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February 2012

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ITEXPO IP Communications Trade Show Continues Solid Growth

February 8, 2012

ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami was TMC's best show ever with over 200 booths and over 8,200 attendees. Conferee attendance for ITEXPO East increased more than 50% from 2011, resulting in dozens of standing room only sessions at ITEXPO and collocated conferences such as HTML5 Summit, M2M Evolution, Business Video Expo, Super WiFi Summit, and 4GWE. As an example, here's a photo I took at the jam-packed Ingate SIP trunking conference session:


Even with the additional third day of exhibit hall hours, foot traffic was pretty good - on a Friday no less. I heard from several exhibitors saying it was their best ITEXPO ever.

TMC's next show, ITEXPO West 2012, is scheduled to take place on October 1-4, 2012, in Austin, Texas, (the 'new' Telecom Corridor) which will be the second time in Austin after moving from Los Angeles.




Forget Super Wi-Fi! Go with Super Wi-Fi! Wait. What?

February 3, 2012


Everyone is hyping the new Super Wi-Fi standard which uses lower-frequency white spaces between television channel frequencies. These lower frequencies enable the signal to travel further (miles) and penetrate walls better than the higher frequencies previously used (hundreds of feet). Well, forget about Super Wi-Fi!

I met with Thomas Ngeow from Altai Technologies at ITEXPO, a Hong Kong-based company and he explained they coined Super Wi-Fi for one of their products long before the Super Wi-Fi standard was coined. You're probably wondering who cares who coined it first and you'd be right.


Billionaire Gives Secrets to Startup Success

February 3, 2012



Sir Terry Matthews is a Welsh/Canadian high tech entrepreneur, and Wales's first billionaire. He has directly started 89 companies with an amazing 83 out of 89 success rate. It's an even more astounding fact when you consider that according to TMC's Peter Bernstein, 90% of startups fail. Terry has sold many of these companies for millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars.

ITEXPO Miami 2012 Day 1 Analysis

February 2, 2012

Trade shows are in fact barometers of industry sentiment and mood and to gauge what the feeling is in the technology and communications spaces I turn to Jon Arnold's blog post about the first day here at ITEXPO.
First off Jon is about as balanced as they come - even his compliments come with room for improvement weaved in. So I invite you to read his full post about the show so far - which again says a lot about where the rest of 2012 will be heading in our spaces.
Across the board, I think most people will tell you the event is working really well. The hallways are full with activity, the sessions are well attended, the content is great, and the breadth of subject matter is far too great for any human to consume.
My day was spent either in briefings or moderating, so I didn't have a chance to see any other sessions. It's too bad, since there's really strong content for me in tracks such as Cloud Communications, SIP Trunking, 4GWE, M2M - and others.


TMC Showcases the Top 40 "Newsmakers" at ITEXPO

February 2, 2012

There is a lot of news (product launches, new versions) being made at TMC's ITEXPO, some of which I've already covered (Digium, Xorcom)... ITEXPO has a record number of exhibitors that have unveiled new products and services at ITEXPO in Miami.

There have been many competing shows over the years, most notably VON, which suffered an untimely demise. ITEXPO and VON were the two best shows focused on VoIP and IP communications.


Rich Tehrani With ITEXPO Facts + Super Wi-Fi, M2M, StartupCamp & VC Funding

February 2, 2012

Ingate SIP Trunking Session at ITEXPO is Packed!

February 1, 2012

The Crowd Gathers to Enter ITEXPO Exhibit Floor

February 1, 2012

Win this Mustang at ITEXPO Miami 2012

February 1, 2012

ShoreTel Acquires M5 for Cloud Communications

February 1, 2012

ShoreTel just announced they are purchasing  M5 Networks - both companies have been past participants in ITEXPO - I happen to be here at ITEXPO Miami where we have record crowds. And cloud communications is a hot space as evidenced by the interest in the technology by purchasing conferees here at the show.
And this is the reason for the acquisition. Many will credit the simplicity of ShoreTel PBXs as well as their "networking" based approach to design and deployment for some of their success. Obviously they are better at marketing and PR than most communications companies as well.
But the future is the cloud and M5 has been a  regional player for a long time and although they have expanded their footprint they don't have a strong enough brand to be the cloud-communications alternative to a strong brand like Cisco or Avaya.

Sprint's Michael A. Rouleau Kicks off ITEXPO Keynotes

February 1, 2012

The keynotes have started with Michael Rouleau telling the story of a company that has invented a flying car. It can travel 65mph on the ground and I think he said 115mph or 150mph in the air with a range of 450 miles. Hit traffic on I-95? Fly over it!

Great Article on Bob Metcalfe's StartupCamp Keynote in Austin

February 1, 2012

The PR Vibes newsletters are a great place to catch up on the news and gossip on industry events such as CTIA, MWC and ITEXPO. We are here at ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami and the good people at PR Vibes were nice enough to cover the last major keynote at the collocated StartupCamp which took place in Austin, Texas last fall.

Our keynoter at that show was Bob Metcalfe - a legend and a great speaker whose oratory skills are only outweighed by his massive contributions to tech and networking.

I don't want to steal thunder from Laura Borgstede and her crew so by all means check out the post right now - it is educational and informative and worth a read.

Think of it as an MBA course from a person who really knows how to start and run successful companies. Moreover - it is information from a visionary and executor - we know how rare this combo is not only in tech but in any space.

By the same token you must be at StartupCamp here at ITEXPO at 4:00 pm in room B217 of the Miami Beach Convention Center to hear Sir Terry Matthews speak on Thursday, February 2nd. Sir Terry is an awesome speaker as well - he is the perfectly blend of entrepreneur and visionary having been involved in over 70 companies.

StartupCamp has a lot of energy (maybe not as much as Sir Terry - that is a high standard after all) and is a "can't miss."



Location:Jackie Gleason Dr,Miami Beach,United States















ITEXPO East 2012 Exhibit Hall Coming Together

February 1, 2012

Digium Has New Phones. Now an Ecosystem Play

February 1, 2012

Today at ITEXPO Digium announced three new phones and Tom Keating is really impressed based on his post today. But what really caught my attention is not the obvious - which is that companies are increasingly expanding into new markets. Its that Digium is adding custom features to their phones which can access core PBX functions for not only Asterisk but Switchvox.

So what we have here ladies and gentlemen is an ecosystem play - like the Apple app store or Facebook apps, etc. Open APIs are allowing companies to leverage the development efforts of a community for mutual benefit.

And boy is this great news for Digium - after all don't the developers LOVE Digium?



Digium Gamechanger! Launches D40, D50, & D70 IP Phones

February 1, 2012


Today, at ITEXPO, the premiere communications event, Digium launched a line of IP phones that work in conjunction with their Asterisk and Switchvox solutions. This truly could be a gamechanger, since Asterisk is a popular IP-PBX solution that popular 3rd party phone vendors such as Aastra, snom, and Polycom offer products for. This move by Digium and the impact on these phone vendors could be quite interesting. This reminds me of 2008 when Aastra, a traditional IP phone manufacturer decided to offer a full-fledged IP-PBX based on Asterisk, called AastraLink. As I said during the AastraLink 2008 product launch:
Aastra Telecom has entered the IP-PBX game with the AastraLink Pro 160.