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

May 2016

You are browsing the archive for May 2016.

Master Agents: The Post-Broker Model (podcast with Acuity)

May 31, 2016

Another UCaaS Acquisition

May 31, 2016

Last week I reported some M&A here. The M&A Train keeps running.

Broadsoft has bought another company. No more internal innovation (still no Slack or Skype integration either!), just inorganic moves - Transera, Lenoid and PBXL.

Is Hosted PBX the Emperor's New Clothes?

May 27, 2016

Since 2004 when I started blogging, I have blogged about a hardware solution less than 2 dozen times - and not one product review. I have talked with OneAccess, a hardware company that was launching a new line of IAD's that was aimed at my clients, but no product review. I have mentioned other IAD vendors, like Edgewater, and even mentioned PBX vendors in passing (Avaya, Shoretel, 3CX, etc) when discussion premise versus hosted.

Lately, the PBX manufacturers have contacted me.

4 Points on Selling Broadview OfficeSuite UC

May 26, 2016

Broadview Networks started in 1996, the same year President Clinton signed the Telecom Act of 1996, which launched a trillion dollar raid on the profits of the Baby Bells. Brian Crotty, Broadview's COO, presented a webinar about their OfficeSuite UC product and agent portal. Here are 4 points made.

You can't sell UC with 3 or more quotes.

MSP Tidbits (#2437)

May 25, 2016

The MSP (managed service provider) sector is set for growth as IT becomes more vital to a business - and the vastness of the IT umbrella overwhelms both the IT department and business owners.

Last year, HP broke up into 2 units. Now one of those units is in a mega-merger. USA Today reports that, "Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), run by Meg Whitman, late Tuesday said it was spinning off its enterprise services business, and merging it with Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), to create an IT services firm with $26 billion in annual sales." This will create the world's third largest SI with 5000 clients.

Open Letter to LinkedIn

May 25, 2016

What started as a neat online rolodex evolved into a business networking site, but now is a lousy version of Facebook. (I am not alone in this opinion, see here and there.)

People have a shortage of time, because we have to do way more per day to keep above water. Social media is an admitted time suck (see Hubspot story; or the nextweb post; or this article about social ruining your life; and wired's social is a waste of time.) So why would a business social network make it more noisy; more of a time suck?

Discussion is missing in many of the groups.

Windstream Complains About XO-VZ Deal

May 19, 2016

Windstream (and a couple other telcos) is complaining about the acquisition of XO by Verizon.

"About 50 percent of the Ethernet circuits Windstream buys from XO, or about 32 percent of its Ethernet expense with XO is provisioned as EoC. By using XO's EoC services, Windstream can provide symmetrical bandwidth of up to 100 Mbps to business customers." So XO is a vendor for Windstream for EoC. They want to preserve the supply of EoC, not something that VZ cares about.

It is Nice that Acquires inContact

May 19, 2016

Israeli software company Nice Systems said it would acquire inContact on Wednesday morning for about $940 million. Another Billion dollar deal in the UC&C space. (PGi got picked off by private equity for a billion late last year.)

inContact is a cloud contact center platform that is the partner for Siemens Enterprise Communications (which re-branded as Unify, later acquired by Atos for $400M).

Most Businesses Fear Change

May 19, 2016

We have been successful as a sector (if you can call it successful) by selling replacement services by saving the customer money. From $1 per minute long distance to almost free; from $1500 T1 to $199. I even heard an SD-WAN pitch about how it would save the customer money. UGH!!!!

Tidbits # 2436

May 18, 2016

I know I just did a tidbits but there is a lot going on. Here is some of it in small bites, like tapas or potato chips.

UC&C transitions closer to Workflow platform as task management is added to the UC&C system from Cisco:

Channel Vision magazine reports, "Redbooth has announced an integration with Cisco Spark to unite task-centric Redbooth workspaces and communications-centric Cisco Spark rooms.

GoDaddy Buys Some Voice

May 18, 2016

In a surprise move, GoDaddy is acquiring FreedomVoice of Greater San Diego, a former client and employer, for $42M plus $5M more for milestones. The CEO and his wife have been building it to sell since 2012. GoDaddy is getting a cloud phone product much like Grasshopper or Google Voice to upsell to its small business customers.

The cloud phone service is a good fit for selling domains, hosting and email to VSB (very small business with 1-5 employees).

Telecom Tidbits #2435

May 16, 2016

A lot going on (especially with M&A). The FCC approved the Charter-TWC-BHN merger, despite being fined for blocking third-party modems.

Frontier says that the 30K people affected by the transition (and who still have issues) will get credits and should get over it as 30K represents less than 1% of their customers. The Florida Attorney General jumped on the PR bandwagon to wag her finger at Frontier.

What Does Hybrid Cloud Look Like?

May 11, 2016

Every business has a Hybrid Cloud environment. Yep. Just about all of them. So all this hype about hybrid cloud is just that... Hype. Let me explain.

In 2003, a business would have ACT!

Services Partners Should Take a Look at

May 10, 2016

Been reading a bunch of press releases about feature announcements. Yawn! So I decided to poke around and see what services that are interesting for partners. I know you don't have time to look at everything, so here are a few.

Startup Advice for Non-Starups

May 5, 2016

The topic of Startups is a favorite of mine. Over the years, I have worked with a number of startups. I have been a Mentor at Startup Surge, StartupCamp and other events. Co-founded BarCamp Tampa Bay where startups begin their journey in this area.

Replaced by a Robot

May 5, 2016

There is a constant theme in some media about workers being replaced by robots. Many people think it won't happen to them. Well, it kind of already is.

You know all those comparison quoting sites?

Follow the Money

May 4, 2016

Where is the investment money going?

Did you see that Apple had a revenue problem? Not as many iPhones are selling. "Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) says the mobile wave, which is split between mobile phones (voice/SMS) and smartphones, is coming to an end, and the next obvious market for growth is cars." Ben's blog is here and the slide deck is here.

3 Sales Strategies for UCaaS

May 3, 2016

With so many hosted VoIP companies out there -- has to be over 3000 in US and Canada - there are three strategies that these service providers can choose to sell their products through.

One is to package your product the way we have traditional sold it. That is to say, on-premise PBX (like Sangoma, Fonality, Digium, S2S) as the made ingredient coupled with SIP trunks and some "cloud" elements. Another version of this is to offer Key System Emulation (KSE), which is an awful way to provide hosted VoIP.

Food for Thought (Tidbits #2434)

May 2, 2016

Tidbits today but not all of them are about telecom.

From James Altucher: "Automation is eating the world. Every time a line of software is written, a job is lost." VR, 3D printing, AI and robotics will make us all unemployed soon. what then?

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