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

March 2014

You are browsing the archive for March 2014.

The ITSP Polycom Problem

March 28, 2014

I was at the Dali Museum to see the Andy Warhol exhibit. Great piece of history, btw. The Dali rotates the art, so it was my first time seeing this painting called Telephone in a dish with three grilled sardines. It got me thinking of a couple of things.

What's Driving Data Center Investment?

March 26, 2014

According to Infonetics Research, there are a number of drivers of data center investment. [see the nice chart here]

Chief among the reasons is that Enterprises need to improve application performance.

Next is improve security, especially in our highly regulated society.

No More Paying For Attention

March 25, 2014

The overall view of the Hosted VoIP industry is not unlike the aspirin aisle at the supermarket: lots of choices that all seem the same. [see photo below] How do you get the attention of the channel partner or the customer amid that noise?

Every booth at every trade show says the same thing. Many even have similar colors.

Is Mark Cuban Right About the NFL?

March 25, 2014

The owner of an NBA team and start-up shark on Shark Tank, Mark Cuban is no stranger to controversy. This week he made a comment about the NFL's greed will lead to their implosion (in ten years).

One point he makes is safety and seeds. The NFL has noticed a decline in Pop Warner football players as well as high school football.

True Ups Kill the Partner

March 20, 2014

I just received news that tw telecom will be truing up my account. It will be a nice 4 figure pinch - going back to March 2013. I understand that the account had a billing adjustment, but a true up for a year ago???

As it turns out that isn't so bad.

A Few Pics from Enterprise Connect

March 19, 2014

Telesphere Goes Reality TV in Booth

March 17, 2014

A few posts this month from trade shows where I just wanted to point out some unusual marketing, like TelePacific having pop-a-shot basketball games in their booth. Swoosh!

Telesphere and BroadSoft are unveiling a massive 8-foot-tall, 3,200 pound aquarium developed by the creative team of Acrylic Tank Manufacturing from Animal Planet's hit show, "Tanked." Representatives of Telesphere tooke part in filming an episode of "Tanked" that will air on the Animal Planet Network in April. So telecom hits reality TV.

What Can You Learn from Target?

March 17, 2014

The credit card breach at Target will be a multi-billion dollar debacle for Target. So many people don't even realize that it wasn't just target; Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and other stores also were hit. Lesson 1: consumers are usually misinformed.

In our text based society, people have no attention span.

When IT Skills Outrun Your Staff

March 17, 2014

Today, technology is not only changing so fast, but it is becoming pervasive and specialized. We have come a long ways from Novell networking and Windows 95. Today, a Cisco certificate or a Microsoft MCSE doesn't begin to cover all of the subjects that the IT department has to handle. Not just Linux and Apple O/S, but how many versions of Windows do you have to support - XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1.

Noction Gets Knocked Out

March 14, 2014

Where's the Sales Friction?

March 14, 2014

When you look at your anemic sales growth, what is in the way? Where is the friction?

Is it that your sales team isn't closing enough deals? Or is it your sales team is confused about your product catalog?

Gone Are the Gatekeepers

March 14, 2014

Scale Won't Fix Sprint

March 12, 2014

Softbank's CEO thinks that buying T-Mobile will solve Sprint's ailments. Scale is not the issue here. Poor strategy is one problem. Want examples: the Nextel integration; destroying the Nextel brand; WiMax for 4G; Clearwire two-stepping - need I go on?

Would You Hire That Way?

March 11, 2014

Lately, watching service providers (vendors, carriers, cloud providers - heretofore referred to as SPs) go to channel has been like watching either a reality tv show or a car crash. The way SPs approach the channel looks unplanned.

MessageBroadcast was in and out of the channel in less than a year. I don't know how you think you will get traction and sales that fast from zero.

How ShoreTel Broke M5

March 10, 2014

In February of 2012, PBX maker ShoreTel bought hosted PBX provider, M5 Networks. At the time, M5 had 2000 customers - just two thousand - with an ARPU of $2000. (That's $4 million per month in revenue, $48 mill per year.)

M5 was selling to big organizations like Ziff-Davis and Amnesty.

Telx Says They Love the Channel

March 5, 2014

Allen Harmsen, Director of Product Marketing at TELX, spoke with me about the channel strategy at TELX. To clear up the rumors from last week, Harmsen and Mary Fahey explained that Telx was actually still very channel-centric and that no agents had been cut from the program.

At a sales kick-off meeting in Jacksonville in January, the sales team was told that the channel was going to be leaning less on direct sales personnel and more on the channel people, including two newly added channel managers (in the Northwest and NYC). The five channel managers would be responsible for channel sales, not the direct reps, who would focus on Enterprise sales for the 20 data centers in 13 markets as Telx launches its nationwide marketing campaign.

Voxox Gets Original

March 4, 2014

Voxox's marketing maven, Tristan Barnum, has introduced original entertainment content as a way to get some attention for its partners and products. In a world of telecom where every booth at a show says the same thing, it's nice to see some creativity in the Hosted VoIP space.

"Voxox's first original entertainment content initiative is titled ROFL: A Rhinoceros and Octopus Find Love, which features weekly "high art" graphic-novel-type imagery as well as minimalist archetypal imagery throughout the week. A new episode is posted to Twitter each workday at noon.

Are Certifications Becoming Common?

March 4, 2014

AT&T: Transform from Agent to Provider

March 3, 2014

AT&T has a new channel program that isn't really a channel program so much that it is a wholesale program. (I wrote about it when I first heard about it back in September.) The Emerging Markets Program requires that the channel partner have a NOC and billing system.

What a few AT&T partners couldn't figure out is how the channel partner can sell VoIP, transport and Internet Access without a CLEC license. Well, in many states those services can be sold without a CLEC license.

Verizon Says Pay Up (Cuz We Don't)

March 3, 2014

Verizon pays no taxes. "Verizon was among 26 Fortune 500 corporations that were consistently profitable between 2008 and 2012 yet paid no federal income taxes, according to a new study," according to this article the Chronicle.

VZ collects a lot of money from the federal government and the taxpayers in the form of USF dollars, E-rate funds, and government contracts. Yet they pay no taxes!

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