While the week before Christmas and New Year’s is typically slow with regards to news, the huge blizzard which hit the northeast really started things off with a bang. A foot-and-a-half of snow hit the area around TMC headquarters in Norwalk, CT with drifts totaling a few feet in height. Airports were backed up and some streets took days to plow well.

Skype has been busy

We have been very fortunate that TMC’s community of visitors online and the readers of our publications have chosen to make ITEXPO and its numerous related and collocated events the place you come to learn about the market and choose products for purchase. Thank You! We have never taken your loyalty for granted and we appreciate your suggestions over the years – many of which have been implemented and as a result have made ITEXPO the defacto event of its kind with growing attendance, topical coverage and energy levels.

If there is one thing you know about TMC it is we are not shy to try new things – especially when they seem to make a lot of sense and you suggest them.

Digium Asterisk World Demo Theater from Past ITEXPO Event in Miami, FL


TMC is thrilled to have Digium Asterisk World return to ITEXPO this February 2-4, 2011 in Miami, FL. Here is a quote from Digium from a press release which just went out today:

 “Hosting Digium|Asterisk World at ITEXPO East 2011 allows us to share the vision and power of Asterisk with a wide community of developers and carriers – even some who are not completely familiar with open source,” said Mark Spencer (News - Alert), CTO and founder of Digium, and the creator of Asterisk. “The upcoming Digium|Asterisk World will help developers, resellers, and anyone interested in Asterisk learn more about the opportunities emerging today. It will provide the hands-on training needed to capitalize on these opportunities,” he continued. 

Dan York at a recent ITEXPO - specifically the collocated Cloud Communications Summit - Dan is on the right and Thomas Howe is on the left
 

Yesterday I discussed how open always wins referring to the competition between Apple and Google's Android and a side conversation was started on Facebook questioning my assertion. I took the opposite viewpoint in a comment and mentioned that Apple does have a lock on customers via iTunes as well as the App Store which have a tremendous lead in the market.

I was reminded of this discussion when I read how Dan York of Voxeo is espousing the virtues of Skype - a closed provider of communications - when Voxeo and Dan are huge proponents of open ecosystems.

As I read the piece, I became fascinated at how Voxeo has chosen to use Skype as a way to make the company's operations better - utilizing persistent group chats which focus on various subjects.

The point is that using these chats, the company which consists of many people located all over the world and some who travel are able to not only communicate effectively but are able to rapidly be brought up to speed on various topics after getting off an airplane by just logging onto Skype.

Dan mentions that there are other alternatives but it seems from the outside anyway that habit will keep the company using Skype for a long while - even if a better solution comes along immediately.

And this gets us to the counter of the open always wins argument - if you have loyal fans and/or people who habitually uses your interface and are happy with it - or some other differentiator, it becomes tough for competition to come in and take the market over. Even if the new competition is open.

Let's recall that compared to Apple and iOS, Windows Mobile was very open - it just wasn't as good as Apple's OS - and there was no contest from a marketing perspective either.

Apple definitely put together a more pleasing experience and were able to do so in part because they owned the stores, hardware and  packaging.

But now, Windows Phone 7 and Google's Android are taking some of the best parts of the Apple experience and replicating and in some cases improving them.

This in and of itself may not be enough to win against Apple but what the open approach has is a slew of hardware partners making devices in a variety of form factors. Some of these device sizes may catch fire.