December 2007 Archives

A couple recognitions from the last 12 months:

AudioCodes' Break Free Campaign (see: www.audiocodes.com/breakfree) - way back in early summer, we were on a conference bridge discussing how to create some new activity with the application developer community, trying to show them how they could abandon their legacy APIs and make the move to SIP+MSCML for their new applications.  We devised a plan that included a combination of web-based advertising, webinars and live speaking slots to introduce the concept and show some specific example applications.  With the fantastic help of the Marcom team at AudioCodes, TMC, Paracon and Alliance Systems we blew the lid off our original plan, making by far the most successful community development program that I have ever experienced.  For those that have participated, there is much more to come next year!

During 2007 I celebrated my 6th anniversary at AudioCodes - the longest I have worked for any one company - something must be going right.

If you know me, you know that outside work I'm deeply involved in Boy Scouts and a wide range of outdoor activities with my two sons.  This year, my oldest son David completed his Eagle Scout rank - the first ever in our family.  We're very proud of him and look forward to seeing him soar like an Eagle when he heads to college in 2008.

Looking ahead:

In January I'm headed to Jerusalem for the AudioCodes Global Channel Partner Conference.  We're bringing together some of our best channels, ISVs and VARs for three days of networking and collaboration.  I'm also looking forward to seeing many of my co-workers and partners face to face - it's been a while.   The old city has captivated me since my first visit a couple years ago.  The history found in Jerusalem is just incredible. 

Spring Trade show season - January to March - while sometimes I dread the time away from home, I always look forward to the "buzz" that comes from spending time around the rest of the industry.  I learn more and make more progress in this time than any other part of the year.  Internet Telephony, VON, VoiceCon... here I come.

My crystal ball

Social Networking will leave the universities - after spending some time on MySpace and Facebook, now I get it.  Social networking is to email and IM what the telephone was to postal mail.  Now the challenge is to make the application "fit" the adult world - too much of Facebook was designed around college kids and doesn't recognize the complex networks that adults work within.  College kids have a relatively "flat" network of friends and the applications need work before adults will be willing to expose themselves like young adults.

Video - going beyond YouTube?  Like many of you, I was a little caught off gaurd by the web-based video streaming application and it's popularity.  Beyond the goofly little humor skits and music videos, it's application in marketing, training and product demonstrations has shown real commercial value.  But will real-time video (not streaming) take off?  It looks like we still have some work to go on this front.

Blade Servers will finally take off in telecom - after spending the year working in this space, it's clear to me now that many of the applications for telecom are perfect fit for blade servers including IBM's BladeCenter and other offerings from HP, Dell...   Few carriers can afford nor need the expensive redundancy found in ATCA or proprietary hardware.  Look for MicroTCA to be successful, but for ATCA, I think the game is already over.

Broadband for all - as you read in last week's entry, I feel strongly that we need to do more to connect the rest of America to the internet, giving a range of business and social benefits for both sides.  Watch for further policy changes that will encourage the wireline and wireless service providers to make the investment.

Thanks

Thanks goes out to all of you that participate in my blog, the folks at TMC for hosting and encouraging its development, my coworkers at AudioCodes for a great year, and finally my wife and kids for their support and putting up with my crazy travel schedule.

Wishing you all have a great holiday season and look forward to next year!

In reading this morning's paper, I saw an article about something that I have been preaching for the last few years: Broadband Internet Accessibility.  See: The Buffalo News: Buffalo News Editorials: Boost Internet access

Those of us that live in urban or suburbia are lucky in that we have access to a range of choices for broadband internet service.  This allows us to choose between DSL, Cable and Fiber optic technologies needed to connect our homes and businesses to the internet.  It's gotten to the point where we expect this connectivity to do everything from shopping on-line, to banking, to preparing our taxes.  In our industry, this also provides the needed connectivity for VoIP service providers like Skype or Vonage.

Unfortunately, there is an un-documented line around the ring of suburbs that surround most cities - the broadband-free zone.  Beyond this line you have one choice - Satellite Internet which is very expensive.  Because of the distance above the earth that the geo-stationary satellites orbit, satellite broadband has terrible multi-second latency (due to the transit time up to the satellite and back).  Satellite internet is fine for surfing and email, but unusable for real-time voice or video conversations.  The result - if you live outside the "burb's", no VoIP for you!

But bringing terrestrial broadband to rural users is more than access to on-line shopping and VoIP, it's about access to government, libraries, educational content and on....  The internet is quickly going from a luxury to becoming a necessity, much like electricity did in the 1930's.  For those of you that study history, you'll remember the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, that created a means to bring electricity to rural farmers and others that live outside the urban centers.  If you travel to other countries (like Mexico), you'll find that to this day, few people that live outside the urban centers have utility-supplied electricity, which puts those people and businesses at a tremendous disadvantage.

It's good to see that our elected officials have woken up on this issue and are starting to develop a strategy for helping rural farmers and others have access to broadband internet.  This could give my home state of New York a huge advantage over the long-run - making rural businesses more competitive.

Whether it be stringing more cable, EVDO or WiMax wireless technologies, bringing the internet to the rest of the population will help our industry cut the cord on the legacy TDM infrastructure.

Imagine if the US Government found an un-charted new island, just off the coast of Florida with plenty of ready-to-develop shovel-ready beach front property, and decided to parcel the island up and auction it off to the highest bidders.   Sound crazy?  Well that's exactly what is happening over at the FCC this next year as the 700 MHz band is freed up by ending analog television transmissions.

While I'm a huge proponent of creating space for new services and giving opportunities for new business to capture this unique opportunity, I worry about how this is working financially.  Follow me just for a second:

-The FCC decides to cut the cord on analog television
-This requires that most of the the US spend $ to buy a new TV or a converter box
-Then the FCC auctions off the airwaves to wireless carriers (the FCC puts the $ in the General Fund)
-Then the wireless carriers charge us $ to use those airwaves?

Google to bid for U.S. mobile airwaves - Yahoo! News

It sure sounds like a bit of a financial shell game to me - how about you??