First Coffee

TMC CEO Rich Tehrani sat down recently with In Store Solutions's Chief Technology Officer, Thomas Howe, for an interview. In Store makes and sells Skype-related stuff, such as headsets, handsets and cameras, and as Howe said, "we have two products coming out in the next two months we're very excited about." Howe said much of the reason he joined the company recently was that he was convinced they have the potential to be "groundbreaking products." In fact, "I think it's going to change the face of how a lot of things get done," Howe said. A typical customer for the B2C company, Howe explained, would be Skype  users, or other users of headsets and handsets. "Our customer base is wide," he noted, adding that 70 percent of their sales are outside of the United States. "We sell in 62 countries." In 2010 alone they'll sell half a million products, he said, "collect in local currency and provide Tier 1 and Tier 2 support for those products." Read more here. ... Jonathan Brust, the vice president of marketing for Glowpoint Video, recently joined TMC CEO Rich Tehrani on the program, "In The Studio," to discuss the company's latest news. Glowpoint supports telepresence, video conferencing and such video technologies through managed services, Brust says, and as Tehrani remarked, since telepresence is all the rage these days, that's a good space to be in. The basic business model, Brust explained, is that "people buy the equipment, and we manage the environment for them in many different ways, to enable them to connect with whoever they need to connect to." To begin with, Brust said managed services are a great value proposition for companies. "One, because you can take advantage of expertise, processes, understanding the technology, and making sure that the systems you're investing in are always working." Hard to argue with much of that.

They're at it again, trying to tax the Internet. To quote Pete Seeger, when will they ever learn? Online shoppers in most states avoid paying sales tax on items purchased over the Internet. You might have noticed that it's one of the few parts of the economy doing well about now. Democrats would like to change all that. On July 1, given the typically Orwellian name such legislation gets, the Main Street Fairness Act, sponsored  by Democrat Rep. William Delahunt from Massachusetts, wants to impose a state sales tax on consumers who shop online. A bipartisan delegation led by Rep. Paul W. Hodes, (D-N.H.), would maintain the business-friendly status quo. It contains language that says "Congress should not impose any new burdensome or unfair tax collecting requirements on small online businesses, which would ultimately hurt the economy and consumers." "If you are concerned about rising taxes, this is a vehicle to avoid that," Delahunt said in proposing the tax.

According to officials of Speedflow Communications, a provider of VoIP software solutions, their new Mediacore product release has, "significant alterations in billing and routing algorithms." The existing Guardian functions and program Web-interface "have been amended," company officials say, adding that, "the new reports provide users with various data analysis and objective information about customers and completed calls." The installation is done "according to the arranged schedule of updates for our partners," Mediacore officials say: "The core modules are set by scripts and additional ones are configured manually by the Speedflow system administrator." This is done to allow full command over the installation process and data security during all the stages, they explain. Read more here. ... There is, in fact, a basic design problem with cell phones, as industry observer Lee Gomes noted recently. "Even under the best of circumstances, these phones don't do a very good job of the most basic thing we buy them to do -- make phone calls." From one call to the next, Gomes notes, "one never knows what a phone call is going to sound like. Think of this as the real form of chat roulette. In fact, it is not uncommon for phone conversations these days to begin with a meta-discussion of the sound quality of the connection." Part of the problem, paradoxically enough, is that there is no phone monopoly anymore. (Note to under-30s: Ask Mom and Dad about the AT&T phone monopoly.

Ever wonder how that famous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline appeared on the Chicago Tribune in 1948, held aloft by a smiling -- and victorious -- Harry Truman? Polling technology, that's how. According to Craig Silverman's article on the subject, conventional wisdom, supported by polls, "was almost unanimous that a Dewey presidency was inevitable, and that the New York governor would win the election handily." And how did the pollsters get it so wrong? They used the telephone to conduct their polls. Therefore they spoke with a disproportionate number of the relatively well-to-do, who could afford the technology.

Officials at workforce management software provider Monet Software claim that call centers that use the company's Web-based offering, Monet WFM Live, can improve service levels and reduce operating costs "without the upfront expenses and IT requirements of traditional software." Specific functions of the company's WFM Live offering include: --Forecasting: Run simulations to calculate a precise forecast for future call volume, agent requirements and average handle time for any time interval of the day, based on historical data from ACD. --Scheduling: Monet's advanced scheduling engine incorporates all call types and other activities to generate staffing schedules that optimize a wide range of factors. --Intra-day Management: A graphical display of agents' schedules can be manipulated by dragging and dropping breaks, lunches and other exceptions. Real-time updates can be made to required and assigned agents instantly. Read more here. ... No stranger to litigation, Apple has another lawsuit on its plate now: Some people are irked how fast their iPads overheat. Industry observer Susan Jacobsson notes that a complaint was filed in federal court in Oakland on July 23 by Jacob Balthazar, Claudia Keller, and John Browning: "According to the filing, the iPad does not 'live up to reasonable consumer's expectations created by Apple... as the iPad overheats so quickly under common weather conditions that it does not function for prolonged use outdoors, or in many other warm conditions." Mac.Blorge says that yes, in fact, "one way to insure that your shiny new iPad overheats is to turn it on, lay it down so that the noontime sun shines directly on its screen, and wait awhile for the iPad to be smart enough to turn itself off to avoid damage. Apparently, a group of attorneys somewhere has noticed that if you do something that stupid, the iPad in question does indeed overheat and turn itself off." Having "proven to their satisfaction that the laws of physics still apply, the attorneys in question have filed a class action suit against Apple (instead of the universe, which actually enforces the laws of physics)," Mac.Blorge says, adding that "the overheating iPad issue is analogous to putting your foot in front of a bus tire and waiting until the bus rolls over it, then suing because the bus injured your foot." Evidently -- we can't speak from experience here, we haven't received our iPad from our dear sweet loving wife for our birthday yet, and it never gets that hot or cold around here anyway -- users get a screen that reads "iPad needs to cool down before you can use it." Read more here. ... Hundreds -- nay, thousands -- of call centers in recent years have switched to the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model of delivery.