ITEXPO Blog
| The ITEXPO blog is where you can view the latest news and happenings at TMC's leading VoIP conference.
10 Lessons from Volleyball, Part 2
Part 1 of the 10 Business Lessons from Volleyball can be found here. In volleyball, the only play you control yourself is...
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CloudTC and N-Able Acquired
"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...
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ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0
In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...
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Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead
By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent
Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.
When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.
The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.
Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.
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10 Lessons from Volleyball
I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...
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Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week
There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...
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NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability
One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...
Full Story »Steve Wozniak to Keynote ITEXPO Las Vegas
February 22, 2013
We are extremely proud to announce Steve Wozniak is a keynoter at ITEXPO in Las Vegas, Thursday, August 29 at 10am. After the amazing keynote of John Sculley, past Apple CEO weeks back at this event* in Miami (video below), we thought the only way to even come close to finding someone of a similar caliber was to present the cofounder of Apple to our beloved ITEXPO community!
After all, how often do you get to hear from the person who helped revolutionize the personal computer industry by inventing the Apple I and Apple II computers?
The Woz has intricate knowledge of both communications and computing and as today’s mobility solutions have brought these markets together, his presence as a featured speaker means attendees at the show will hear from one of the most-focused visionaries available anywhere. Moreover, his topic which is the past, present and future of technology and entrepreneurship are sure to resonate
Registration is open now.
Steve Wozniak to Keynote ITEXPO Las Vegas
February 22, 2013
We are extremely proud to announce Steve Wozniak is a keynoter at ITEXPO in Las Vegas which takes place August 27-29, 2013. After the amazing keynote of John Sculley, past Apple CEO weeks back at this event* in Miami (video below), we thought the only way to even come close to finding someone of a similar caliber was to present the cofounder of Apple to our beloved ITEXPO community!
After all, how often do you get to hear from the person who helped revolutionize the personal computer industry by inventing the Apple I and Apple II computers?
The Woz has intricate knowledge of both communications and computing and as today’s mobility solutions have brought these markets together, his presence as a featured speaker means attendees at the show will hear from one of the most-focused visionaries available anywhere.
Business Management Philosophy Changed Because of John Sculley?
February 9, 2013Steve Jobs was such a creative entrepreneur - even calling him the ultimate visionary doesn't seem to describe how amazing he was. Like so many creative visionaries early in his career he lacked the political and people skills which many people believe are necessary to run a company effectively.
When he was "pushed out" of Apple it was seen as a normal incident - CEOs were pushed out of companies all the time as John Sculley has said. In fact Scully spoke just over a week ago at StartUp Camp7 collocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013 and gave us the inside scoop on everything that transpired between him and Jobs over the years.
What is interesting though is how Sculley defends Jobs and says it was a mistake to push Jobs out - it is a logical thing to say now of course seeing how Jobs turned Apple into a veritable powerhouse in tech, mobile and consumer electronics.
Verizon MiFi and Boingo Indispensable
February 8, 2013
Some time back Verizon Wireless sent me a MiFi device to test and I have used it as a long-term review unit and am blown away at how useful it has become. Recently at ITEXPO in Miami I was able to use it instead of hotel WiFi which often can cost $15/day. Moreover, there was one hotel I stayed at this past month where the position of the hotel meant 4G didn't work from any provider - and it turns out I paid through the nose for hotel WiFi. I happened to use three devices and I got charged for each one (almost daily) for seven days. I didn't notice that there was a per-device charge as typically this isn't the case at the hotels I use.
Although I didn't get charged $315, that is what I would have paid had I used each device each day and the hotel didn't take some of the charges off my bill.
Although I didn't get charged $315, that is what I would have paid had I used each device each day and the hotel didn't take some of the charges off my bill.
Thoughts on Alcatel-Lucent
February 8, 2013One of the greatest challenges incumbent companies face is the ambivalence and corporate politics incumbency breeds and it only gets worse in what we call the age of acceleration where competitors arise faster and technologies shift more quickly than ever. Nortel, NSN and Alcatel-Lucent are all companies who enjoyed decades of leadership in the carrier market and in the process decided to provide generous benefits for their workers which would eventually help make them uncompetitive.
There is more to it - in the late nineties, Lucent acquired companies so quickly that its workers didn't know exactly who did what. Nortel too made a great deal of acquisitions.
Dell+Microsoft=Apple?
February 5, 2013Dell is in a mind-bogglingly large long-rumored deal to go private worth $24 billion and of note is business partner Microsoft has decided to invest in the company which has struggled for many years. The company still has strength in the data center market but the PC space is facing a major challenge from the smartphones, the iPad and other tablets.
Dell tried to go upmarket with its Adamo line realizing Apple was a threat due in-part to its superior computer designs but the strategy fizzled. In the past, Dell also tried to come out with a device in the PDA space only to see the market erode as it launched because smartphones became more desirrable.
John Sculley Takes Stage at ITEXPO, Startup Camp7
January 31, 2013ITEXPO Miami 2013 and Startup Camp7, Waiting for Sculley
January 31, 2013It's the second day of ITEXPO - I am at StartUp Camp7 listening to startups pitch the audience and panel on why their applications are the best. The founder of ProtegGO is speaking right now - he seems to have the audience interested. The idea behind the app is tthat a few minutes can save lives in an emergency. the app alerts 15 people in the event of an emergency.
Telefonica Looking for Channel Partners to Crack U.S. Market
January 31, 2013I met with Telefónica along with some other media analysts at ITEXPO just a few moments ago. At ITEXPO Telefónica is announcing they are launching a channel partner program. Telefónica has a very strong presence in South America and Europe, but now they want to come to the U.S. market.
ITEXPO Future of Cloud Panel Pic
January 31, 2013
The Future of Cloud Computing panel was a big hit at ITEXPO Miami 2013 - lots of great information. Thanks to all who attended - here is a picture. I am at Telefonica press conference right now they have huge news about their new US-based channel partner program which will break at any moment. I am looking forward to hearing John Sculley speak here at the show later today and later - at 8:00 pm I'll be at the ITEXPO conference party at the Loews Hotel.
As a reminder, John Sculley is famous for inventing the Pepsi Challenge and also was the man who fired Steve Jobs and was later fired by him. We are honored to have him here.
