Going into the weekend I already knew the recipe of the week, which was a good thing, all things considered. After returning to Dallas late Thursday night I came down with the flu. Generally, speaking not much slows me down but on Saturday the flu threw me for a loop. My wife was not feeling her best either and requested soup for lunch. I made her a beef and vegetable soup and I decided to catch some much needed rest. Sunday, I served her my home smoked salmon and eggs over pumpernickel and rye toast. Yet, I wasn’t hungry. Not sure if I was still feeling the effects of the flu, we went for a two mile walk with the dogs. That done, I felt better than I did on Saturday but wondered why I wasn’t hungry. Today I am traveling to Enterprise Connect and starting what has become a genuine fast. I don’t have a goal or purpose, just a sense I should do this. When I was younger I would fast every year for a few days to a week. However, it has been many years since I did such a thing. I’ll let you know when I decide to break it. As for the recipe of the week, I was gently chided by multiple people for not sharing my Fish and Chips recipe last week. I took it to heart that there are a few closet deep frying cooks out there. If there is any secret to deep frying, I offer the following; buy a good deep fryer with an expose heating element, use peanut oil, do not crowd or overfill the fryer, always dust with a bit of salt when the food comes out of the fryer. These Fish and Chips will rival any restaurant in America. As I said last week, using flounder instead of cod or haddock makes a big difference. Enjoy!

Holding Fast to UCaaS

As Enterprise connect begins two announcements catch my eye. One XO is announcing its first cloud service. Although, the announcement seemed a little reticent on jumping straight to the true definition of a cloud service “XO Enterprise Cloud Communications integrates a range of IP telephony features, local and long-distance calling, HD voice and video, network services and IP phone sets in hosted, subscription-based service.” To my friends at XO, the hosted subscription based service is the cloud application.

Not surprising Verizon also announced its new cloud service. Typically, UCaaS is Unified Communications as a Service. Verizon announced UCaaS as Unified Communications and Collaboration as a Service. To our friends at Verizon that seems more like UCCaaS or even UC²aaS. Think about it.

As for Cypress Communications and Broadvox, our cloud services begin with the hosted or virtual PBX and we then extend the innovative IP services from there. We also maintain an offering of the feature set on a per seat basis with the actual telecom usage aggregated across the total number of users. Separating usage from the per seat licenses reduces the overall costs of the service in addition to minimizing CAPEX.

I can’t wait to see tomorrow’s announcements.