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

April 2015

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Trends in America

April 28, 2015

There is a rising trend in America toward the non-worker. The former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, has been talking about it a lot lately. Salon magazine reprinted Reich's blog about the rise of the independent contractor model in the US.

There has been a backlash on workers and unions in America over the last 7-10 years.

News Tidbits Part 2917

April 27, 2015

Windstream's telecommunications network assets were spun off into a REIT named Communications Sales and Leasing, Inc. that is trading on Nasdaq as symbol CSAL today.

Comcast removed itself from the $45B acquisition of TWC. Both the DOJ and the FCC were opposed to it. Comcast is facing other issues, like cord-cutting and the demise of the pay-cable-TV model that it was built on.

A New Portal, Mobile App Every Week

April 27, 2015

At the channel show, a company that develops mobile apps wanted to meet with me. They have a beta app with a large supplier. It does analytics and might make sharing collateral easier. It is just one more portal, one more app that gets announced.

Google Disrupts Cell Service

April 22, 2015

Google launches its cellular service with the Nexus 6 called FI.

What is different about the Nexus 6's cellular radio for it to work with Project Fi? Cellular networks use various network types and groups of radio frequencies to send and receive data. The cellular radio inside the Nexus 6 works with all the 4G LTE networks in the US and many around the world--unlike the radios in other smartphones which work with less network types. One way to think about it: imagine if your car radio only supported AM or FM radio instead of both!

Making Referrals Work

April 22, 2015

"Salespeople who actively seek out and exploit referrals earn 4 to 5 times more than those who don't."

Now that stat may be old [source], but referral based selling is a successful. Think about Angie's List, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Amazon and even Facebook -- people ask for referrals when buying or hiring. It takes the fear away.

Charter Ditches Wholesale

April 22, 2015

Charter made some moves recently including bidding from Bright House Networks, bidding for TWC and re-branding its business services. It lost the TWC bid to Comcast. The BHN bid is contingent on the TWC purchase. The re-branding is a page out of Cablevision: its business services are called Optimum and its Metro Ethernet services are branded as Lightpath.

The Latest Buzz(words) to Offer

April 22, 2015

The CLEC crowd is trying to move beyond the legacy services of network and minutes. Hard to do when customers still want to buy it. In much of the marketing, the services with the most buzz are: Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), Managed WiFi and mobility.

Under UCaaS I will include Collaboration, so Lync, Office 365, Sharepoint, Dropbox, conferencing flavors (audio, web, video), contact centers and the like.

Mobile Phones are Hyperlinks

April 21, 2015

At SXSW, Biz Stone of twitter founding fame, made a comment "Mobile phones are hyperlinks of humanity." Hugh MacLeod expounded on that mobile phones are the new window to the hyper-connected world.

It is funny I read that today as the digital landscape is about to change. Google is changing its search algorithm for mobile. Sites get a higher ranking for being mobile ready.

Commissions by Common Core Math

April 20, 2015

I listened to a presentation recently that suggested that new telecom agencies are not opening up (or at least not faster than closings and mergers). I was skeptical until this weekend when I was doing referral checks.

One MPLS network is worth a lot more than 3 x 10MB DIA sites. When companies talk about moving up to mid-market, it is primarily that the size of the deal will make it worthwhile.

Why Aren't You My Customer?

April 17, 2015

COMPTEL had a sales training session for attendees with Stephen Schiffman. Schiffman has written 50+ books in his 35 year career and was the primary trainer for both Nextel and Sprint.

The big take away is the question: Why aren't you my customer? It is an important question.

I Just Don't See Nokia Pulling This Off

April 15, 2015

Nokia is buying Lucent for $16.5 billion. Rajeev Suri, current Nokia president and CEO, says, ""Together, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia intend to lead in next-generation network technology and services, with the scope to create seamless connectivity for people and things wherever they are. Our innovation capability will be extraordinary, bringing together the R&D engine of Nokia with that of Alcatel-Lucent and its iconic Bell Labs. We will continue to combine this strength with the highly efficient, lean operations needed to compete on a global scale." What R&D engine? VDSL2?

The Race to Gigabit is About Business

April 15, 2015

The cable companies racing to Gigabit networks isn't about delivering ultra-fast broadband to consumers. The Gigabit announcements get them good PR in DC, where the largest MSOs are waiting for approval for acquisitions (Comcast for TWC; Charter for Bright House). Comcast, as the largest MSO, has a poor reputation for customer service and for Net Neutrality. The Comcast-Verizon squeeze on Netflix was probably the number 1 reason the FCC received millions of public comments and laid down the law.

Cloud, Channel and TelePacific Podcast

April 9, 2015

Citrix and Grasshopper Make a Good Pair

April 8, 2015

Citrix has many products - DaaS, NetScaler, ZenApp, SingleSignon and the GoTo suite of products: GoToAssist, GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting, GoToTraining, GoToWebinar, Podio and ShareFile. Citrix is firmly in the cloud, collaboration and remote worker space. Nabbing Grasshopper was probably a good move.

Grasshopper is auto-attendant in the cloud for about 150K very small businesses. I am not certain that those 150K VSB do use or will use other Citrix products.

Customer Experience is the Next Level

April 7, 2015

Saw this today from Evan Kirstel: "Accenture and Alcatel-Lucent Helping Telefonica Enhance Experience For Consumers in Europe and Latin America". The strategic partnership between Accenture and ALU combines the PS of the consulting firm with the hardware of ALU. Integration of software systems is required for the customer experience (and adoption of services) to increase. Unified Communications means unifying the various components - texts, email, faxes, vociemail, chats, video, social media - into one inbox (especially for the contact center agent).

Re-Education Will Be Required

April 6, 2015

On my Google Alert for VoIP this weekend, there were numerous headlines that made me shake my head. They are so misleading that the reader (presumably a prospective buyer) will almost certainly be confused. Don't forget that one part of the sales process is for you to educate the prospect. You have to educate them on the benefits of your service; the difference between your service and the rest of the market; and on any misconceptions that may occur.

Is Size Important?

April 3, 2015

There is a belief that you need as many partners as you can get. That seems like an expensive idea. When you factor in that channel managers will max out their day with busy work - quoting, educating, recruiting, paperwork - but it won't result in more sales (just more work).

As it stands now, better channel managers already grade their partners and prioritize work according to that grade.

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