Digital Common Sense

The other day I wrote a post entitled Unified Communications - Dispelling the Myths on the Realtime Community site.

Tonight we’ll be airing an episode of our new live, call-in Internet Radio show to talk about the topic of unified communications.

Stardust Radio

Technorati Tags: unified communications, VoIP, talk radio, internet radio

Filed by Ken at 9:03 am under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
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This is a repost of something I posted on the Realtime Unified Communications Community earler this morning.

Sheryl, my partner and fiance, called my attention to an interesting question this morning. It’s not the first time recently I’ve seen this question raised in conversationbut the question seems to take many forms. My friend Jon Arnold asked just a week ago Is VoIP Really Happening?

Here’s a snip from the Information week story that got me started on this thread.

Is Anyone Actually Implementing UC?
Posted by Eric Krapf, Jul 17, 2008 09:51 AM

A debate has been going on over at No Jitter about whether enterprises are actually adopting Unified Communications (see here, here, here, here, and here). I tend toward the skeptical end of any conversation about how widely a hot new technology is actually being adopted, but I do see a few signs that enterprises are at least paying attention and, where possible, looking for an opportunity to get their feet wet.

I was chatting with a consultant yesterday who told me that in his last three engagements, he’d put Unified Communications into the specifications as an option for the companies to include in their RFPs, and in all three cases, the companies jumped at it. The reason? Business differentiation, i.e., the hope that UC could provide a new competitive advantage. This, by the way, supports a theory that Chris Thompson of Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) expounded to me at VoiceCon Orlando, that during difficult economic times, it’s actually easier for enterprises to make investments in “aspirational” technology than that which is “perspirational”.

To me, that says the UC message is getting through to enterprises. There’s no guarantee that every company will ultimately make the ROI, in whatever way the individual user company calculates that ROI. Maybe the bids will come back and the business case just won’t be there.

[Read the whole story here]

I’ve been following VoIP from the beginnng and unified communications since before the term came into popular use, and I feel like I have a distinctly different viewpoint.

We write and provide an eJournal series, Unified Communications
in Realtime, here at the Realtime Unified Communications Community that gets added to our Digital Library each month. It’s also distributed through other channels.

In the three-part series for next month we’ve been working on a set of brief articles about the intersection between unified communications and social media. As part of that, I tried to explain what unified communications is to set a foundation for the discussion. Here’s an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published piece -

Unified Communications - A Broad Definition
Unified communications is an interesting phrase that’s come into widespread use in the past year or two. Many companies have made efforts to brand it as their own, but it’s really a mindset tied to the journey of network convergence.

When we’re connected effectively, we’re more productive. Many working professionals are also more creative. With easy access to the tools we use to perform, our work is simpler. We’re able to focus on the work they need to do. We perform at a higher level. Just as companies focus on their core competencies, we as people perform better when we put all of our energy into our primary work objectives

One of the biggest drivers of this increased productivity in the past ten years has been what we call convergence. Convergence is another one of those vague buzzwords that means many things to many people, but there have been some clear and distinct phases

Phase 1 - Voice and Data Converge on the Wire
Convergence really took hold as a concept in the late 1990’s. IP became the most widely accepted transport technology for data traffic. Around the same time Voice over IP (VoIP) came on the scene as potentially disruptive technology for telecommunications.

Prior to this, most large companies often managed multiple networks - one for voice and another for data. In many cases, these networks were supported by different administrative and operations groups.

Integration of voice and data onto a single wired circuit infrastructure helped many companies reduce costs and improve the bottom line. The convergence of network technologies brought efficiency gains in many different business areas.

Phase 2 - IP Takes Center Stage as the Convergence Protocol
The convergence of the physical network onto a single circuit was the start of something that’s still in motion. Voice over IP (VoIP) provided yet another catalyst for change. It was ballyhooed as the end of telecommunications as we knew it and the signal that the legacy telephone companies would be out of business.

VoIP hasn’t matured in the way those wild prognostications foretold but it has become the stable foundation for telecommunications infrastructure. VoIP proved to be an enabling technology that has changed our way of thinking about voice. VoIP pointed the way to voice as simply another service of the network.

Phase 3 - Unified Communications
This convergence of voice and data networks has continued around the globe for the past several years. Today there are many networks that still haven’t fully converged. The process continues, and for many companies, the end of the road is nowhere in sight.

Convergence became the term used to describe the integration of data, voice and video onto one unified network. These network services used to all use separate networks. Today they share the resources of the corporate network and the Internet.

In the past two years, the word convergence has given way to the phrase unified communications. For most people, unified communications simply means the fully converged network, supporting data, voice and video.

That’s unified communications of today, but the journey doesn’t end there. There are mission-critical business applications that will integrate more tightly through Communications Enhanced business Processes (CEBP). These include:

• Enterprise Resource Management (ERP)
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Supply Chain Management (SCM)
• Sales Force Automation (SFA)
• Human Resource Management (HRM)

There will always be room to further integrate for efficiency. One key added area that’s seeing a lot of current improvement is integrating people with voice recognition technology. The user interface will always be a key component of how we enhance the way people use computerized resources.

In the Information Week piece, Krapf asks is anyone actually implementing UC? I’d rephrase it differently - Is there anyone who isn’t implementing UC?

Unified communications is a buzz phrase like convergence. It means different things to different people. In today’s business environment, VoIP is prevalent. Jon asked is it really happening, but I’m often hard pressed to find places where it isn’t happening.

Unified Communitations is everywhere. Think about it. Voice services, video services and voice mail have converged onto a single unified platform - an IP network and our computers or other devices. Without unified communications, you have no social media - no Facebook, no Twitter, no comprehensive integration. Without unified communications, the web as we know it is a pipe dream. It had email and static web pages.

Web 2.0, the phrase we’ve all heard a million times is unified communications. Without UC, there could have been no Web 2.0. Unified communications, like VoIP, isn’t a product you write a check for and buy. It’s not a single product you implement and move on. It’s not as complex as vendors make it sound.

Unified communications in a foundation mindset of a single, integrated platform for doing business. Simple.

Sheryl and I are in the process of augmenting our work at Stardust Global Ventures. Our GeekSpeekTV has been very popular, but with the hectic moving process we’ve had to endure lately, it’s been difficult to produce our regular shows. We’re now in the process of incorporating Stardust Radio into our portfolio.

Stardust Radio

Technorati Tags: unified communications, VoIP, talk radio, internet radio

Filed by Ken at 10:02 am under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
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I know today the buzz has been all about the new Skype that’s coming and bringing a bigger slant on video. That’s interesting, but I can’t afford the early adopter madness that I’ve been reading about today. It’s clearly not ready for prime time.

This news release hit my mailbox yesterday, and I like this a lot. And it’s ready to roll. What a great use of a technology like Skype to mashup the pleasure of social networking with learning a new language.

Social network for language learners launches Video and Skype

VoxSwap.com, the social network for language learners, adds a video service and integrates Skype so users can see and hear as they chat and learn

VoxSwap the innovative social network for people learning and practising languages has added a video service and integrated Skype so budding linguists can now hear and see as well as type text.

It means users (who sign up for free!) can now watch education and entertainment videos in a wide selection of languages so they can see and hear the words and phrases they are seeking to learn and pronounce properly. VoxSwap users can add videos to the service at the press of a button to help one another learn and practise each other’s languages.

Also VoxSwap users can now hear and see one another when they are chatting. Until now, chatting had been limited to text but with the integration of Skype users can talk to one another, and even video conference, for free.

Co-founder Sean Hargrave believes this is a major step forward for the site.

“Our users have responded really well to being able to chat to one another through text but now we’re taking it a step further with video,”
he commented.

“The video section is great for listening to and watching native speakers pass on language tips and Skype is phenomenal. It really helps to be able to hear the other person and, if both parties agree, see one another in a video conference. With the latest upgrades to the site we’ve added sight and sound to the written word, it’s a very exciting time for the development of language exchange on the Internet.”

Sean set up the site with his wife, Nicole, at the start of 2008 to give social networking a purpose. Rather than compile lists of friends and have virtual snowball fights, VoxSwap allows people to talk in multiple languages so users can help one another progress - hence the site’s motto of ‘make friends, learn a language’.

The new features of video and Skype will sit alongside a virtual keyboard, which offers characters and accents users may not have on their keyboards, as well as a built-in Google Translator for understanding phrases and words.

Included with the upgraded to the site are new features to improve the internal email system and allow people to take more control over their contact with one another. These additions include the ability to delete emails and comments people no longer want on their profile or mail box, as well as the ability to block a user.

Filed by Ken at 5:52 pm under Technology, VoIP/Unified Communications
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My pal Andy Abramson just posted this and it’s a pretty thoughtful look at what’s coming in IP communications. As such, it led me to rethink some of my recent comments, and seems a good opportunity to revisit these two subjects.

What’s Next In IP Communications? Here’s An Idea To Look At

Last week two stories seem to generate a lot of interest all across the blogs and in the news. The first was the rumor of a “Skype Killer” being planned by the leading telcos around the world. The second was the blockbuster move by the new WiMax consortium of players including Intel, ClearWire, Sprint plus the cable companies, along with online leader Google, to take over what Sprint and Clearwire were both not really doing yet, that to create a national WiMax footprint here in the USA which will deliver, in theory, both Mobile and Fixed broadband solutions.

These two topics are really pretty central to IP communications as we look ahead. Skype isn’t a panacea, but it’s the largets VoIP deployment in the world, and remains wildly popular. And it’s still growing. WiMax is arguably a successor to WiFi, or a fit somewhere in between WiFi and carrier wireless broadband. It could be the next carrier wireless broadband for data if it really succeeds.

Here’s a point Andy makes that the two technologies may be interwoven -

You see, the genie is out of the bottle and there’s no putting the Skype Genie back in, so another more robust and accepted flavor of IP communications that does the same thing and more, but without the already known concerns that Skype raises, could overtake them in time,
especially if its primary purpose was to supplant the existing analog base of installed users as the telcos move them to IP on their own or see them migrate to cable or WiMax.

I’m not sure I fully agree with the details, but I’m absolutely on the same page as Andy with regard to the problems.

The telcos don’t like Skype. Fair enough. They don’t like competition of any kind. They’ve struggled with it since divestiture of the old Bell System in 1984 and have a a long history of killing competition. But they’ve done too little for too long, and it’s far too late. What was once the leading technology industry (think 1956 and Bell Labs invention of the transistor), has fallen into a malaise of maintaining status quo and a sense of the right to be the incumbent forever.

Skype is in play. It may not be openly, actively courting, but Skype is clearly in play. And eBay has demonstrated their inability to leverage their huge investment in Skype toward any substantial success. Yet Skype continues to grow and improve. There’s been some speculation that some consortium of telcos might actually make a move to buy Skype. I think it’s highly unlikely. One of the biggest negatives Skype has shown is its disinterest in open standards for VoIP. for the telcos to embrace Skype, they’d have one of two paths to follow - (a) radically alter Skype to use open standard VoIP in fitting with their infrastructure, or (b) radically re-architect their own networks to use or add Skype’s protocols.

Either presents major problems, and would take on a lifetime of reinventing telephony all over again. They telcos believe they already know telephony, because they know it as it was. Frankly, they don’t have the innovative wherewithall to pull off either of those options successfully. What they might be able to do is mediocritize Skype by building a series of gateways to the PSTN. This could work from a technical standpoint. It also makes sense from a regulatory perspective to manage Skype in a fully separate environment.

Given the innovation shown by the telcos for the last fifty years (please note the tongue-in-cheek…there has been no substantive innovation by the telcos for fifty years), this last option seems a slippery slope, fraught with business, technology, and customer satisfaction problems.

So pick your analogy. Andy said the genie is out of the bottle. Others have said the horse is out of the barn, the water’s over the dam. For the telcos, their response to the Skype threat is simply too little, too late. Skype came on their horizon at a time every telco executive had been forced to read The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. Every one of them knew full well that disruptive technologies come with a set of known characteristics. Disruptive technologies generally:

• Arrive substantially “downmarket”
• Less complex and expensive (off-the-shelf)
• May sometimes be more costly
• Lower performance than mainstream technology
• Offer lower margins than mainstream technology
• Are introduced into insignificant markets
• May have to make their own markets
• Are perceived as unnecessary by mainstream customers
• Do not fit mainstream value model
• Are difficult to deal with by established players
• Carry significant first-mover advantage

They knew this and ignored Skype until it was too late. Years too late. Skype ate the telcos lunch, and in many ways now has the mindshare that the traditional telcos can never win back. They rested on their laurels as a sustaining technology.

Just as radically as the 3.5″ disk drive disrupted the old traditional disk makers out of business, Skype has forever changed the face of voice communications.

• Of leading 14” drive makers, none survive the 8” drive
• Of leading 8” drive makers, 1 survives the 5.25” drive
• Of leading 5.25” drive makers, only 35% introduce a 3.5” product!

It’s nice that the telcos finally woke up to smell the coffee, but the pot’s almost empty and there’s a hole in your cup. Too little too late. Like many of us have been saying for years to the telcos - the bell tolls for thee.

Andy goes on to bring in the WiMax angle as a related topic -

WiMax. Last week’s announcement of the mega players all joining hands was a very good deal for Clearwire and Sprint.
Clearwire’s investors cashed out. Sprint got someone else to carry the
ball in the USA market, plus this now provides another option to offer
IP based communications versus the already existing 3G solutions.

As a result I chose to think how the very much-ballyhooed WiMax play
could be differentiated versus being looked at as only a substitute for
the mobile phone. As I like to say “too much me too, me also, not me
different” is nothing really new. I mean, what good is going the 4G
route if all it does is give a less expensive experience to make phone
calls on the go, and not work everywhere for many years to come. That’s
what the cable guys already did with VoIP, where the only difference
from what we’ve always had from the phone company is the wire the phone
service travels over and the bill.

WiMax as a substitute for the mobile phone is a boneheaded idea for the reasons Andy states.He’s pretty open with his “too much me to, me also, not me different” description of ideas he sees as off the mark. I tend to be less charitable and call a boneheaded idea just that. A carrier-based approach to WiMax will take years to deploy. I compare carrier WiMax with ISDN in the United States. Never has a technology cost so much, to do so little, and arrive on the scene so late. By the time ISDN for consumers was generally available, it was overpriced, under-featured and obsolete. So now the telcos are going to make WiMax the next ISDN.

Sprint is among one of the least innovative companies I’ve watched for the past ten years. They’re slow to market with solutions that under-deliver, if they work at all. So know they’re going to partner with Clearwire. I’m just not as impressed as a number of my colleagues.

The success of WiFi has not been driven, extended or enlarged by the pitiful efforts we’ve seen that put WiFi in Starbucks and McDonalds. WiFi succeeded because it was unlicensed spectrum that you and I could deploy quickly, easily and cheaply in our homes, offices and businesses. Just like the disruptive technologies Christensen so aptly described, WiFi came in at the low end of a different market. It created its own market. I don’t believe WiMax has that same kind of potential. It’s too direct a competition potentially to existing wireless technologies. I believe we’ll see WiMax widely deployed, but it’s not a wireless technology I believe will sustain momentum long enough to become a major incumbent technology…at leastw not with the carriers driving it. They’ll drive it to mediocrity in their effort to stave off their own painful death while they tell themselves they’re innovating.

The next generation of wireless isn’t here yet. I don’t think we’ve really seen it yet. While the US runs a 2.5G network at best, much of the world is moving toward real 3G wireless. 4G is another animal and what we’re seeing today is a lot of experimentation in the space as players try to find the technology mesh that will gain the critical mass of user acceptance.

I don’t think this mesh will come from any company we see today as a telco. The telcos are innovating us into the dark ages of FCC largess protecting their business. The telcos exist in an environment of cronyism, back room handshakes and political contributions. That’s an approach that may stave off death a while longer, but it won’t create an environment where innovation thrives. They’ve still got their heads in the sand. While they’ve been beat over the head with a clue-by-four repeatedly for years, the telcos, to a very large degree, still haven’t a clue. They don’t have a ten year roadmap that’s got any grit to it.
Technorati Tags: telcos, WiMax, Skype, 4G, next generation networks, unified communications

Filed by Ken at 3:34 pm under Mobility & Handheld, Tech in General, Technology, VoIP/Unified Communications
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Last year the O’Reilly ETel event was perhaps the most exciting conference venue in the industry. O’Reilly wasn’t able to continue the event, but that’s not enough to let something so exciting and powerful fade away. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Lee Dryburgh, this year we’ll see the kickoff of eComm2008. It’s what I believe will be the first of a revitalized, high-energy conference that will set the industry aflame with passion and innovation.

The conference takes place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA from March 12th-14th.

Established in 1996, the Computer History Museum is a public benefit organization dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computing history. It is home to one of the largest collections of computing artifacts in the world, a collection comprising over 13,000 objects, 20,000 images, 5,000 moving images, 4,000 linear feet of cataloged documentation and 5,000 titles or several hundred gigabytes of software. The mission of the Computer History Museum is to preserve and present for posterity the artifacts and stories of the information age. As such, the Museum plays a unique role in the history of the computing revolution and its worldwide impact on the human experience.

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Here’s just a small sampling of speakers on the agenda. These are just a few that are my personal highlights. Check the speakers page for a complete list.

Bob Frankston

Frankston Innovating, Achieving connectivity from the edge.

Bob Frankston may be best known for writing VisiCalc. He has been working on online services and networks since 1966 and while at Microsoft initiated the home networking effort. Since then he’s focus his attention on a post-telecom model that builds on the Internet dynamic to achieve connectivity from the edge rather than the center.

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Brough Turner

NMS Communications, SVP and CTO

Brough Turner is SVP, CTO and co-founder of NMS Communications wherehe oversees evolution of technology and product architectures andworks on business strategy and new market development. Brough writesand is quoted widely on telecommunications topics in trade and generalbusiness publications and he is a frequent speaker at telecom industryevents around the world. His current interests include mobilewireless access, broadband policy, mobile video, and user createdcontent and communities. Brough blogs athttp://blogs.nmss.com/communications/ on the technology, economic andsocial issues of communications at the intersection of telecom,mobility and the Internet.

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David Isenberg

Awaiting…, Founder

David S. Isenberg spent 12 years at AT&T Bell Labs until his 1997 essay,”The Rise of the Stupid Network,” was received with acclaim everywhere in the global telecommunications community with one exception — at AT&T itself! So Isenberg left AT&T in 1998 to found isen.com, LLC (an independent telecom analysis firm based in Cos Cob, Connecticut) and to publish The SMART Letter, an open-minded commentary on the communications revolution and its enemies.

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Jeff Bonforte

Yahoo! Inc., Vice President, Product Management

Jeff has founded a few startups including i-drive, an online storage pioneer, in 1998. He served as President for SIPphone, where he lead the development and release of Gizmo Project (www.gizmo5.com). He began working at Yahoo! in 2005, where he initially lead Voice. Shortly after, he was promoted to run Messenger, Voice and Chat. He was promoted to Vice President in 2007. Today he works in early product development in Search.

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Lee S Dryburgh

SS7 Networks Limited, Director

Lee S. Dryburgh is a person-to-person communications technologist. He is an engineering doctoral candidate at UCL (with sponsorship from Cisco), SS7 consulting engineer via his company SS7 Networks and the initiator of the Emerging Communications (eComm) conference. He has performed work for numerous operators including British Telecom, O2, Sprint, T-Mobile, Orange, Verisign, Hutchinson, as well as vendors including Marconi, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, and Cisco. He is an acknowledged expert in the telecommunication protocol suite Signaling System #7 and lead-authored the bestselling book on the topic. His research focus is the future of telephony and enabling conversation between relevant strangers.

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Martin Geddes

STL, Chief Analyst

Martin Geddes is author of the popular telecom strategy blog Telepocalypse, as well as chief analyst at STL and co-instigator of the Telco 2.0 initiative (www.telco2.net) — helping network operators and vendors make money in an all-IP world.

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Thomas McCarthy-Howe

The Thomas Howe Company, CEO

Thomas McCarthy-Howe has nineteen years of experience in telecommunications product development. He is currently an independent consultant to service providers, enterprises and equipment vendors in the design and development of next generation communications equipment and services. Thomas has held senior management and engineering positions at industry leaders such as Comverse, Versatel Networks, PictureTel and Aware. As a member of the PictureTel engineering team, Mr. Howe designed audio and video software of the first PC-based video conferencing system, as well as software for the original version of NetMeeting, and as Aware Inc.’s software architect for the first commercially available ADSL chipset. In 2007, Thomas won the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Mashup Contest. In addition to his writing and teaching, he currently serves on several technical advisory boards and boards of directors.

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That list is just a few of the fabulous speakers on the eComm agenda. Yes, those were chosen because they represent some personal friends we look foward to spending time with, but they’re also trusted colleagues who represent the voice of wisdom in the industry. The speaker’s list for this event is incomparable with that of many conferences.

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Looking over the agenda yields such a depth and breadth of conversations that this is truly an even not to be missed.

My partner Sheryl and I are making sure we won’t miss it. We’ll be there, and expect to be presenting one of the lightning talks on the last day. We’ll be talking about why enabling a hyperconnected state with voice and data services is one of the most vital competitive differentiators in the industry.

We’re also lined up to speak should schedules change or anyone’s travel plans go awry. We will definitely be there blogging, interviewing, podcasting, doing video, and sharing the excitement and frenzy of action from the conference.

We hope you’ll look for us and come say hello. We want to meet and talk with as many of you as possible.

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Special Bonus

The cost of this conference is already low, one of the lowest cost conferences in the industry. Early bird registration is still in effect right now, for another $300 off.

As a special bonus if you email either Sheryl or Ken, we’ll provide a special discount code that will get an additional 15% discount. The early bird registration will end soon, so make your plans now.

Drop us an email to let us know if you’re going to be there so we can set aside time to meet in person.

Technorati Tags: eComm, Lee Dryburgh, Ken Camp, Sheryl Breuker

Filed by Ken at 4:43 pm under Mobility & Handheld, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
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Art Rosenberg always writes some pretty thoughtful pieces over at Unified-View. I’ve only met Art once, but have read his work for a long time. The other day he posted his thoughts on How Mobility and UC Will Really Change The Pace of Business Communications in 2008.

Art’s post set me thinking about unified communications, mobility and social network attributes in a slightly different want as I look ahead to 2008. I really encourage you to go read Art’s full post, but in the meantime, I’ll share some thoughts.

UC Means All Business Communications
Now that the term “unified communications” (UC) has subsumed real-time telephony, wired and wireless connectivity, and all forms of messaging, it has become synonymous for all aspects of business communications. It has also become increasingly difficult to define everything that UC is really supposed to do for the enterprise. Microsoft and its Alliance partner Nortel wisely recognized this problem last year, and proceeded to establish hundreds of demonstration sites around the world in order to show business management what UC does for business operations and end users, rather than just explain how the technology infrastructure works.

This is a call to the burgeoniong unified communications community. Business communications and real-time telephony are what business cares about. I’ve written recently about VoIP being pumbing, or simply more infrastructure. Art’s saying something very similar. It’s not about technology. It’s about business. The industry has to wake up to that.

Simplifying The User Perspective of UC – Contacting People Quickly Any Way
…UC is all about making contact and communicating with people easily, flexibly, and quickly in a variety of ways.

What a great summary right there. Simplify. That sounds easy, but I realized how hard it is. Let me give you my perspective. Simplification is something that small, creative innovators do well. Simplification comes from companies like MOBIVOX, iotum, Cubic Telecom, GrandCentral, and the like really provide powerful tools that simplify life for users. When’s the last time you really say Cisco, Nortel or Avaya simplifying things for your communications needs? Really?

That’s part of the changing landscape that will impact unified communications and social networking in 2008. More powerful tools with simpler interactions are going to be a very hot item. They’re where the quickest successes will be found. That means the majority of innovative changes, the ones that catch our attention, will still be coming from small innovators next year. They’re the people to watch.

Here’s Art’s take on the traditional industry -

On the other hand, traditional telephony will be a big target for the most drastic changes in business contact procedures, since it has traditionally been based upon the inflexibilities of wired connections, restrictive user interfaces, and location-based devices. So, not only will business calls “integrate” with flexible messaging facilities, but, from a user perspective, all aspects of traditional call management will be changing as well. Much of what will happen to business call management will be derived from the experience of traditional customer call center technologies that can now be implemented more efficiently through IP telephony infrastructures and multimodal endpoint devices.

My view is more direct. Traditional telephony is a dead business that hasn’t keeled over yet. When I left Lucent Technologies in 1996, I told friends that I thought the old AT&T, Lucent and everything that spun out of that was a dead industry. But that like a large animal shot on safari, it would run for miles and miles before it finally fell over dead. It’s an industry that was repeatedly shot and has been running for a long time now, but still bleeding profusely. The traditional carriers are flagging and faltering. They haven’t innovated in years. That ability is gone from their genetic makeup. Sure, they may have divisions or business units that offer wireless and innovate a bit, but let’s face it, the traditional telcos aren’t she sharpest knives in the drawer. They only surprise with the stupid things they do.

When is the last time a traditional telephone company surprised customers with something really new and innovative? Think hard. Real hard. Was it direct dial long distance? or touch tone dialing? Look at your phone. Unless you have an iPhone, you’re using a very old and tired UI to do anything with it. That ten-digit touch pad was an interface to an old network. The new network of today really needs a more useful interface - one that’s simple and powerful.

Here are some areas where Art sees unified communications impacting business communications -

• “Contextual” Presence and Availability
• Proactive Notifications From Automated Business Process Applications
• Multimodal Messaging Communications
• “Instant” Conferencing

These are important because they’re all about the things we’ve been watching for a while now.

Presence and availability aren’t new concepts, but they’re becoming key attributes that successful business people have to manage. That’s a social media overlay into business service networking that’s on a collision course. It’s what I’d call a cataclysmic event on the horizon. And my prediction is that Microsoft will be a non-player, fumbling with how to get in the game and own that segment. They want it badly. I don’t believe they have a clue where to begin. They may indeed become a dominant player at some point but Microsoft is like the traditional telcos when it comes to innovation - it simply isn’t there.

Proactive notification is a vital part of the evolution to a Software Oriented Architecture (SOA) in some fashion. It’s all about making business processes and workflows interact easily with network communications services (voice, video and data). This is the convergence we’ve been talking about for ten years now. Tight coupling between business applications and network services will engender a change in corporate culture that will enable some companies to become the new enterprise we’ve never seen before. Some enterprise will become the nimble, innovative giants that have only been dreamed of. They’ll dominate their respective markets. They’ll also be incredibly vulnerable since they can be leapfrogged by a competitor at any point. That’s going to drive a time of mergers, acquisitions, and bloodletting across the industries involved.

Multimodal Messaging Communications speaks to me as mobility. What to we really want? Ubiquituous, easy access, anywhere, any time. We want always on, always connected, always ready to go services. This is a combination of mobile computing services and enhanced wireless networking. Technologies that couple with tools to give us powerful resources. I like to call it casual computing, but mobile computing will also do. It’s the always on mentality. That’s something my life partner Sheryl and I experience every day of our lives as a hyperconnected couple. I believe, Sheryl and I believe that the world is becoming more hyperconnected. We realize that our particular integration of mobile and network technologies into our daily lives isn’t the norm today. But we believe that’s changing for many people.

Instant Conferencing that Art mentions is a sore spot for many. Anyone who’s ever had to set up a conference call on the fly knows what a nightmare that can be. Even when we set one up in advance, the industry is fraught with a feature set that’s daunting and and uses an arcane set of keystrokes (mostly on that obsolete ten0digit dial pad) to operate. The conferencing segment of the industry really needs to be wiped out, and a fresh start. But there’s hope and light. iotum recently put up a free conference calling application on Facebook that gives a glimmer of hope to how conferencing might be set up in a business environment one day soon in an SOA world.

I think the key point, the real power in Art’s post, comes in the closing section - Managing The New I/O For Business Process Applications – People!. Then again, he’s a great writer who knows how to set us up. It also made me think of one of my favorite books of all time, Prometheus Wired: The Hope for Democracy in the Age of Network Technology by Darrin Barney. The core concept is that we, as humans, are now really an I/O tool of the network, the large I Internet that collects and gathers information about everything on our planet. In short, we feed the machine. And after all, isn’t the Internet really a large data collection engine gathering input from all of us for the biggest data warehouse ever imagined?

Technorati Tags: unified communications, mobility, casual computing, always on, hyperconnected couple

Filed by Ken at 10:42 am under Mobility & Handheld, Tech in General, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
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My friend and colleague Matt Lamber over at Conversationware posted this yesterday in response to my post A Brief Look at 2007 - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It’s a worthwhile read, and I ose Matt a note of thanks. Unknowingly, it was an email exchange we shared that led me down that line of thinking.

I thought it was worth revisiting this, especially after reading my friends at FierceVoip claiming VoIP crusader recants.  (And a small ego note, it’s Ken Camp, not Champ).

VOIP is just plumbing

More and more it has seemed to me that VOIP doesn’t matter. I don’t see this discussed on mainstream communications news sites, presumably it’s a question of who pays their bills through advertising.

First, I don’t think I’ve recanted much, but I will explain. Second, the plumbing analogy is certainly getting a bit long in the tooth, but this seems a good time to elaborate.

The post on FierceVoIP says

Don’t know if I would call all those edge controllers, QoS monitoring, security systems and media gateways mere plumbing, but I do agree that selling voice as a service rather than a technology is where the market is heading.

‘m not sure I’d either agree or disagree, but what I will say is that infrastructure, whether it’s SBCs and gateways or VoIP in general, isn’t what customers want. I think the FieceVoIP piece actually supports the point I’m making.

VoIP is not disruptive. It’s over ten years old. It isn’t innovative today. VoIP is a tried and true technology. It’s tested and proven. It’s been carrying massive volumes of voice calls for a long time now. It’s almost what I’d call a legacy technology at this point.

The failing of the unified communications industry segment has been that solution providers aren’t selling comprehensive integrated solutions yet. They’re still selling technology widgets. VoIP is a technology widget that is simply part of the established infrastructure. It’s not new. It’s not sexy. It’s not disruptive.

Customers don’t want to buy VoIP any more than they want to buy frame relay. Customers want solutions to business problems. Selling VoIP is still leaving it up to the customer to solve their own problem by peace-mealing together their own suite of solutions.

In 2008, I expect to see more VoIP companies that can’t move off of selling technolgy into designing and selling integrated business solutions fail in the market. That’s right, fail. And they should fail.

Plumbing parts are a commmodity. You can go to Home Depot and buy everything you need to pipe a house. Great for the do-it-yourselfer indeed. But most enterprise businesses, especially in the SMB space, aren’t looking to become DIY voice providers. They’re in a core business and they’re looking for solutions to their business problems.

So a word to the solution providers out there. Think long and hard about how you really integrate technologies to provide comprehensive solutions. Whether you call it Software Oriented Architecture (SOA) or Software as a Service (SaaS), the focus for the year ahead has to be on business solutions for business problems.

Integrating services, voice - video - data, with business applications like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management and Human Resources Management are going to be the really hot focal points in 2008. That’s where the real need is. And to succeed - to thrive - solution providers can’t offer widgets and plumbing and still win business.

Technorati Tags: VoIP as Plumbing, VoIP, unified communicatoins, SOA, SaaS, convergence, integration

Filed by Ken at 6:49 pm under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
4 Comments

My good friend Alec Saunders send a note about a promotion they’re running with their hot Facebook application right now. The application is already free, which makes it a great way to stay in touch with friends and family over the holiday. It’s really been proving popular among many of my friends and colleagues since it was introduced. Now, every person who participates in a call lasting longer than 5 minutes, between now and midnight November 26th, will be entered into a drawing for one of Apple’s new 8G iPod Touch devices.

Alec and team will be sending an email like the one below to users today, and due to some hosting issues, he’s asked for a hand in spreading the word. You can also find more details here.

Dear FREE Conference Calls user on Facebook,

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season, and I’m writing to tell you about a special Thanksgiving promotion we’re running for users of FREE Conference Calling. As you know, the FREE Conference Calls service is already free (except for the normal cost of your telephone call). However between now and midnight on November 26th, every call you make lasting longer than 5 minutes will earn you an entry into our drawing for a free iPod touch. We hope you’ll take advantage of this offer to stay in touch with your friends, family and loved ones at this special time of the year… and enter to win that 8G iPod Touch. Invite them to install FREE Conference Calls too, so they can have a chance to win as well.

In case you haven’t checked the application in a while, we’ve added a bunch of cool new features for moderating calls, plus a wall that you can use during, before, or after the call to post your thoughts. Shortly we’ll also have a recording feature and dial-in numbers for Europe starting with the UK.

One of the most amazing things to me, though, is the incredibly diverse ways that people are using FREE Conference Calls. For instance, we’ve seen everything from calls between Math students who want extra problem solving practice, to psychics, teleseminars, and lonely hearts just looking to chat. Oh, and of course, all kinds of people simply making meetings on the telephone call.

This is the first time we’ve tried a mass mailing like this to our users. Forgive me if it’s intrusive. If you’d like to send me mail, please feel free – my address is below. We’re interested in any and all feedback.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Alec Saunders
alec@iotum.com

Technorati Tags: iotum, unified communications, Alecx Saunders, Facebook, FREE Conference Call

Filed by Ken at 1:15 pm under VoIP/Unified Communications
6 Comments

I’ve had the pleasure of working on a webinar series sponsored by NetIQ for the past few months. It’s a four=part series. Two episodes are completed. The third will bre presented live at the end of this month. The earlier episodes were recorded and are available online here.

If you’re exploring VoIP services in your business environment, have already started a project that’s not yet completed, or are just interested in learning more about what it takes to successfully implement a VoIP solution, please come join us.

Ready.Set.VoIP! Series Part 3 of 4: Automating Monitoring for Service Delivery
Converged communication technologies, such as Voice over IP, are becoming more and more the standard for businesses today. But assessing, deploying and maintaining the performance and availability of VoIP can be daunting as the systems are increasingly complex and voice communications remain critical.

In the ongoing “Ready.Set.VoIP.” series, Ken Camp, noted author of IP Telephony Demystified, and Mark Slavens, NetIQ Corporate Sales Engineer for VoIP solutions, take you through management of the VoIP life cycle - from network assessment, pre-deployment and ongoing monitoring to reporting and future expansion plans.
n part three of the series, Ken and Mark will cover the importance of being proactive rather than reactive when operating Voice over IP on your network; this part will cover topics such as the

* Value of automated monitoring tools
* Complete knowledge of your environmen
* Ability to respond to changing network conditions
* Timely diagnosis and remediation of issues

Too often organizations deploy VoIP without fully knowing the impact of converging voice and data traffic on a shared network. Don’t be left with dissatisfied users and system downtime. Whether you have already deployed or are just considering an implementation, listen to find out how a VoIP network assessment can benefit your enterprise.

Technorati Tags: Ready.Set.VoIP!, Ken Camp, NetIQ, webinar

Filed by Ken at 10:20 am under VoIP/Unified Communications
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Two of my esteemed colleagues weighed in on Vonage and since I haven’t been quiet about my thoughts, I figured I’d weigh back in again as well.

Garrett Smith says We All Owe Vonage A Thanks

I have been thinking a lot lately about the torch that Vonage carried for the VoIP industry and how much of what they did that has landed them in so much financial trouble (marketing and advertising) has enabled many a company in the industry to thrive. To the mainstream public, Vonage is VoIP. I can’t tell you how many times I have told John Q. Public where I worked and had to mention Vonage just to give them a frame of reference.

Sure Vonage has not done much lately to drive innovation, and maybe their service is nothing more then voice 1.0 service delivered through over and Internet connection, but they paved the way. I am as guilty as anyone when comes to being critical of Vonage, but I am done bashing them. As the pioneer, the veteran, the old man, they deserve to be held in a better light.

Then David Beckmeyer countered with Thanks, but no thanks

Garrett Smith over at Smith on VoIP says We All Owe Vonage A Thanks. In many ways he is right and his post is worth a read. It’s something that needs to be said.

However, that said, I have another perspective (surprise, surprise). While much of what Garret says is true, the net result of Vonage on the industry and on consumers has been overwhelmingly negative.

Four Things I Hate About You
First, Vonage contaminated the VoIP investment pool back in 2003. Once Vonage succeeded in selling their bogus story of “disruption” and became the darling of VoIP, any models contrary to the Vonage approach (technically or business-wise) were summarily rejected. Many well known giants of industry hailed Vonage as a miraculous revolution. Investors were infatuated. The press followed. Nobody seemed to stop and look a little deeper to see what road we were really taking.

Second, Vonage ruined the retail environment for VoIP. They tainted the supply chain by entering into unsupportable (and downright silly) deals, essentially buying shelf space at far above market rates. VoIP got tagged as suckers and now the retail giants assumed they could make the same one-sided deals with every Tom, Dick, and Harry VoIP service provider. Of course, the products never sold very well at retail - but that’s not important to the retailers when the manufacturer is paying those kind of fees just for the box sitting on the shelf. Vonage overpaid for everything in the value chain, and must have been the butt of countless jokes among hardware manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.

Third, Vonage defined VoIP in a very anti-consumer and anti-Internet way. The vast amounts of money they have spent educating the market, the press, analysts etc. have caused incredible damage to the industry. Parrots like bloggers, analysts, and other “experts” added credibility to Vonage’s tales of erroneous information, because they in fact have no clue, especially technically. They were all fooled, even the well-respected ones, so don’t feel too bad if you were too.

Finally, once Vonage started to struggle and fell from grace, they ruined the investment environment for a second time. When their flawed ideas and business economics turned out to be, guess what, flawed, just as we knew they were - VoIP at large suffers. As goes Vonage, so goes VoIP.

I like and respect both these guys. Probably more than they know. They’re bright lights in an industry I’ve watched closely for ten years. Keen minds, with a clarity of thought that often eludes me.

I have to disagree with Garrett and weigh in on David’s side of the conversation. In truth, I’m more volatile and harsh than David. That’s often then case, even when he and I agree.

Vonage didn’t innovate. I don’t think they ever innovated really. In today’s parlance we talk about companies that are minute stealers, shaving a profit off of the cost of minutes. These companies leave a sour taste in my mouth for a number of reasons. Less because they are simply profiteers, scavenging revenue off a declining market (getting the last bit of skin, as it were) than because they seem to be shortsighted business people who aren’t building a business for the long haul. They have no vision and don’t build something to last. Rather they’re in it for the interim, with no large strategy for sustainability.

I think Vonage has had weak leadership for years. They’ve never innovated. They never did anything but capitalize on cheap minutes in their own right. Sure, they’ve had moments, but the truth is that David’s points 1-3 all say they same thing. Vonage poisoned the well. If Vonage were a cat, the peed in their own food dish. And they did it repeatedly over the course of their life.

I have nothing to thank Vonage for. I never believed they had a model for success. Never believed they were led by a vision. And now, I feel bad for everyone who bought into the whole idea. But the worst part is, as David points out, the entire industry has to suffer because of them.

Praise Vonage? Thank Vonage? Not I. I’ve said for a long time, it’s time to bury them and place a tombstone where that particular logo lives. They peed in their own food dish. Maybe what’s appropriate now is to burn them in effigy and pee on the ashes. It will leave a marker for others who bring no vision and simply chase profit without a real plan.

Technorati Tags: Vonage, Garrett Smith, David Beckemeyer

Filed by Ken at 3:47 pm under VoIP/Unified Communications
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What is INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO?

ITEXPO
is the event with an educational program that teaches enterprises,
SMBs, and Government Agencies how to select and deploy IP-based voice,
video, fax, and unified communications. It’s where service providers
learn how to profitably roll out services their subscribers are
clamoring for. The vibrant Exhibit Hall features solutions for
enterprises, SMBs, government and service providers. ITEXPO is where
buyers, sellers, resellers, and manufacturers meet to forge
relationships and close deals.

In another  day or so the geniuses and magicians of the unified
commIunications sector will all be gathering in Los Angeles for the
Internet Telephony Expo. There will be hundreds of things to see and do. I’ve been listing the hot things I’m hoping to see for quite a while now.

Recent posts
The CorporateRat at ITExpo - Unified Communications
Sipera VIPER Labs - Blogging, podcast ahead and ITExpo

As a reminder I’ll be hosting two panel discussion again this year. Here are the details on the sessions.

I’m plan to record both sessions for podcast later. And I expect to record snippets from other sessions as well.
I’ve got several
meetings and briefings scheduled and will be doing some planned and some impromptu podcast chats from the show.

Blog posting here may be different over the next few days. I don’t really plan on live blogging sessions. I may well do some photo posts on the fly as the opportunities arises. I’m hoping to do some video as well. Podcasting requires some production time and the publishing process is more detailed than for a written post.

Rest assured there will be lots of news coming from the ITExpo.

Technorati Tags: ITExpo, Internet Telephony Expo, panel discussion, Ken Camp, unified communications

Filed by Ken at 8:56 am under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
1 Comment

My pal Dameon turns the tightest phrase I’ve seen with this question -

Who Will Be Smart Enough To Hire Dan York?
Inter-Tel and Mitel just recently finished merging. As is the case with many mergers, some people are let go. Unfortunately, Dan York was recently thrown overboard from the good ship Mitel.

I’ve been “laid off” in corporate reorganizations several times in my life. It’s never a good time. Even when handled well, it just plains hurts. As an outsider looking in - watching Mitel - I can’t help but believe they’ve made a serious mistake. But for a company in that mode, mistakes are common too.

Dan’s speaking at the ITExpo in Los Angeles next week, and frankly, I’ll be quite surprised if people there aren’t in pretty aggressive courting mode trying to woo Dan’s talent. He’s one of the sharpest knives in the technology drawer. He’s got uncommon breadth and depth, coupled with superb writing skills and stage presence that aren’t always present in a technologist.

I’m really interested to see who’s lucky enough to win Dan over. That’s going to be a company to watch.

Technorati Tags: Dan York, VoIP, security, unified communications

Filed by Ken at 12:07 pm under InfoSec, Information Security, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
No Comments

It must be a really slow day at The Register. Making news about two non-newsworthy companies jockeying for the most ignominious flameout failure in telecom history is funny, but not exciting.

Vonage attacked by defunct rival

A flare-up from SunRocket

It’s a bit like fending off a house fly while you’re locked in mortal combat with Godzilla.

As it continues to battle a multi-million dollar federal lawsuit from telecom behemoth Verizon, VoIP pioneer Vonage is now facing a suit from the remains of SunRocket, the Virginia company that recently shut down its internet-based telephone service.
[Read the the story on The Register]

Technorati Tags: Vonage, SunRocket, failure

Filed by Ken at 9:41 pm under VoIP/Unified Communications
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Ok, there isn’t a lot of precedent here. I can think of one major telecommunications interruption in my liftetime - The Hinsdale fire on Mother’s Day in 1998. A fire caused a catastrophic outage in an Illinois Bell central office that took the phone service out in a large degree. Obviously local service was disrupted, but the building was a vital hub for long distance services as well.

More recently, there was a huge power outage in the mideast that took a lot of things out of service, but notably not the telecom systems or the Internet. They both routed calls around the problem area without much of a hitch.

I’m not alone in my observations over the past year that Skype has been turning into a telco. So what happens when a telco goes dark?

Here’s the news as of this moment on Skype -

UPDATED 16 August, 2007 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging in to Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience. Latest updates

So if your telco or wireless carrier say Verizon, Qwest, T-Mobile. AT&T, went dark for no explanation other than the preceding, what would you do?

Sadly the hardest hit are most likely the third party businesses that leverage Skype as a key part of their business. But it begs a telling question for people who like the calls for free aspect of Skype. How do you feel now that you’re getting your money’s worth?

I for one, am pretty unimpressed by the quality of information. I’ll be blunt. “it’s a software issue” can’t mean too many things. It can me we failed to patch for a vulnerability and a malicious exploit bit us. It can mean that proper quality controls weren’t in place and something was deployed prematurely, without adequate testing. It can mean reliance on an operating system that failed in some way.

No matter how you slice it, “a software issue” clearly means someone, somewhere failed to provide due dilegence. There is no way around that.

It does give pause to think about service sustainability and survivability.

Technorati Tags: Skype, service outage

Filed by Ken at 1:45 pm under VoIP/Unified Communications
2 Comments

Owen Linderholm is one of the most widely respected folks in the tech sector. I’ve only met Owen once, at the O’Reilly ETel conference last March. We’ve not traded a lot of email or ever spoken about anything of substance. But his work at tippit reaches far and wide. If you’ve ever read VoIP-News, DailyWireless, Dailyiptv, ITSecurity or ITManagement, you’ve seen representative work.

Recently Owen gave me the great honor of asking me to join in a webinar presentation as part of the ITManagement efforts. I couldn’t be more pleased. I hope you will all check the headline link below and come join us on August 23rd at 1PM Pacific time.

Webinar - Network Tsunami: The Coming Wave of Video, Audio and Rich Media that will Wash Away your Corporate Network in 2008

The latest generation of highly interactive applications and rich consumer content is already causing problems for corporate networks. Video blogs (vlogs), hosted business applications, YouTube, ever-larger presentations attached to emails and videoconferencing are starting to clog up corporate IP networks designed for simple data exchange. This will only get worse as rich media become part of more business communications.

Join ITManagement.com and Nortel Networks on August 23, 2007 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET as networking technology experts Ken Camp and Dan DeBacker share their knowledge of rich media and their effects on corporate networks, including strategies for avoiding catastrophe. They will address major – but manageable – risks that enterprises will encounter with the newest generation of media-enhanced applications. Sign up today for this exclusive webinar.

Technorati Tags: unified communications, video, Ken Camp, webinar, Owen Linderholm, ITManagement.com

Filed by Ken at 2:42 pm under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
No Comments

I recently killed off a tag meme that hit me because I just don’t really care for those tagging games. Instead, I want to point you to two blogs I discovered as a result of an earlier tag meme. Both are ones I added to my regular reading and now watch closely. And what follows is from the “about” pages from the two blogs.

Conversationware
Unifying Communication
My name is Matt Lambert, I’ve been spouting on about unified communications software for about 12 years.

I’m interested in the convergence of communications applications for business and their users.

With a background in unified messaging, I hope that I have at least some perspective on the unifying of communication modes, and it would be good to contribute to any discussions I can find. There are so many new developments lately, by some very clever companies, so material shouldn’t be far away.

I work for a U.C company based in Winchester U.K, but this is very much a personal project, which means I should be able to say what I like.

Having said that, in full disclosure I market best of breed solutions including AVST CallXpress, Captaris Rightfax, Avanquest TMS, Alcatel My Teamwork and so may be somewhat biased, in spite of best efforts.

I’ve been reading Matt’s writing for quite a while now. He brings a real voice of reason to the Net and presents soem very well-balanced, and well-founded observations.

Gokul Blog — A conversation on VoIP, IMS, Cisco and Just about Anything
Gokul is a VoIP/IMS professional and has been in this field for the last seven years.  He has worked in couple of startups EdgeAccess Inc in Florida,USA and Nexge Technologies,IIT Chennai, India. In between these assignments, he was working with HCL-Cisco for couple of years. He hopes to run his own company someday. Gokul has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering majoring in Telecommunication from University of South Florida,Tampa.

He is currently working in Chennai(India) as a Technical Specialist.

Gokul writes in other places, but this is, for me, a new place to pick up some great insights.

Just a couple of pointers to places I find interesting that I think you might like too.

Technorati Tags: VoIP, unified communications

Filed by Ken at 5:48 pm under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
2 Comments

I can’t begin to write this story, so I’m going to quote my friend Russell Shaw instead.

Did you ever REALLY think Vonage stock would go below $2 a share?
Well, it has happened.

Happened today.

Remember in a universe long ago and far away (nearly 18 months ago) when Vonage stock kicked off their IPO at $17.50 and public sale at $17.00 a share?

Since then, the backsliding has persisted. Investors have ignored all of those whistling-past-the-graveyard Vonage announcements about increasingly higher percentages of E911 coverage, new features, more heavily discounted pricing, etc.

Then, Vonage’s pickup of more than 10,000 orphaned SunRocket subscribers didn’t seem to matter to investors either.

Today, reality struck. The stock finished at less than $2 a share.
[Read Russell's full post]

I’ve made my opinion of Vonage reasonably clear from the beginning. They were never a value proposition that made sense. They weren’t innovative VoIP. They were alternate dial tone at best. They didn’t lead in anything except spending money to buy customers.

They had potential, but never tapped it.

They have however….won race to the bottom.

Technorati Tags: Vonage, VoIP, race to the bottom

Filed by Ken at 8:28 pm under VoIP/Unified Communications
3 Comments

That’s right. it’s only five weeks until the ITExpo at the Los Angeles Convention Center. As always, it’s packed with some great sessions. Here are some of my picks for those of you attending.

• Fixed Mobile Convergence/Dual Mode (tp)
• Service Provider Perspective On FMC
• Trends in Dual Mode
• Decisions Decisions… Hosted Versus Premise based VoIP Deployment
• A Closer Look at Hosted VoIP
• Unified Communications in a Hosted Model
• Prepare Your Network for Enterprise VoIP
• Make Your Transition to VoIP a Success!
• Video Makes Its Way Into the Enterprise
• Enterprise Network Management
• Securing Enterprise VoIP
• The Dawning of Telepresence
• Introduction to Security - I’m moderating this one with Kevin Mitchell from Acme Packet, Ken Kuenzel from Covergence and Charles Studt from VoEX
• Extending Security to the U.C. User Community - I’m moderating this one with Jeff Stern from Koolspan, Mark Girardi from Lucent Technologuesand Jeff Carr from Borderware

Those are just some high point sessions that caught my eye. The LA Convention Center will be packed with vendors and solution providers, press and bloggers, and people from around the world.

The ITExpo is one of those events I really look forward to every year and this one looks to be bigger and better than ever. If you’re in the LA area, don’t miss it. And if it’s in your travel plans, don’t forget to make your reservations.

If you’ll be there, please let me know. As always, I’ll be looking to meet as many people as possible face-to-face.

Technorati Tags: Internet Telephony Expo, ITExpo, Ken Camp, unified communications, VoIP, video, call centers

Filed by Ken at 3:18 pm under Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications
1 Comment

Friend and colleague, Om Malik, writes an extraordinarily upbeat piece about a new service this morning.

Ooma wants voice to be free
Voice over the Internet, so far, has been a game of cheap minutes,
shoddy quality, and unreliable connections. It’s also been a
money-losing proposition. The promise of voice being free has remained
just that - a promise. Palo Alto-based startup Ooma promises to resolve
those frustrations in September 2007 while offering free voice calls
for life.
[Read Om's full post]