as a standalone entity.

I asked Machi about the geographical ramifications of this deal and whether there are complimentary areas of the world which NMS brings to the table. According to Jim, Dialogic is very strong worldwide so this was not a reason for this acquisition.

I asked if the deal has been on the works for a long time and Machi commented it was a normal amount of based on prior acquisitions. At this point it is worth mentioning since NMS is a public company Machi is limited in what he can say.

I asked about integration issues and Machi told me they haven't started looking into it yet but based on past experience -- these integrations are always challenging and will require work.

Machi told me some of the fastest growing segments of Dialogic's business are mobile and mobility as well as IP-based products.  He further explained value-added services such as ringtones and video are seeing nice growth levels as well.

On the economy, Machi explained that some customers are nervous and delaying purchases but since the company is broad-based, they haven't seen severe impact.

From there I asked about whether there are opportunities for Dialogic's customers' customers to benefit financially from the products Dialogic makes. Machi did cite years of research which shows many of the solutions our industry has developed have been responsible for massive productivity increases. Voicemail is one example he mentioned and to that I would add IVR and the ACD.

Machi explained that even if some of these new products boost productivity and cut costs, companies can always put off purchase decisions for a quarter unless there is a pressing need.

This concluded my interview but is worth mentioning the company will continue to look for organic and inorganic growth opportunities.

I got to thinking after we hung up that another benefit to customers from this acquisition will be dealing with a stronger company and we can further expect greater integration between Dialogic's current product line and successful NMS products.

When you think about it, NMS and Dialogic are two of the main companies who supplied DSP resource boards which allowed Internet telephony gateways to be built and sold in the late nineties. In other words, much of the low-cost telephony we enjoy today has evolved from and in many cases is powered by technology invented and patented by these companies.

There is a rich legacy in the DNA of both companies and incredible brainpower at a company like NMS including company CTO Brough Turner who has been a  TMC columnist for over a decade. The integration of these teams could really result in significant innovation. I wish both companies well in this transaction and I hope this acquisition turns out to be a win/win for all.

I realize this has nothing to do with my typical subject matter but as you know as I get closer to a trade show I do look for nice segues to help me discuss the show. For example, next week, ITEXPO will be held in Los Angeles and coincidentally about an hour or so ago, Kanye West was arrested in Los Angeles.

So coming to ITEXPO can not only be good for your career and help you supply your users with a better IP communications experience, you can come to the show in the city where Kanye West was actually arrested. If you come to the show via LAX, you can actually visit the airport and perhaps gate where Mr. West -- famous for the song Gold Digger and Stronger among others -- was handcuffed and taken away.

With any luck -- being LA and all -- you may get to see other celebrities arrested on your way to the show as well. If you do -- be sure to drop me a line.

Silliness aside -- we are all looking forward to seeing you next week in LA.