Brendan Read
TMC
Wireless
Tablets as Phones...Are There Signs of It Happening?
February 10, 2011I like cellphones as phones and tablets as e-mail/texting/surfing means. I dislike the reverse: for me and many others cellphones are a terrible tool for communications other than voice. The keyboards may be suited for Tweets and texts but are just too tiny for serious e-mail/chat work for all as are the screens. My wife has a BlackBerry smartphone with the touchscreen pad and the only "smart" task (other than making calls) she uses it for is occasionally checking her e-mails.
Handling The Next Telemarketing Regulations
April 27, 2009Telemarketing is rarely in the news these days, and that's a good thing. The advent and acceptance of Do Not Call (DNC) and predictive dialer abandonment regulations in the U.S. and Canada appear to have had the intended effects. That is they have lowered--but not eliminated--annoying calls that had turned off more customers and had prompted them to spend their money elsewhere that they had attracted and revenue generated.
Wired Best Option For Rural Broadband?
February 20, 2009Now that some $7 billion+ will be spent on rural broadband expansion, thanks to President Obama's just signed $787 billion economic stimulus package, the interesting question becomes which broadband technologies, wired or wireless should be supported i.e. subsidized to deliver it.
To get at the answers let's look at the two key benefits of this program:
1. It opens the door to truly effective e-commerce to residents and businesses, thereby increasing the availability of competitively priced products and services, and enhancing the economy, and to more information and services like distance learning and telemedicine. That means less gas, vehicle wear, and time in the long drives to the nearest urban centers
2.
Is Nortel's Future In The Clouds?
December 22, 2008
Rich Tehrani's superb piece on the solid shape of Nortel's carrier business, coupled with recent stories on the troubled communications/enterprise products firm got me to thinking: does Nortel's future lie in the convergence of carrier networks and hosted solutions from Fortune 500-scaled CRM to workforce management i.e. the cloud?
Companies are very interested in the hosting model because they want to get away from buying licenses and bolting in hardware just as they no longer, with few exceptions, own their buildings: to save capital costs and give them greater flexibility.
Enterprise solutions, like buildings, are infrastructure. They don't define the firms' value propositions.
mCommerce + eCommerce = Retail Success
December 8, 2008
Forget home and business computers. mCommerce is the killer app for eCommerce, and together it will enable retailers to be successful now and going forward provided it is fully integrated with the stores.
Thanks to at last the widening 3G and nascent 4G networks, and increasingly user-friendly smartphones that permit easier keying and surfing, prospects and consumers are researching and buying online, anytime, anywhere. They will want the convenience of finding a product on a website, like a must-have gift, then texting or calling the merchant and having it set aside for purchase at the nearest location, then guaranteeing it with a credit card.
The Acquity Group has correctly identified, in a recent white paper, that eCommerce will be the top channel for growth in 2009.
Bell Deal to 'Take A Walk In The Snow'?
November 26, 2008'To take a walk in the snow' is a Canadian expression meaning stepping down or that a deal is dead. It dates back to when former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau stepped out into a typical winter day in Ottawa, the nation's capital, and when he came back decided to resign.
The phrase is appropriate today as there are published stories swirling amidst falling snow throughout Ontario and Quebec that a leveraged buyout (LBO) of Montreal-based Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), the country's largest communications carrier, scheduled to close Dec.11, 2008 may be doomed.
The Globe and Mail reported an announcement by Bell that it had obtained a 'preliminary view' from KPMG that the accounting firm does not expect to deliver opinion by the close whether the deal would meet the solvency tests.
Rx for Nortel?
November 13, 2008Nortel is a proud company with an excellent reputation for innovative products, especially in the contact center and wireless spaces. Unfortunately the firm has for some years been in rough straits, with what seems to be a sadly neverending stream of cutbacks and downsizings. I live in a town where Nortel has a plant whose size, say longtime residents, is just a fraction of what it used to be.
In what seems to be an insulting blow, an analyst from RBC Dominion Securities in Canada, where Nortel is HQed, has cut its stock target to $0, reported the Globe and Mail. The story says that bankruptcy 'is a distinct possibility'.
Nortel can't keep attriting itself, and spinning or attempt to spin off its assets.
IP-enabled iPhone: The Ultimate Contact Center Handset?
September 25, 2008Imagine being able to take and make calls, receive e-mails, IMs, and SMS, and at the same time manage web-enabled applications like hosted CRM and workforce management in a convenient, go-anywhere, user-friendly wireless appliance.
Imagine no more being tangled up in cords, or fiddling with multiple (and expensive) gadgets.
Imagine having at last a truly usable phone for home workers, including contact center agents and supervisors.
The hard reality is that when you are working from home you do get interrupted, like for deliveries, plumbers, other contractors, family responsibilities: which beats productivity and cost-wise having to leave early/arrive late to handle when working in a traditional office. Such a device would enable you to stay in touch and keep on the go while signing documents, giving instructions, etc.
The reality of having such a tool may be closer than you may think: in the form of an IP-enabled iPhone that acts like a mutant cordless handset.
IP Fairy Dust
April 24, 2008
Here's something you don't think about very often.
When connecting to the public telephone network in the U.S., many VoIP and wireless telephone companies are essentially "riding for free," since they are not transmitting sufficient identification information to allow the traditional carriers to charge them. Apparently, this is particularly hard on rural telephone companies, which make up to 29 percent of their revenue from inter-carrier compensation (carrying traffic for another company).
One such rural provider disdains the process. Ramond Henagan, General Manager of Missouri's Rock Port Telephone, stated that some VoIP providers have refused to pay access fees by saying the FCC has "given them permission to use the networks for free because they're IP," Henagan said.
When connecting to the public telephone network in the U.S., many VoIP and wireless telephone companies are essentially "riding for free," since they are not transmitting sufficient identification information to allow the traditional carriers to charge them. Apparently, this is particularly hard on rural telephone companies, which make up to 29 percent of their revenue from inter-carrier compensation (carrying traffic for another company).
One such rural provider disdains the process. Ramond Henagan, General Manager of Missouri's Rock Port Telephone, stated that some VoIP providers have refused to pay access fees by saying the FCC has "given them permission to use the networks for free because they're IP," Henagan said.
Arthur C. Clarke
March 19, 2008
Twice in my life have I become teary over the death of people whom I had never met. The first was over George Harrison, as I was a fan of the "Quiet Beatle." The second time was yesterday, upon hearing of the death of Arthur C. Clarke.
It was in eighth grade...Ms. Wheeler's English class...that I was obliged to read the book "2001: A Space Odyssey." Most of my classmates approached it with dread.
It was in eighth grade...Ms. Wheeler's English class...that I was obliged to read the book "2001: A Space Odyssey." Most of my classmates approached it with dread.
