ITEXPO http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ The ITEXPO blog is where you can view the latest news and happenings at TMC's leading VoIP conference. en-us Copyright 2012 2012-05-16T14:35:19-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Is Yahoo Just Doomed? http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/05/is-yahoo-just-doomed.html 49372@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ Yahoo! and told them they need to take on Google more directly and he was told, “That is not the Yahoo way.” I still remember the dumfounded feeling I had when I heard this ridiculous comment. We all know that Yahoo is a company with outstanding assets but with major internal problems. CEOs seem to be ousted annually, the company is behind in just about every market it invented and even with all its traffic, it seems to be all about yesterday’s Internet.

There are lots of stories about the company’s incompetence – one past high-level exec detailed the situation at a TMC conference (at the person’s request I won’t share more detail) and his explanation of the corporate politics remind me more of a sitcom than a company looking to win.

Politics are nothing new… Every company has them. Egos are fragile things and people want to amass more power. But when a company lets ego and politics trump winning, they are in for trouble. Moreover, when that trouble comes from Google, Facebook and a slew of new startups and your company is rowing with one oar, you are essentially screwed.

And then there are acquisitions. Yahoo made a bunch of them about a decade ago getting ready to position itself as the leader of the next generation of internet technology. But the company so screwed this up that you could write a business encyclopedia about what you shouldn’t do in an M&A situation.

Nadji Tehrani, my father and founder of the company where I am CEO – TMC often says it is better to be first than best. His premise is no one remembers the second person to cross the Atlantic Ocean or to win the Triple Crown, etc. And because Yahoo was the first company to index the Internet they are still with us. Otherwise it would have likely become Pets.com 2.0.

While much of the world is focused on the company’s ouster of its CEO over resume-gate what they should be reading is about how the company took the last eight years or so to purchase an awesome company Flickr and then absolutely destroyed it. Matt Honan details how the leading web portal company did virtually everything it could to ensure they weren’t successful as the web became social.

First of all Yahoo continued to buy products built by user communities without caring about the actual communities. User-generated content is a treasure. The cost to the hosting company is merely storage and if you can monetize this content– and certainly this was very possible in the middle of the last decade, you ideally want to keep the flow going by keeping users happy. But Yahoo made changes to Flickr which infuriated users causing them to flee.

Shockingly (assuming you are new to Yahoo horror stories) when Yahoo managers were told about this potential problem they seemed to not care.

Moreover, because Flickr didn’t generate tremendous revenue compared to other Yahoo divisions, it was starved of resources and instead of being allowed to focus on innovation it was forced to concentrate of getting its service to work better with Yahoo. In other words innovation was trumped by integration.

And as a result, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are the leading photo sharing sites and apps now. Flickr could have become YouTube. Flickr could have morphed into Facebook. But in order for this to have happened, it would have required vision among the entire Yahoo management team to understand where the market potential was.

In the article there is also much talk regarding specific personalities who were impossible to work with and much blame for Yahoo’s failed integration strategy and its terrible Flickr mobile app.

It is just so damning you have to wonder how the company is actually able to function each day.

But still, the potential exists for Yahoo to integrate its products more effectively to become the Facebook competitor the market likely wants. But this would require the company to divide up into smaller teams with some sort of integration strategy which is loosely coupled.

Moreover, Yahoo needs more engineering control – this is something I have never written – I am an engineer and putting most of us in charge of product design/execution is a disaster waiting to happen. But in Yahoo’s case the situation is so pathetic, having more of a techie-led approach to products and innovation would likely be far more successful than what is happening now.

Finally, what is the company’s mission – its raison d'être? We know it is a hodgepodge of sites which allow you to compare cars, check email and news, etc. but they need a mission – not so much for the outside as the inside.

Even a generic tagline like “Making the web better” would help discourage a manager who wants to use his power to kill mobile app features which users would appreciate.

Yahoo, is not unlike a company such as Nortel who also had a dominant position and made acquisitions which helped sink the company. Purchasing companies is very difficult to do correctly and requires resources to ensure you understand not just the integration of the business but how to have it grow potentially larger than the parent.

In other words if you swallow a team of developers, marketers and product people and then remove their oxygen, how will you ever allow this team to achieve its full potential? You can’t invent the next big thing if you are scrambling to find an oxygen tank after all.

In closing, when you make an acquisition, be sure you understand what you are buying and why it is successful. If you are buying a user-generated database, how do you ensure the users will continue to generate the database? After all, that is where the growth comes from. Moreover, if you see mobile is the future and so is social, and you are the world’s largest web portal, for Heaven’s sake – be sure you tie into these trends before you become disintermediated.

In January of this year I suggested 11 things Yahoo needed to do now after Jerry Yang departed – Marketing, Social, Mobile, Cloud, Music, Movies, Be Cool, Expand, Partner, Behavioral Targeting and Election. It would appear the company hasn’t made progress on many of these fronts – but then again, there has been lots of change at the top during this time.

But the competition isn’t slowing down so if Yahoo doesn’t get its act together soon, it may just become too late for them to turn the ship around and yes the company could just be doomed. For the sake of the company they better hope the Nortel comparison ends here.

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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/itexpo/is-yahoo-just-doomed.html integration strategy company yahoo flickr become users Wed, 16 May 2012 14:35:19 -0500 2012-05-16T14:35:19-05:00 GM to Facebook: Your ads Don't Work http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/05/gm-to-facebook-your-ads-dont-work.html 49365@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ pulled the plug on a $10 million dollar ad deal.
To put this in perspective, GM is the third largest advertiser in the US and its budget is absolutely huge. Last year in fact it was  $1.8B. The interesting part of the situation is that even though GM won't be continuing its ad spend this year it plans on continuing to spend $30M or so for Facebook content.
What this tells us is Facebook is just becoming a driver of the Splinternet or another Internet which advertisers and developers need to take into account. While having free content is great for Facebook and moreover GM will no doubt continue to drive massive web traffic Zuckerberg's way, the challenge becomes how to monetize it all.
Now one could argue that Facebook can just show ads from other companies on all the content GM creates and they currently do this. The issue worth wondering about is what if other advertisers come to the same conclusion and there are no ads from major companies like Ford or Toyota to show on all the GM content.
Let's further consider GM wastes massive amounts of its ad budget on TV. By waste I mean branding is a very tough business in that it is tough to target branding ads directly to your audience. In other words when you see an ad on TV for a Chevy truck - a category which only a percentage of the population would buy, the rest of the ad spend could be considered wasted.
So GM is comfortable with wasted ad spend - most companies realize this is just the way branding works.
But on the web there is more measurability meaning that GM likely compared its click through rates on Facebook with other sites like Google, etc and decided there weren't enough people clicking to keep the ad campaign running. Typically the online advertising division of companies is more results oriented than those in the TV or radio areas.
Let's remember people have likened advertising on social networks to an interuption of a conversation between friends and this GM news seems to echo the sentiment.
And perhaps most importantly if you had to surmise what sort of ad would be most successful on Facebook you would no doubt say those targeting consumers - and automobiles would likely be at the top of the list. And here we have this massive consumer automobile advertising company complaining about advertising effectiveness.
Now it is worth pointing out that advertisers use different metrics to measure ad effectiveness. In my career I have seen one company decide an advertising product isn't for them and their direct competitor loves the exact same product. This happens at trade shows as well where the booth of company A does poorly but company B competes directly with company A and has a full booth of people and signs up for a larger booth at the next event.
So this could be an issue of a single company using measurement tools which put a poor spotlight on Facebook's results.
But it could also be the equivalent of IBM pulling out of COMDEX and subsequently sinking the largest trade show in the US virtually overnight.
Now I am not trying to be over-dramatic here - Facebook isn't going to go away any time soon but if this example becomes a trend it may have to refocus its ad push on advertising outside its network using the rich targeting data it continues to amass.
And while the Facebook IPO seems to be the hottest thing since the launch of the iPhone it remains to be seen if in one year the stock becomes more like high flyer Google or sinking ship Vonage.
See Henry Blodget's take and the original article in the Wall Street Journal.
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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/itexpo/gm-to-facebook-your-ads-dont-work.html facebook advertising company largest content companies Wed, 16 May 2012 05:46:37 -0500 2012-05-16T05:46:37-05:00 At Utah Olympic Park http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/04/at-utah-olympic-park.html 49204@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ I stopped by the Utah Olympic Park in Park City and took the tour which was very informative. Sadly, I didn't get to see any athletes training. I did notice AT&T had very fast service here with full bars throughout my tour. I felt like I was in a commercial actually because I had to download a presentation of about 4 MB while here for proofing purposes. Verizon only had a 3G connection with three out of four bars on my MiFi device. BTW, athletes train here all year long but sadly I didn't get to see any. This trip reminded me of the Vancouver Olympics I was lucky enough to witness as a VIP thanks to Avaya.


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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/itexpo/at-utah-olympic-park.html Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:59:05 -0500 2012-04-09T16:59:05-05:00 At Moabcon 2012 http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/04/at-moabcon-2012.html 49193@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ I am at Adaptive Computing's 2012 user conference in beautiful Park City, Utah. The Hyatt Escala Resort is the host of the conference and is located on a ski slope in Park City, Utah. The air is fresh, the weather is good and I am looking forward to some awesome education on HPC and cloud computing. I speak on cloud computing trends this Wednesday and am looking forward to it. The photo of the lake below is one of the more beautiful sites I have seen so far but this is gorgeous country even if you don't ski. It is worth a trip.


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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/itexpo/at-moabcon-2012.html cloud computing computing Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:25:06 -0500 2012-04-08T20:25:06-05:00 ITEXPO IP Communications Trade Show Continues Solid Growth http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/itexpo-ip-communications-trade-show-continues-solid-growth.html 48756@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ 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:
Thumbnail image for ingate-itexpo-east-2012.jpg

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.

“ITEXPO has enjoyed a long and successful run in South Florida since TMC first brought its event there in 2001.  The impressive turnout we saw this week validates the content we’ve offered, and the comprehensiveness of the solutions showcased on the expo floor,” said Rich Tehrani, TMC CEO and Conference Chairman.  “Today – more than ever – ITEXPO is the world’s leading B2B communications and technology event, and we’re looking forward to carrying this momentum over to Austin this fall.”

You can check out the attendee demographics for ITEXPO Miami by reading the full news release.

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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/itexpo/itexpo-ip-communications-trade-show-continues-solid-growth.asp itexpo austin Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:38:36 -0500 2012-02-08T11:38:36-05:00 Forget Super Wi-Fi! Go with Super Wi-Fi! Wait. What? http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/forget-super-wi-fi-go-with-super-wi-fi-wait-what.html 48676@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/
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!

altai-super-wifi-3g-tower.jpgI 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. It doesn't matter, except for the fact that Altai uses traditional WiFi (2.4, 3.6, 5 Ghz) spectrum frequencies and still gets the same range as the "newer" Super Wi-Fi standard. Put you're head around that for one second. Regular WiFi that can travel miles? Surely this must be some voodoo science. Trust me, it's not.

Their A8 Super WiFi Base Station can enhance outdoor WiFi signal coverage area by 10 times, particularly in non–line–of–sight environment. It has a multiple radio smart antenna platform that supports 360–degree coverage. It supports standard 802.11b/g access and 802.11a backhaul. Thomas Ngeow explained that their product had government backing and called their technology "revolutionary" with several patents that cover their smart antenna, beam forming antennas and the signal processing. Part of their secret sauce is that the can bounce their wireless signal off objects and detect interference and focus the beam elsewhere.

He stressed that their products don't interfere with 3G and can be placed right on the same 3G towers (pictured above). Their products have strict emission controls to ensure no interference with the 3G transmissions. Their outdoor antenna supports 1 mile line of sight and 500-1000 yards for non-line of sight. Importantly, unlike the low-frequency Super Wi-Fi spec, Altai's solution works with your existing WiFi devices - laptop, Android, iPad, iPhone, etc. Embedded Super Wi-Fi chipsets on consumer devices don't exist yet.

With this particular product line they are not focusing on enterprise with their products, but rather large scale WiFi networks, such as cities (municipal Wi-Fi) and carriers (Verizon, AT&T) for 3G offload. Unlike traditional city-wide Wi-Fi deployments, this is not a mesh wireless network, which requires mesh nodes on each lamp post and is costlier to deploy. Though they do offer a USB product called the U1 Super WiFi USB Client (~$100), which you connect to your computer and it can extend your existing WiFi's range to go an impressive 600m (line of sight) or 300m (non-line of sight). Thomas joked you can be half-a-mile away from your local Starbucks and connect using this device. dont-tell-anyone

Essentially, using Altai's technology 3G service providers simply mirror their existing 3G architecture with Altai's Super Wi-Fi products. This results in a fraction of time & cost of traditional WiFi deployments.
Thomas explained their products also work indoors in large buildings such as convention centers. For indoor deployments you simply put their device in the same position where 3G antennas are located. He said it would take him 5 hours to completely Wi-Fi enable the Miami Beach Convention Center.

They support WiFi 802.11 a,b,g, and n. WiFi 802.11a offers shorter range, but larger capacity, so it's often used in backhaul solutions. One competitive advantage they have is that they offer the complete end-to-end solution all the way to back-end. You can use their equipment including authentication. They support EAP authentication and you can use a SIM card for security.

Their solutions are deployed in 60 countries and they've been around since 2006. Some of their customers include China Telecom and China Mobile with thousands of units deployed. While the "other" Super Wi-Fi holds promise for the future, Altai's solutions work today and they solve the huge problem of carrier's 3G networks being overloaded. Thomas claims Altai has done more 3G offload than anyone else.

Thomas said one of their biggest advantages is time to deploy. Traditionally WiFi deployments use lamp posts and telephone poles with a mesh network that can take years to deploy city-wide. If you go to New York's Times Square and connect to the free Wi-Fi, that's Altai's technology. Central Park is also Wi-Fi enabled by Altai. Perhaps more impressive, Jamaica offers paid Wi-Fi country-wide using their technology. It only took 9 months to wire the entire country. It's important to note they offer  bandwidth shaping at AP level, which is more effective - enabling you to even out the user experience if have bandwidth hogs.

Thomas explained that they are, "probably the #1 vendor for Wi-Fi access on rooftops. Not point-to-point but actual Wi-Fi access." He added that their solution is much more cost effective than 4G / LTE. Retail price is $8,000 for the A8 Super Wi-Fi Base Station product. It's the last day of ITEXPO, but there is still time to check out their products in booth 210.
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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/wireless/forget-super-wi-fi-go-with-super-wi-fi-wait-what.asp thomas ngeow forget super thomas explained smart antenna super altai Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:26:24 -0500 2012-02-03T11:26:24-05:00 Billionaire Gives Secrets to Startup Success http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/billionaire-gives-secrets-to-startup-success.html 48674@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ terry-mattheys-itexpo-startup-camp-keynote.JPG

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. Terry Matthews keynoted the StartupCamp at ITEXPO in Miami and he was certainly the highlight speaker of entire the show. The audience loved him. The previous StartupCamp had Internet & Ethernet legend Bob Metcalfe, who also gave a phenomenal keynote. Not sure how StartupCamp6 can top these two speakers!

During Terry's keynote he gave his secrets to startup success. It involves young graduates and greying hair. A paradox you say? i-dont-know2Well, watch the video excerpt (not the full keynote) to learn his secrets to startup success.
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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/itexpo/billionaire-gives-secrets-to-startup-success.asp secrets startup startup success terry matthews terry success startup Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:35:58 -0500 2012-02-03T10:35:58-05:00 ITEXPO Miami 2012 Day 1 Analysis http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/itexpo-miami-2012-day-1-analysis.html 48663@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ 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. Not to mention today's must-see event later on - the Sir Terry Matthews keynote followed by StartupCamp5 Comms Edition, hosted by Embrase. I'll be there.
Well, I think you get the idea. There's a lot of great content here, and that probably helps explain why attendance is so strong. Lots of people here all day long, and you could really see it when the show floor opened late in the afternoon. Not only was the traffic active, but the exhibitor hall was pretty big. Am told there are 200+ exhibitors here, and the range is pretty impressive. Having walked the floor, there's something for everyone here, with all kinds of VoIP providers, SIP trunking offerings, telecom systems, contact centers and cloud. Not that much video, social media or mobility, but a pretty rich pallette nonetheless.
I should add that my two sessions were totally full, and I heard the turnout for other sessions was strong as well. My panels has strong speakers, and I think the time was well spent for attendees. TMC is providing its own coverage of the sessions, and you can follow that on their site. Here's their coverage of our UC Business Case session.
Overall, I think TMC will be pleased with how the sessions are going, and if this continues, I'd say the odds are good that a lot of attendees will be back. That's pretty important, as turnover is a fact of life in this business. For both of my panels, I was very suprised to learn that the vast majority of the audience were first-timers. I think it's great that TMC is attracting new blood, but it also makes me wonder where all the regulars have gone. I'm sure the weak economy has taken its toll, but am not sure if some people have moved on to other events, or simply dropped out of this space completely.
Regardless, the news from Miami so far is very good, and I'm looking for more of the same on Day 2.

So there you have it - lets hope the momentum continues - certainly the Facebook IPO news doesn't hurt, and here is to a few years of solid tech and telecom growth free from geopolitical and/or financial shocks to the market.

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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/itexpo/itexpo-miami-2012-day-1-analysis.html sessions think strong pretty great content Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:31:40 -0500 2012-02-02T09:31:40-05:00 TMC Showcases the Top 40 "Newsmakers" at ITEXPO http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/tmc-showcases-the-top-40-newsmakers-at-itexpo.html 48660@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ 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. ITEXPO has continued to grow and has expanded into cloud services, M2M, Super Wi-Fi, and more. It has become the premiere communications show not just from expanding into new area, but due to TMC's strong commitment to a strong educational conference track, which attracts industry thought leaders and experts to speak in these sessions.

Launched in 1999, ITEXPO is well known as the “communications and technology marketplace” due to its history of fostering true business opportunity.  The 25th iteration of the World's largest and longest-running B-to-B communications and technology conference attracts thousands of resellers and IT executives from enterprises, small and medium businesses, and government agencies.  More than 200 exhibitors are participating at ITEXPO, and dozens of new products and services will be announced on the show floor this week.  A sampling of announcements includes:

  1. 888VoIP (booth 701) and IPsmarx Technoloy (booth 541) are jointly announcing a new RAPID Multi-Tenant Cloud Based IP-PBX System
  2. Apex Voice Communications (Booth 356) is announcing the availability of its APEX Composition Engine
  3. ABP Technology (booth 316) is unveiling a series of new IP-based Video Door Phones
  4. Allworx (booth 429) is announcing its new 6x12 IP-BPX
  5. Almira Labs announced its plans to expand into Latin America
  6. Connect Solutions (booth 530) is announcing the Managed Private Cloud for Microsoft Lync Solution
  7. Commetrex (booth 524) is adding FoIP consulting services to its portfolio
  8. Challenger Mobile (Booth 642) announced Mobile VoIP Service with Mobile Operator 3 in Sweden
  9. Counterpath announced that the Counterpath BRIA For iPad with video calling feature is now available in the iTunes App Store
  10. CrewsControl/Scenios (booth 229) unveiled the Scenios cloud-based video production platform
  11. Dialogic (booth 507) announced a new Software Media Server for Mobile, broadband & Cloud
  12. Digitalk (booth 629) introduced a new, fully integrated, Mobile VoIP Client on the DIGITALK Consumer Platform
  13. Digium (booth 901) launched a line of IP phones that work in conjunction with their Asterisk and Switchvox solutions
  14. Globecomm (booth 342) announced that it has been selected by Ericsson as a subcontractor of the maritime GSM/VSAT managed operation for an Ericsson mobile communication network.
  15. Humbug Labs announced the Silver Halk 3.0 protection service to proactively block fraudulent calls.
  16. independenceIT (booth 1207) announced that Australian Cloud and Kiwi Cloud have selected their Total Freedom Workspace solution
  17. IR-Link (booth 706) announced ZiLog Smart IP Call Recorder
  18. Matrix Comsec Ltd. (booth 528) is showcasing its key SIP trunking solutions and its new all-in-one office communication solutions.
  19. MediaPlatform unveiled new Enterprise Webcasting on Facebook and SharePoint
  20. MixMoov (booth 129) announced the Video Editor for Brightcove online video editing service 
  21. NACT Solution (booth 440) announced the Pinless Plus Web Portal for prepaid telecommunications products.
  22. Net.com (booth 837) announced the UX1000 Microsoft Lync SBA/SBC for branch office applications.
  23. Nuspire Networks (booth 1104) provided details on its entrance into the Gartner Group’s Magic Quadrant.
  24. OnAsset Intelligence announced enhancements to the Vision Software platform for monitoring and analyzing M2M-based asset tracking data.
  25. Opengear (booth 831) Expanded its Secure Remote Monitoring and Management Gateway Line
  26. PhoenixSoft (booth 1023) announced 11 new customer wins this quarter
  27. RTX (booth 423) launched a new cordless Skype phone
  28. Sangoma (booth 601) provided details for the upcoming release of its new 16-span digital board.
  29. Speedflow (booth 418) released Version 2.12 of its CallMax Softswitch
  30. Sprint announced its collaboration with OnAsset Intelligence to deliver the industry’s first Dual Mode M2M-based asset tracking solution
  31. Surf Communication Solutions (booth 424) announced the Orion MCU HD Voice and Video Conferencing Bridge.
  32. Telispire (booth 925) announced that leading mobile device accessories provider Zagg has selected its Hosted IP Contact Center solution.
  33. Telarus (booth 923) announced its partnership with EarthLink Business
  34. Veddio (booth 1107) announced the integration of the Veddio Cloud Dashboard into the ConnectWise PSA platform.
  35. Voxvalley Technologies (booth 400) is showcasing its newest mobile VoIP solutions. 
  36. Windstream (booth 506) announced the Completion of the Paetec acquisition at the show
  37. Whaleback Managed Systems (booth 543) announced the extensions of its Unified Communications Mobility to Tablets and Smartphones.
  38. Xorcom (booth 617) announced a new Video Conferencing Solution for SMBs; a new Line of IP Phones Complementing its IP-PBX offering, and a new Analog Line Failover Solution.
  39. Zycoo (booth 101) is showcasing the new ZX20 IP-PBX
  40. Xconnect announced collaboration with IPV to reduce the cost and complexity of video calling and conferencing.

“ITEXPO is the industry’s best venue for launching new products and services, because of the large and diverse audience of IT buyers who attend to source new products, and the large contingent of media that cover the news at the show,” said Rich Tehrani, TMC CEO and Conference Chairman.  “This year is no different, and we’re expecting dozens of additional announcements to come off the show floor throughout the three days of ITEXPO.”    

The complete Conference Agenda for the ITEXPO sessions – as well as Expo walk-in registration information is available online.]]> Tags: Related tags: , , , , ,
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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/itexpo/tmc-showcases-the-top-40-newsmakers-at-itexpo.asp booth announced booth showcasing products services booth announcing cloud based booth Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:55:27 -0500 2012-02-02T08:55:27-05:00 Rich Tehrani With ITEXPO Facts + Super Wi-Fi, M2M, StartupCamp & VC Funding http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/rich-tehrani-with-itexpo-facts-super-wi-fi-m2m-startupcamp-vc-funding.html 48661@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/
Rich Tehrani gave some interesting ITEXPO facts during his keynote introductions. He also covered Super Wi-Fi, M2M, Facebook IPO causing new millionaires to fund new companies and StartupCamp, which in the past has had actually VCs in the audience write checks to startups after they gave their pitch / demo during StartupCamp. Watch the video:
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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/itexpo/rich-tehrani-with-itexpo-facts-super-wi-fi-m2m-startupcamp-vc-funding.asp itexpo facts startupcamp Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:28:52 -0500 2012-02-02T08:28:52-05:00 Ingate SIP Trunking Session at ITEXPO is Packed! http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/ingate-sip-trunking-session-at-itexpo-is-packed.html 48656@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ ingate-itexpo-east-2012.jpg
Ingate, makers of SIP-capable enterprise firewalls, has done it again! applauseEvery show they have one of ... if not *the* largest conference room and they continually pack it in - often standing room only in the back. I stopped in to check it out. This short video followed by a cool interactive panoramic says it all:

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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/itexpo/ingate-sip-trunking-session-at-itexpo-is-packed.asp Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:24:01 -0500 2012-02-01T22:24:01-05:00 The Crowd Gathers to Enter ITEXPO Exhibit Floor http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/the-crowd-gathers-to-enter-itexpo-exhibit-floor.html 48653@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ Good crowd entering the show floor as it opens.

 

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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/itexpo/the-crowd-gathers-to-enter-itexpo-exhibit-floor.asp Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:09:11 -0500 2012-02-01T18:09:11-05:00 Win this Mustang at ITEXPO Miami 2012 http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/win-this-mustang-at-itexpo-miami-2012.html 48650@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ One of you will walk away with this shiny new Ford Mustang.

The details are below and it looks stunning in person. Good luck! Remember, you have to be present at 1:45, Feb 3rd thisFriday to win.



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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/itexpo/win-this-mustang-at-itexpo-miami-2012.html Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:11:12 -0500 2012-02-01T17:11:12-05:00 ShoreTel Acquires M5 for Cloud Communications http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/shoretel-acquires-m5-for-cloud-communications.html 48648@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ 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. Now with ShoreTel behind them they have the money and the marketing expertise to be a serious player.
The biggest hit will likely be felt by 8x8 as they are a pure-play cloud communications company who has been getting a lot of investor love lately due to their great earnings announcements.
Cisco may now be forced to buy 8x8 and Avaya will likely make a move as well. This move could even push Vonage to go after the SMB space. Mitel is an interesting question - they have leading edge tech but a troubled stock to use as currency.
One thing is for sure - it will be an interesting time for M&A this year in cloud communications. And if companies don't act fast they may not get a chance to compete in the cloud because the cable companies are not sitting still. ]]> Tags: Related tags: , , , ,
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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/itexpo/shoretel-acquires-m5-for-cloud-communications.html cloud communications cloud communications companies shoretel Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:22:10 -0500 2012-02-01T16:22:10-05:00 Sprint's Michael A. Rouleau Kicks off ITEXPO Keynotes http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/2012/02/sprints-michael-a-rouleau-kicks-off-itexpo-keynotes.html 48646@http://blog.tmcnet.com/itexpo/ 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! He went onto explain all the issues this great idea has - $200,000 price tag, certified for both flight and ground, need for pilot's license, etc. now he's discussing M2M examples. He said customers want something unique that solves problems. They want Sprint to invent things to hold costs down, increase multimedia capabilities, and improve communications leveraging the cloud.



BTom Keating / TMC Labs
VP & CTO & SEO Director & Executive Technology Editor
My blog, covering VoIP news, telecom, gadgets:
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]]> http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/itexpo/sprints-michael-a-rouleau-kicks-off-itexpo-keynotes.asp Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:59:16 -0500 2012-02-01T15:59:16-05:00