David Byrd : Raven Call
David Byrd
David Byrd is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer for Raven Guru Marketing. Previously, he was the CMO and EVP of Sales for CloudRoute. Prior to CloudRoute, He was CMO at ANPI, CMO & EVP of Sales at Broadvox, VP of channels and Alliances for Telcordia and Director of eBusiness development with i2 Technologies.He has also held executive positions with Planet Hollywood Online, Hewlett-Packard, Tandem Computers, Sprint and Ericsson.
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September 2010

You are browsing the archive for September 2010.

VoIP Services Market Continues Upward Trend

September 29, 2010

ABI Research has released a new forecast identifying the continued double digit growth of the VoIP services market. They have broken down the market into SIP Trunking, virtual/hosted IP PBX, managed services and VoIP integrated access. Their forecast is for this market to double over the next five years and exceed $20 billion in sales by 2015.

I agree.

Paella and Payola

September 27, 2010

This weekend represented some of the best cooking I have done this year (in so short a period of time). Friday, my wife and I enjoyed the Barbeque Shrimp with Boudin Bakery sourdough bread. I know, I made it for my birthday, but when you are cooking all day, it is very difficult to actually sit down and enjoy the food. I did that on Friday.

2010 Channel Partners was Well Received

September 24, 2010

Early comments from those attending the 2010 Channel Partners conference outside Washington DC have been very good. While Broadvox did not exhibit, we did sponsor an education session, "Hosted VoIP for VARs". Although, our primary sales of SIP trunks is in support of our many partner IP PBX OEMs, we have launched GO!VBX (Virtual Business eXchange), formerly GO!Hosted, a comprehensive and aggressively priced hosted IP PBX solution. The reason to sponsor this session is to continue to educate current and potential channel partners about the benefits of representing both premise and hosted PBX products.

Broadband, a Civil Right?

September 22, 2010

Never does it fail that when a group of bureaucrats get together silly mind numbing thoughts will flow. Regardless of the country, format, subject or education, the pronouncements by these public servants continue to amaze and infuriate those us that think. International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure challenged global leaders to make access to high-speed networks a basic civil right. He delivered a Broadband Commission for Digital Development report to the UN that declares there must be "Broadband Inclusion for All".

Fixing BBQ Shrimp and FoIP

September 20, 2010

I was very busy this weekend installing a new garage door opener and a few other tasks so my cooking was limited. My wife surprised me by cooking enchiladas on Friday. I did not feel like cooking after installing the new garage door opener on Saturday. Sunday I prepared two dishes but neglected to measure anything, which removes them as possibilities for recipe of the week.

Assessing Sales Turnover

September 17, 2010

There is one well-known person that comes to mind when I think of employee turnover, Jack Welch. He is the proponent of replacing the bottom 10% of an organization every year.  For a time, I was also aware of a philosophy exiting in one or more companies in Silicon Valley that required the dismissal of the bottom 5% every quarter. I found both philosophies harsh and difficult to implement when I led marketing organizations.

COMPTEL Goes Ethernet

September 15, 2010

This week I attended COMPTEL at the Gaylord in Grapevine Texas. Broadvox has a suite for meeting with potential clients and partners but for the first time no booth. We will see if that strategy worked by measuring our ROI on just the suite versus having both. However, interspersed with my meetings was time to visit the show floor.

Happy Birthday and the Here You Go Virus

September 13, 2010

I celebrated my birthday this weekend by inviting a couple of dozen people over to celebrate. It was a lot of work to cook for that many people but done over a few days not bad. I made a number of dishes featured in this blog over the last few months. The smoker played a role in most of the dishes, as this was a "pool party" (no one got in the pool).

Hosted, Cloud Computing, SaaS, Managed Services

September 10, 2010

The list of terms for a similar function has gotten ridiculous. In a world that has gone acronym crazy, it is very difficult to get a simple message out. However, hear me scream that the market for virtual IP PBXs is growing faster than premise-based solutions. The reasons for this vary by size of company, industry and financial performance.

It's All About the Channel

September 8, 2010

One of the less surprising announcements yesterday was that Mark Hurd would be joining Oracle as a co-president. I found it more interesting that Larry Ellison found HP Board had let him go due to political correctness. For the record, Mark Hurd was let go due to expense reporting irregularities not sexual harassment. In any event, Oracle recently acquired Sun and while I followed Hurd's efforts at HP, I did not know that his strength was in building their channel.

Contact Centers Need New Strategies

September 3, 2010

Earlier in the week, I spoke to a conference of call and contact center managers. When I was asked to speak some months ago, I wondered what I could possibly say to the group that would be interesting. I mean, I know a little about a lot of things (I am marketing and sales) but I didn't know what would be a concern for this group. Fortunately, when I arrived they were running a bit late and I got to listen to two other speakers discuss their "successes" in the industry.

Changing the World is not Easy

September 1, 2010

Earlier this week I read someone's comments regarding the new Google Voice free service. The essence of the article was that this free service was going to change the way telecommunications is delivered and sold in the US, and, perhaps, the world. I usually let this type of rhetoric flow over me like a cool breeze because it is not often that a new product changes the world. Moreover, I was confused by the assessment the writer gave the product.

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