On Rad's Radar? - xmpp Archives

Day 1 Observations from Phoenix

2010-10-26T04:01:23Z

I'm at the Broadsoft Connections 2010 user conference in Phoenix. The theme is Ignite Passion (for Hosted UC). These are some of my notes:

Broadsoft is pushing not just Hosted PBX but services they are calling CAAS (Communications-as-a-Service). Broadsoft released BroadCloud - video conferencing, web collaboration and IM/Presence, sold as a hosted service to the Broadsoft service provider, who then sells it to the end user. Um, there might not be enough margin there for that many hands in the chain.

The Service Provider needs

"Cisco phones are not as spectacular as you would think

I met a Technology Efficiency Specialist from Hula.

it has been a long month on the road for me. Sitting through presentation where the presenter is kind of bored, plowing through slides of stats and graphs. We all get that Hosted PBX is growing. It has no where to go but up, so the chart should be a hockey stick. What the industry needs to hear is as follows:

What are the sales triggers? How do we duplicate the successes that are out there? What are the hurdles?

These questions were answered in the 10 UC Go-to-Market Strategies breakout session. Some attendees said that it was common sense, but:

"UC is best served Hosted."

Keys to selling Hosted UC is Execution.

Basic VoIP revenue erosion is coming. Service Providers will need to sell value adds to increase ARPU. (It's all about total telecom spend.)

Agents, VAR's, and the rest of the Indirect Channel will have a difficult time selling Hosted UC, unless they drink the kool-aid and using Hosted UC. Anyone selling this stuff has to know it to sell it.

The keynote from Don Tapscott was about the Age of networked intelligience. We are in the middle of a Digital Revolution - go profit from it!

Some sponsors have some new gear to show off. (Aastra has some stuff to show me). And a familiar face showed up at OneAccess Networks: Dennis Gatens formerly with ADTRAN.

Crowded and Confused Markets

2008-12-03T20:55:03Z

Telecom has some of the most crowded and confused markets. Dial-Up, broadband, cellular, VoIP, POTS. T1 - all kind of flat. Not a lot of Differentiation. It's filled with "I'll save you 10%". The battle cry of the telecom sales dude. It's no wonder there are price wars -- what else do you have to go on?

Now, there is another battle field. A subset of VoIP. The mobile VoIP app. (Like SO many folks want to use VoIP on their cell phone.) i2, Raketu, Vyke, Skype, iSkoot, Nimbuzz, mig33, Truphone and so many more. In fact, so many, I can't keep track. EQO just died. And Fring is laying off 20% of its staff. TalkPlus died. Tpad (who?) and Nimbuzz just hooked up. VOX hooked up with UTGI for mobile VoIP.

Can they all survive? What size do they need to reach? Is it a matter of users like Skype (or mig33 with 9M users)? Or today is monetization important?

Even in VoIP, is 900 customers and 28,365 seats significant?

Cisco is Jabbering

2008-09-20T04:57:41Z

In 2007, Cisco integrated Jabber components into its conferencing platform. Today, Cisco buys Jabber, "an open-source IM and presence protocol used by Google Talk and Gizmo, for an undisclosed sum". On our panel at IT Expo, The Role of Apps in VoIP, we talked about Gen Y not liking to talk on the phone. My conclusion is that you will need to incorporate XMPP and XML to enable chat, instant messaging, SMS messaging to IP phone - all to communicate with employees, customers, vendors - without talking on a phone.