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| Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO, Inc. talking telecom, Cloud, VoIP, CLEC, and The Channel.

February 2013

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The TCA Has a New Board

February 27, 2013

This was my last TCA Channel Chief Summit. Five years after co-founding this non-profit trade association for channel partners with Dany Bouchedid of COLOTRAQ, Ian Kieninger of AVANT (but then at CDW) and quite a few others, the last of the founders leave the Board. We left it in capable hands with Jeff Ponts of Datatel as president and Dave Wallace of Aligned taking my VP slot. Black Box, CDW and PCG are all new faces on the Board who seem eager to take TCA to the next level - and they have Mark from WTG to help them, as WTG, since Vince Bradley helped found TCA, has been a big proponent of TCA (and it shows.

Are You Channel Ready?

February 27, 2013

I am at Channel Partners Expo in Vegas (speaking tomorrow at 9 AM). It is all about cloud and the channel here. It makes me ask: Are you Channel Ready?

Do you have a service offering that is channel ready?

Are the Telcos in Trouble?

February 26, 2013

It seems that the big cable coalition - Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, Charter, TWC and Bright House - are set to grab 15-20% of the small business market by the end of the year. This same clutch of companies also offer Ethernet over Fiber and Broadsoft based Hosted PBX which will be used to target Mid-sized businesses and Enterprise. Their only disadvantage is the same one that RBOCs faced before consolidation - regional networks. With NNI's and other cooperation, I am certain this group will get past that hurdle in 2014.

Smaller is Better

February 25, 2013

As many of you know, I am a Seth Godin fan. Nicholas Bate has similar thoughts. His blog on Jagged Thoughts certainly hits home.

In a me-too industry like telecom (and now cloud), where there are 1000 companies offering VoIP, what is the bare minimum you have to do as a company to survive 2013?

Pieces of the Partner Puzzle, Part 1

February 22, 2013

To have a successful partner program, you have to have great channel managers.

Channel Managers are the whole conduit to the partner channel - and vice versa. Channel Managers are the conduit to the company for the partner.

Channel Managers have quota (boy, do they have quota).

Corporate Culture is Under-Rated

February 21, 2013

"In a world of constant change, the fundamentals are more important than ever," writes Jim Collins, author of Built to Last. One of the aspects of building a business to last is "Build a cult-like culture".

Many SMB CEO's don't give culture its proper due.

"The real company values as opposed to the nice-sounding values, are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted or let go," writes Reed Hastings.

Sales is Tough!

February 20, 2013

Have you ever been in a meeting where all departments think that sales department is letting them down? That they are all doing their fair share but sales isn't selling enough?

People, I have news for you: Sales is Tough! And keeps getting tougher.

Replacing Copper With Gold

February 13, 2013

CenturyLink is in a race against time, according to both analyst Jeff Kagan and the Star Tribune. It isn't just the number 3 ILEC in the country experiencing a declining revenue stream from legacy copper. Fairpoint, Frontier, Windstream and many IOC's are all suffering revenue losses from landline replacement. Customers are switching to cellular or some form of VoIP - like cable voice or a Vonage like service.

Tidbits of News

February 13, 2013

Integra is just under $600M in annual revenue.

Meanwhile the financial media is talking about Sprint's turn-around. Huh? Nothing has been approved yet - not Softbank's investment or the Clearwire deal.

Are You in the 5%?

February 12, 2013

Why is Telecom So Old?

February 10, 2013

Saw this picture on twitter. It made me think about the lack of innovation from the telcos.

For example. cellular and DSL technologies were discovered by Bell Labs in the 1960s, but didn't to market until decades later.

Big Moves

February 5, 2013

You probably heard that Dell went private via Microsoft, Silver Lake and Michael Dell [Dell and Channelnomics]. Why go private? Because Dell's main business is tanking and being public is too transparent for a company in transition as Dell is. I don't know why but I think about Avaya when I think about this deal.

The Cloud Communications Alliance in Clearwater

February 5, 2013

Blackberry's New Phone

February 4, 2013

Monday Morning Quarterback

February 4, 2013

The 49ers got robbed by the refs twice in the last 3 minutes of the game. And the viewers got robbed because most of those commercials sucked. Just my opinion of course.

But we start Monday with Oracle buying Acme Packet for $2B!

CallWave Patent Suits and a Rumored Acquisition

February 1, 2013

At ITEXPO East in Miami Beach, where the parties are never ending it seems. No one thing says this but having spoken with quite a few people and adding it up myself, it looks like Leonid may get bought by Broadsoft. The two already work closely but a few crumbs on the path - like executive changes, Leslie Ferry at ITEXPO, and a few other crumbs - lead me to call this. A friend says that it wouldn't be a surprise.

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