Polycom bought Vivu, a video collaboration company, to help Polycom push it's Presence gear. Video, video, video. Yet I never have video calls or video call requests. To me, I wish you would work on the phone part. Give me a great looking phone that is easy to use and where the voice quality is awesome. Can you do that? Not really.

All the companies in this space are running to the Video. Why? Deployment and usage are challenging enough without trying to hook up video and make myself presentable. Fax over IP and HD Voice are still just a promise - and video conferencing off platform doesn't work.

It's kind of like talking about Cloud or UC, you are hoping for a stock bump or a PR bump.

Folks are at the Broadsoft show today being introduced by a 3D presentation. Then they will be peppered with alcohol to dull their senses so they can listen to BSFT talk about Video Conferencing (iLinc acquisition) through BroadWorks (Don't get your own; Buy more licenses from us!). Then I'm sure it will be about Mobility and Integration from the vendors that ponied up big $$$ to pitch their wares.

The one thing that gets lost in all this:  there are too many VoIP Providers in the marketplace (over 1100 in the US alone). All of them are still trying to figure out how to sell more seats! Sure, they can sell SIP trunks but that is low margin commodity business. Hosted PBX is a higher margin (if sold correctly) business that is about to heat up as the cable giants - Comcast and Cox - roll it out nationwide and give away access in the sale. How does a Hosted PBX provider who doesn't own a network compete then?

And selling UC&C (unified comm and collab) mixed with video is a specialized sale. First, you need a base of Hosted PBX clients and a set procedure for deployment and on-boarding customers. Then you can have a process to upsell or chase a specialized market.

Meanwhile, we are all waiting for the FCC to make some decision on both USF Reform and Inter-Carrier Compensation. ICC will actually change the VoIP market a little. Not that anyone noticed, but the TRA is now a requirement for Inter-Connected VoIP Providers. Why not utilize the video and collaboration components to solve TRA and Communications for Disabilities? Then at least you would have a hot button.

I was going to rant about USF Reform -- like how we should kill the whole program -- like that would ever happen -- because spending tax money to outfit rural areas with broadband is kind of crazy, in my opinion. And its only 15 million Americans. How many will actually buy broadband? Maybe 67%? So 10 million? At a cost of 15% of the bill every month? That's crazy.

Anyway, on to M2M. Sprint is big in Machine-to-Machine wireless solutions and "has targeted four high-growth segments as the umbrella focus of its M2M development activities and offerings: Connected Transportation; Connected Meters, Sensors & Alarms; Connected Machines, Screens & Things; and Connected Personal Devices." [pr] Meanwhile, Sprint is hoping the iPhone bouys up their subscribers.

VZ is getting into home energy monitoring and testing 3G/4G networks nationwide. I'm sure that it will be an unbiased study of the 3G/4G world (MetroPCS, AT&T, T-Mobile, Cricket, Sprint and VZW).

And in another blow to privacy, VZW "has made a change in its privacy policy that clears the nation's largest wireless carrier to track its subscribers' Web browsing, location and app usage habits," according to the LA Times.

Did you know there is such a thing as Hardware-as-a-Service? Chartec and Outreach offer it in a partnership.

NTS/XFONE grabbed 1800 cable customers in West Texas from Reach Broadband.

ABRY Partners bought data center company XAND, who is either a hosting company or a data center infrastructure company. To tell you the truth, the way these press releases describe the companies involved, I know two things: (1) the PR firm has no clue what they are talking about; (2) the marketing department or firm has no clue what they are talking about either. Keep It Simple!