January 2010

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Latisys Lands a Rockstar

January 29, 2010

Latisys is a VC backed data center solutions company. Latisys was formerly Managed Data Holdings, a company founded in 1994, that was transformed and renamed in 2007 by a group of venture capital firms.

Latisys is a leading provider of colocation, managed hosting, managed services and disaster recovery solutions. Latisys runs multiple SAS70 Type II certified data centers across the United States.

Posted in data center, disaster recovery

Tagged: data center, managed services : Related Tags: latisys, managed

SayHired at Startup Telephony Camp

January 29, 2010

Screening candidates that send in resumes is a tedious task. I get to do that when my clients are hiring new salespeople. It's a time-consuming task. Really, resumes don't mean anything because how many aren't embellished?

Anyway, at the 1st Startup Telephony Camp which Larry Lisser ran, we had a chance to hear from 4 start-ups - SayHired, Close Haul Communications, Fonolo, and Pebb.ly.

So I know of a few companies looking for marketing, sales and channel people.

Posted in Web 2.0, voip

Tagged: startup : Related Tags: startup telephony, sayhired, resumes, sales, screening

iEXPO

January 29, 2010

With all the iHype about the new Apple iPad - and all the disappointment with the new gadget - and all the jokes and subsequent lawsuit about the name - I think it might be time to rename ITEXPO, TMC's iEXPO.

If you saw all the attendees staring at their iPhone (mainly wondering why they couldn't get a signal!). And I think half the booth giveaways were an Apple i-gagdget. So I propose that we call it the iEXPO.

Noted: Moshe Maeir says we just need to call it the iTEXPO.

Posted in TMC, expo

Tagged: expo, itexpo, TMC : Related Tags: iexpo

XO Channel Exec Changes

January 27, 2010

Jim Delis is leaving XO as Channel President. Rumor has it that he is heading to TW Cable. Tom Gorey returns to the Channel Chief position, reporting to Mike Toplisek, VP of Marketing.

In other XO news, "XO also is expanding its fiber network in Southern Texas by 800 miles, providing greater diverse long-haul routes to San Antonio and Houston through Laredo, McAllen, Harlingen, Corpus Christi and Victoria. The increased connectivity will expand domestic and international customer access to XO's Tier-1 IP backbone and 28,000 route-mile U.S. long-haul/metro network (1.2 million total-mile network)." [press release]

UPDATE on 2/2/2010: Brian Law will actually be taking over as XO's Channel Chief.

FTC full disclosure: I am a sub-agent for XO.

Posted in channel, telecommunications, xo

Tagged: channel partners, xo : Related Tags: channel chief, channel, network

Wow Mobile: Another Scheme

January 26, 2010

Why is it that everyone thinks that there are quick ways to make money? The only way to make quick money is to steal it.

The new MLM scheme is Wow Mobile. Although the Wow reps state it is not a multi-level marketing plan. Really?

Posted in agents, cellular, wireless

Tagged: cellular, mlm, mvno : Related Tags: liberty international, lightyear wireless, boost mobile, bryan mcdermott, phone service, mobile

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Shouldn't It Be Profitable

January 25, 2010

During my interview with PAETEC's COO, E.J. Butler, at ITEXPO East last week, some of what we talked about was the Profitability Proforma. The Profitability Proforma is a toolkit for the PAETEC sales force to use to provide a price quote to the prospective customer while still being a profitable circuit sale for the carrier.

Most telecom sales people sell on price - agents too.

Posted in CLEC, agents, mergers, wireline

Tagged: agent, merger, nuvox, windstream : Related Tags: proposed transaction, profitability proforma, carrier, nuvox, profitable, costs

Bandwidth is Finite

January 25, 2010

I hear lots of cheering for WiMax, 3G, 4G, broadband, etc. HD Voice and all these mobile apps. Video calls and Internet TV. All that over a set of pipes that the owners have been unwilling to upgrade.

So we have all this promise with mobility and video.

Posted in bandwidth, cellular, technology, wireless

Tagged: 4G, bandwidth, broadband, cellular, clearwire : Related Tags: voice calls, wimax, spectrum, networks, calls, voice

Winning the Battle for SMB VoIP

January 25, 2010

We had a "winning" panel at ITEXPO last week in Miami Beach discussing How do service providers win over the SMB space with their VoIP offerings?

You can see the slides below. It was mainly a discussion about how VoIP providers sell to small business (about the 8-15 line space) the Hosted PBX service. While some of it is cost savings, I am seeing more and more small businesses (2-99 employees) ask about call quality and service reliability instead of price. That's the smart thing. Feedback welcome.

Winning the Battle for SMB VoIPView more presentations from RAD-INFO, Inc..

Posted in PBX, VAR, sip trunking, unified communications, voip

Tagged: hosted pbx, unified messaging, voip : Related Tags: winning battle, service, winning

Mzima and PacketExchange Merge

January 18, 2010

The press release this morning about PacketExchange acquiring Mzima seems to be late because the Mzima website already has PacketExchange's logo on it.

Mzima is a Force10 shop that resells other transit and transport networks with a managed services spin on it in a tightly targeted niche. This acquisition helps Mzima go global.

Posted in bandwidth, mergers

Tagged: merger : Related Tags: mzima, packetexchange

New Edge Drops Wholesale

January 18, 2010

New Edge Networks, an EarthLink company, cut their wholesale division this month. While volumes were good, especially with wholesale clients like Verizon, the margins were too thin for the NEN corporate strategy. That strategy would be to milk as much money as possible while this company remains afloat.

The new strategy is to double down on retail. Hire more channel managers and more direct sales people, so they can compete with each other on DSL sales.

Posted in CLEC, Internet, broadband, channel, wireline

Tagged: dsl, earthlink, new edge networks : Related Tags: sales people, wholesale, sales, strategy, retail, company

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Broadband is Flattening

January 12, 2010

Pike & Fischer survey shows that broadband is flattening. (I wrote a little about this yesterday). This means a couple of things:

One, customer acquisition costs of broadband is going to increase AND margins will shrink, because it also means short term pricing will drop. (Price war coming ...

Posted in IPTV, Internet, broadband, cableco, duopoly, economy

Tagged: broadband, duopoly, internet, stimulus : Related Tags: broadband flattening, broadband, duopoly, flattening, maybe

Linchpins

January 11, 2010

Who is the Linchpin in your organization? It's probably NOT the CEO.

Who creates the most value for your employees, shareholders and customers?

Seth Godin's new book is titled Linchpin. It's about changing your job to become a linchpin so that you become indispensible and you get more out of your job.

People often ask me what to write about on a blog or what to tweet about. How about writing about the Linchpins in your organization? The people that create value to your customers, your community, your organization. I'm in NYC this week for the book launch and to have dinner and Q&A with Seth, so more on this topic soon.

Posted in books

Tagged: books : Related Tags: linchpin, organization

Stalled Stimulus of Broadband

January 8, 2010

It was July of 2009 when the applications for BTOP and BIB awards were due. It's January 2010 and shovel ready awards have been granted mainly for middle mile projects. Where are the rest of the awards?

We can look at the failure of Muni Wi-Fi (last mentioned when EarthLink's wi-fi network in Phillie was acquired by the city for $2M).

Posted in broadband, cableco, economy, fiber, politics, telco

Tagged: broadband, duopoly, politics, rant, stimulus : Related Tags: broadband, doesn, dollars, awards

Applying Gary Vee

January 7, 2010

Last night I got to listen to Gary Vaynerchuk speaking about Crush It (Amazon affilaite link), his new book. He talked about branding your business via online marketing, which is what has made him famous (via video blogging about wine on Wine Library TV). [You can see a 15 minute talk of his on YouTube].

His primary thought is that Content is King. So if you run a company and your company isn't blogging, shame on you.

Posted in Marketing, linkedin, privacy, social network, twitter

Tagged: customer service, strategy, voip : Related Tags: customer service, social media, story, customer, appos, telling

Google VoIP

January 4, 2010

Tom Keating has a blog post about Google's VoIP Plans. (Cue the Dr. Evil laugh). What Google is trying to do, according to Google VP of Product Management, Bradly Horowitz's hints at their future roadmap when he said, "What we're trying to do with telephony is give people a seamless experience that frees up their telephony communication from the silos where it's lived for the last decade. Voicemail, my contacts, all of those things have been segregated from the rest of my Web experience.

Posted in email, telecommunications, unified communications, voip

Tagged: google, unified messaging, voip : Related Tags: product management, google

Setting the Sail for Service Providers

January 4, 2010

I'm starting off the new year by releasing a new e-book about Strategy for Service Providers. It's an edited collection of blog posts about strategy from the NSP Strategist blog edited and collected so you can get 50+ pages of ideas to implement in your business.

An example of a blog post is this one about Goal Setting, which was included in the e-book.

My BHAG is that I want my clients to be successful, to take market share away from the Duopoly and be profitable. That directs my writing, my reading, my speaking. Come see me at ITEXPO. We can discuss it over a coffee.

Posted in e-book, wireless, wireline

Tagged: strategy : Related Tags: service providers

On Rad's Radar?

January 2010