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

November 2013

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Channel Programs Have Changed

November 29, 2013

Many companies are adding channel programs. Most look at the success that Microsoft and Cisco via their channels. The thing is most companies don't treat their channel the same way that these two giants did.

Microsoft knew that if people became certified they would sell, install and maintain Microsoft products.

Gratitude

November 27, 2013

Short Week Musings

November 26, 2013

Thanksgiving and Hanukkah this week mixed with winter weather in many parts of the US has made for a slow week, but a busy travel week. Soon, thanks to the new FCC Chair Wheeler, that passenger barely squeezed into the ever shrinking airline seat next you will soon be able to use his cell phone on the flight - further annoying already annoyed people.

Blackberry has a new CEO, John Chen, who is making $88 million to sell them off, because if his tenure at Sybase is any indication, he isn't a turn around exec.

After 34 years as chairman of Level3, Walter Scott is retiring.

The Future is Now

November 22, 2013

I got to listen to Jack Uldrich keynote the Bradenton (FL) EDC event last night (thanks to Bright House Networks). Uldrich is a futurist and a good speaker.

When you examine all the trends that are happening right now - nanotech, M2M, 3D printing, robotics, computing power & devices, ubiquitous access to the Internet, genomics - we are the beginning of the revolution - not the middle or anywhere close to the end. These things are just beginning.

Is Oracle Coming for Broadsoft?

November 21, 2013

Today, Broadsoft's market cap is about $733M; it would cost Oracle approximately $890M to buy BSFT to complete the Telecom acquisition package of Tekelec, Acme Packet, Oracle's marketing automation (Eloqua) and customer service (RightNow) offering.

Tekelec evolved from a class 4 switch to some kind of mobile policy machine with connections to IMS and LTE. One of the problems facing Hosted PBX providers presently is that mobility is like a patch or add-on. There are limitations for the mobility play due to a bunch of factors, like too many devices in the marketplace, multiple platforms (iOS, Android, Win8, Blackberry), and a separate carrier provides the cell service.

Desktops Moving to the Cloud

November 19, 2013

Amazon is jumping in to the DaaS (desktop-as-a-service) and streaming services game.

This managed desktop offering from Amazon will be called WorkSpaces, "not to be confused with Cloud Workspace from IndepedenceIT, which EarthLink white labels.

I find it interesting that Amazon would get into a service that has a heavy demand for support, but then I remembered that they just added Mayday to the Fire HDX tablet, so maybe Bezos is ahead of this.

The real uphill battle is that there are a boat ton of laptops and desktops already collecting dust in offices and homes.

M&A This Week

November 15, 2013

IBM jumped into MDM (mobile device management) with its purchase of Fiberlink. "Fiberlink's MaaS360 cloud-based offerings, IBM will expand its bring your own device (BYOD) capabilities to deliver a complete mobile management and security solution through IBM MobileFirst that includes trusted transactions and security intelligence capabilities for mobile apps, users, content and data." [source] Fiberlink was the first MDM firm to support Google Glass.

8x8 is really branching out. First with Softbank in Japan in cloud and now buying a UK service provider.

Video Closes More Business

November 14, 2013

From my inbox:

"The experiment: See how a webcam impacts sales efficiency for ShareFile. The result: A 34% increase in close rates.... the ShareFile sales team put the effectiveness of video conferencing to the test in the real world and increased their close rate by 34% just by turning on webcams in GoToMeeting."

When the Fun Left Telecom

November 13, 2013

Speaking with a telecom buddy today who is on a job search. We were talking about the industry - the layoffs, the chase to the cloud, the declining prices and revenue. One rule has remained the same: Have Fun!

Entrepreneurs are told to follow their passion.

What Do the Numbers Look Like

November 11, 2013

Third quarter revenue numbers have been streaming out via press releases. Here's a look at some of them.

Windstream's 3Q2013 numbers are declining. "Overall consumer service revenues were $324 million, a decrease of 3 percent from the same period a year ago" - of which, "Consumer broadband service revenues were $119 million, a 4 percent increase year-over-year."

Why Our Duopoly Doesn't Work

November 8, 2013

The FCC starting with Chairman Powell did everything it could to get to a Duopoly. There were some crumbs given to alternatives but mainly just crushing blows (Brand-X, DSL, etc.). Granted, WISPA won the 3650 MHz battle and many non-ILECs won BTOP and BIB money, but we are stuck with a Duopoly for most services. It is cable or ILEC.

UC Growth is Stagnant

November 6, 2013

The case for UC: "The communications requirements of most businesses now extend well beyond telephony. They embrace email, instant messaging, voicemail, video conferencing and 'presence'. Ideally every one is integrated with the others to create a suite of unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) tools." Ideally - but not in reality. Hence, the big problem - and why UC growth isn't what it should be.

The M&A in the Clouds

November 4, 2013

Because so many companies are either flush with cash or have a heavy credit line, the acquisition activity has been robust.

Fist up, a merger of two cloud security companies: Total Defense Acquires iSheriff.

VMWare bought Desktone, a virtual desktop company who owns the Desktop as a Service trademark. This will be a nice add to VMware's own VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) initiative with vCloud, vSphere and Horizon View. Someday DaaS will be big in North America.

Big Changes Afoot at XO

November 1, 2013

Email went out yesterday to all the partners from XO Channel head, Shane

"I want to inform you that Tom Gorey, Vice President Strategic Alliances and Business Development, will be leaving XO on November 1st. Since joining XO in 2005, Tom developed new go-to-market strategies and contributed to building significant growth within the Channel at XO. Tom has been instrumental in driving the development of the foundation and programs that led to the award winning XO Business Partner Channel in place today. I would like to personally thank Tom for his contributions and wish him success in the future.
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