This last week has been particularly difficult for those of us who are frequent travelers out of the Buffalo Airport. It's seems the perfect storm has hit the Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) and it really messed up my travel plans earlier this week:
#1 - This last weekend we received a good 12+ inches of fresh snow (the skiing was awesome), which even snow-hardened Buffalonians can find a pain-in-the-neck when it comes to getting around town. Unfortunately, piled up snow takes up valuable parking spaces.
#2 - It marked the start of "Spring Break" weekend for most of the local colleges and public schools in Canada.
#3 - Our neighbors to the north who have new buying power, have figured out my little secret.
It seems that an article in the Toronto Star last summer tipped off my Canadian neighbors about the inexpensive flights and easy access in and out of the Buffalo Airport. If you've ever flow out of Toronto's Pearson Airport, you know how expensive and difficult travel is for most Southern Ontario residents. With Buffalo only 90 miles down the QEW, the lure of lower fares and access to JetBlue and Southwest Airlines has created a new North-to-South migration path. The result? Full parking lots, very long security lines, and jammed-to-the-gills flights.
While I appreciate the new travelers will bring with them their loonies to spend here in Western New York and wherever their destination takes them, I still miss my airport. Parking close to the terminal and the predictability of normally short security lines are now distant memories.
I thought the "International" in Buffalo Niagara International Airport was referring to the occasional charter flights to Mexico, not the license plates in the parking lot.
Back to work....
]]>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!
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My plan for Monday is to spend most of the day in the SIP track. See: IP Communications Conference - Conferences#SIP-01 I'll be listening closely to the other sessions and taking notes that I'll share later today and tomorrow.
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I'm real excited about the session we are preparing on SIP Trunking:
SIP-04: “SIP Trunking From 10,000 Feet”
In discussions with the other panelists, there seems to be a general consensus that the market is really excited about the prospect, but confused and concerned about interoperability and security. We've decided to focus on those topics and really drill down on how we plan to solve those challenges.
The other session that is taking my time is the Executive Showcase - without giving away the contents of the session, I'll just let you know that my good friends Doug and Hank will revisit us (from the January 2006 keynote) to give us an update on their development projects.
Off to the airport on Sunday afternoon - see you in LA!
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“SIP Trunking From 10,000 Feet” Speaker: Alan D. Percy, Director of Business Development, AudioCodes. Session Code:SIP-04 Date: Monday 9/10/07 Time: 12:30-1:15pm |
“AudioCodes Executive Showcase - Taking your application to the next level” Speaker: Alan D. Percy, Director of Business Development, AudioCodes. Session Code:ES-04 Date: Tuesday 9/11/07 Time: 10:00-10:45am |
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“Open Source Development Challenges” Speaker: Alan D. Percy, Director of Business Development, AudioCodes. Session Code:OS-05 Date: Tuesday 9/11/07 Time: 4:30-5:15pm |
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“Things to Consider… Before You Deploy U.C” Speaker: Lior Moyal, Vice President, Product Marketing Media Gateway, Enterprise Business Group, AudioCodes. Session Code:UC-02 Date: Monday 9/10/07 Time: 10:00-10:45am |
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“Don't Forget Fax” Speaker: Sharone Ben-Levi, Vice President, Product Marketing Media Processing, Enterprise Business Group, AudioCodes. Session Code:UC-09 Date: Tuesday 9/11/07 Time: 3:30-4:15pm |
To sweeten the deal, we'll be giving away a Garmin GPS navigator as the show, so be sure to stop by and fill out an entry card!
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