Next Stop - Channel Partners Conference, Las Vegas

Got a quick trip this week - going to Las Vegas later today for the Channel Partners Conference. Am doing things a bit differently this time around, as I'll be guest blogging about the event for GetVoIP.com. I've contributed to their blog before, but this time I'll be providing updates there on the conference from an analyst's perspective. If you're at the conference, drop me a line, and if not, I hope you follow my posts.

Next Stop - Dallas and Vertical Communications

Just two days of travel this month and I'm not complaining. Tomorrow I'm going to Dallas for another vendor analyst event. This one is for Vertical Communications, a company I've followed for some time, and they haven't had an analyst event for a couple of years. They've made big strides with cloud-based UC and contact center platforms, and I like how they've developed a focus on vertical markets - as their namesake implies - namely in automotive, healthcare and retail.

Am not sure how much of the conference will be under NDA, but I'll blog and tweet as time allows. To follow more directly, their twitter feed is @verticalcomminc.

Starting next month, my travel schedule picks up quite a bit, and if you want to know more, I update that here on my website. Also, I'm doing a major refresh of my site and my blog, so all of this will look very different soon - details in due time.

Unify Analyst Conference - UCStrategies Podcast Review

Following their recent conference, Unify has been the topic du jour lately on UCStrategies, and that has culminated with our latest podcast. Several of us shared our thoughts on the current state of Unify, which is now in the larger hands of Atos.

Lots of implications business-wise, but also for where things are going for Unify in the UC and collaboration spaces. I'm parsing these out because they are respectively served by OpenScape and Circtuit. If you follow me, you'll know that I view these as different spaces, but they are often talked about in the same breath and that's not always a good idea.

That's a taste of what we covered on the podast, where views were shared from UC Experts who did and did not attend the conference. The podcast is posted now on the site, and my comments start at the 14:51 mark. If you want to follow further, you can start with my recent UCStrategies post about Circuit, and from there, links to posts from other UC Experts.

ITExpo Shout-out and Moderated Sessions

ITExpo is a week away, and for those attending, I want to make sure my sessions are on your radar.

"Are You Communicating or Collaborating?"  This is on the UC track, and runs Wednesday at 2:30

"Making Video Easy - How Hard Can it Be?" This is on the Business Transformation track, and runs Thursday at 10am

For more detail, including the abstracts and speakers who will be joining me, scroll through the Conference Program to the right date/time. For some reason their site doesn't have standalone links for each session, but it won't take long to find these.

Am off tomorrow to the Unify analyst event and from there, ITExpo in Fort Lauderdale. If you're at either event, I won't be hard to find, so feel free to drop me a line.

My TMC Interview - State of UC&C

Before you know it, we'll be covered in snow and I'll be thinking a lot more about the ITExpo, coming later next month in Fort Lauderdale. I'm ready for Florida now, but still got work to do before signing off for a bit.

I posted recently as a preview of what I'll be up to at the Expo, and more will be coming as the date gets closer. Another way to promote the event is with editorial coverage from TMCnet, and they recently did a Q&A with me about the UC&C space.

For some reason I missed this when it came out, so am just sharing it with my followers now. The interview is running here on their Shaping Influence portal, and while you're there, that's lots of other great content to read. If my views pique your interest, comments are welcome, as is any form of sharing - thanks!

5 Trends Driving UC in 2016 - New Article

Well, it's that time of the year, huh? I get my share of requests for what to expect in 2016 from the media, and I'll share those as they get published.

This post is along those lines - "5 Trends Driving UC in 2016" - but is rooted in a presentation I gave back in October rather than what a journalist asked me yesterday about the year ahead. My presentation was for the Telecom 2015 conference here in Toronto, and if you follow my blog, you'll already know that.

As a companion piece, the show producer asked me to write an article based on the presentation for publication in the next Info Telecom magazine. This is the quarterly publication of the CTC - Community of Telecommunications Consultants - of which I am a member.

The print edition is out, and so is the digital version, which all members get. However, the publisher is happy to share this and help build awareness of the CTC. I'm happy to do that, and of course, to share my article with my readers.

You can access the article here, but only after registering, which anyone can do. Instead, if you want to get a PDF of the full December 2015 magazine directly, please drop me a line.

Cisco and the New Era of Collaboration

That was a big theme at last week's Cisco Collaboration Summit, and I've put my thoughts together around that in my current post for UCStrategies. The lines are blurring between UC and collaboration, and while Cisco only talks about the latter these days, there's a lot of UC in what the latest iteration of Spark can do. If they end up owning the market, those terms will go away and Spark will simply become a verb that encompasses all these applications. I'll bet they'd love for that to happen, but that's another conversation.

For now, I'll steer you to my post on the UCStrategies portal. I'm only touching on three big takeaways here, but there's a lot more we could be talking about from the summit. Perhaps another time, perhaps another place, perhaps on a Spark session!

Telecom 2015 Video Interviews - Here's Mine

I really enjoyed the Telecom 2015 conference here in Toronto back in October. On Day 2, I presented on UC trends for 2016, and am hoping to hear soon about how the video of that turned out.

Otherwise, earlier during the conference, I was interviewed by Chris Henry about my practice as an analyst as well as what I'm seeing in the Canadian market. This was part of a series of inteviews done on video by the FOX Group, and they've all been posted now to their FOX Group TV channel on YouTube.

Here's the clip Chris did while interviewing me, and will update my blog once there's news on the video of my presentation. Otherwise, to check out more about the conference, I posted about it here, and wrote a recap article for UCStrategies.

Next Stop - San Francisco and Cisco's Collab Summit

I don't travel extensively, but am in the midst of traveling three weeks out of four, but after that I'm staying local til mid-January.

Next week, I'll be at the Cisco Collaboration Summit in San Francisco - what's not to like? This has been a regular event with me for a while, and it's definitely going to be interesting. If you follow my writing, you'll know I distinguish between UC and collaboration, and next week we'll be hearing a lot about Spark.

It's too early to tell where this fits in their overall UC&C roadmap, as well as what kind of revenue contributionk Spark can bring Cisco. Given the recent Atos/Unify deal, Cisco is no doubt paying close attention to the need to properly support these new collaboration platforms, as well as get a sense how this will impact their more established UC business.

If you're wondering about the same things, check my blog next week, and for more timely updates, please follow me on twitter - @arnoldjon.

November Writing Roundup

No two months are ever the same for me, but November was another busy one with a continued variety of articles, thought leadership and speaking at conferences. Here are the highlights, and any sharing is greatly appreciated!

Where do IoT and Collaboration Technologies Intersect?, TechTarget, Nov. 25

UC Summit - Three Takeaways - Searching for the Center - UCStrategies, Nov. 25

UC as a Service Emerging as a Viable Deployment Model, TechTarget, Nov. 24

Why Collaboration is Harder with UC, Toolbox.com, Nov. 24

How to Collaborate Without a Phone System, Toolbox.com, Nov. 18

ITExpo - Never too Early for Florida, my blog, Nov. 13

UCaaS Vendor Landscape - Microsoft and Google, Toolbox.com, Nov. 12

UCaaS - Three Reasons to Think Twice, Toolbox.com, Nov. 9

Choosing a VoIP Vendor - New Buyer's Guide - TechTarget, Nov. 6

My Next Webinar - So, You Think You Can Collaborate? - Toolbox.com, Nov. 5

UCaaS - Three Reasons to Adopt - Toolbox.com, Nov. 2

UC Summit - Three Takeaways - Searching for the Center

I was part of last week's UC Summit, and what really stood out for me was how fragmented this space is becoming. There seem to be several centers of gravity now, and tracking them all is, well, what we try to do at UCStrategies.

For those of you who weren't there, I've written up my thoughts, which are summed up into three basic themes. They all bring me to same conclusion that there may not a true center any more for UC, so you have to stay on top of a few trends to get the big picture.

Am not sure where this is taking us, but there are a lot of companies now vying for your business. However you define the pool of vendors to consider, it's only going to get bigger, and I hope my post helps make that clear. It's running now on the UCStrategies portal, and as always your comments are welcome.

UC Summit - First Take

Wanted to get a quick post out and share some photos from the first full day of the UC Summit. The conference actually started on Sunday, and I spoke on the first session. I also moderated a session yesterday, and so far, the content has been consistently first rate. There's a healthy mix here of consultants, end customers and sponsors, and it's great to have access to all this in a vendor-neutral setting.

Aside from the familiar players - and most all the majors are here - it's great to have so many new ones that you wouldn't normally associate with the UC space, such as Google, Tata, Vonage and newcomer Redbooth.

The UC&C space is undergoing major disruption - and understanding that is the big takeaway overall from this event. To reflect that, we've adapted too, with the new name and logo being launched. Going forward, the UC Summit will now be known as the BC Summit - Business Communications.

I'll have more to say about this in my wrapup post, which will follow once I'm back from the summit. Until then, here are some photos from yesterday.

Jim Burton welcoming the audience, with the new BC Summit logo behind him

Vendor roundtable - well, looks more like a new offensive line formation - great session, but too short for so many people

Dave Michels talking about how disuptive the new messaging-based collaboration platforms are - totally agree

Blair Pleasant and Kevin Kieller talking about usage and adoption challenges for UC

Clark Peterson of Vonage Business explaining why they're in this business and how well they understand the changing needs of end users, especially Millennials

ITExpo Preview - Never too Early for Florida

It's getting chilly in Toronto, and am already thinking about the warm Florida sun. TMC's next ITExpo isn't until late January, but the conference agenda was announced earlier this week, so it's time to start talking about it.

The conference continues to evolve, and I've had a small hand in adding new topics to keep the agenda fresh. To that end I'll be moderating two sessions, and if others materialize, I'll post those later.

"Are You Communicating or Collaborating?"  This is on the UC track, and runs Wednesday at 2:30

"Making Video Easy - How Hard Can it Be?" This is on the Business Transformation track, and runs Thursday at 10am.

For some reason, the agenda page on the website doesn't provide specific links for each session, so to learn more, you have to go to the main agenda page and scroll down to the right time - or filter search by track or day.

Lots more updates to come, and it's not too early to be making plans for Fort Lauderdale!

UC Summit 2015 - November 15-18

Just a quick shout-out for my next conference - the UC Summit, held as usual in La Jolla, CA.

As a UC Expert, I'm part of the UCStrategies team that is presenting great content on all things UC&C, and we'll have a solid mix of customers, vendors, consultants/analysts and channels. This year, I'll be speaking on two sessions, and am working on those presentations now:

Sunday at 2pm - Contact Center Update

Monday at 5pm - The Changing Role of IT and Shift in Technology Decision-Making

For more detail, here's the summit agenda, along with full details about the conference. We also issued a news brief recently outlining how this year's summit will be structured.

Also, if you missed last week's podcast, we did a preview of the summit. I was away and couldn't participate, but there's plenty here to get you excited about what's coming.

Telecom 2015 Conference - Quick Take

During the last two days, the Telecom 2015 conference ran here in Toronto, and I spoke yesterday about UC trends to watch for in 2016. The event is in its third year, and while small, we had a pretty engaged group with a good mix of vendors, consultants and end users.

I summarized my takeaways in a post that is running now on the UCStrategies portal. Since my focus for the event was on UC, I figured this was the best place to run it, and I hope you give it a read. Otherwise, here are a few photos from the event.

Future of Work panel discussion, moderated by the FOX Group's Susan Dineen

Demo at the Panasonic booth, done for me and my running mate, Ronald Gruia. Pretty nice touch screen IP PBX handset here. They also had a nice demo of their cordless phone systems, so innovation isn't totally dead in the desk phone space, folks.

Event organizer, Michel Bruyere doing the prize drawings at the end of Day 1. Small world - the winner here was John Sneyd from Panasonic - he gave us the demo just cited above. Maybe we brought him good luck!

SCTC Conference Coda - Our SIPTones Gig

I'm keeping my day job as an analyst, but the more I get to play with the SIPTones, the better we sound. Music is hard work, but great fun, and whether playing piano or guitar, it's always enjoyable.

Am finally catching up from back-to-back road trips, and two weeks ago, I attended my first SCTC conference in Atlanta. On the last night, the SIPTones played a set, and our devoted bandleader, Rick Hatahway always tapes the performances. He puts together a highlight reel, and this time around, he got it done quickly, and it's posted now on YouTube.

If you're not inner circle with the band - don't worry, I don't think that's a thing just yet - you may never find it, so I'm doing the hard work for you. Without further ado, here's 14 minutes of what do when we're not talking about UC, collaboration, SIP trunking, cloud, etc.

SCTC Conference Recap

Been on the road the past two weeks, so blogging has gone quiet, but now there's lots to catch up on. For now, I'll just quickly comment on the SCTC 2015 Conference, which I attended the week before in Atlanta.

This was my first SCTC event, and having just been folded in via the CTCA amalgamation, many in this crowd were new to me. Most of my time during the sessions was during vendor day where we heard their perspectives on what's happening in the marketplace and how they address today's IT challenges. There was a good mix of UC&C and contact center applications, so most of the messaging was pretty familiar. Didn't hear all that much about evolving business models, but maybe that came out during other sessions.

It's a pretty small group - maybe about 60 attending, and it really should have been more. Nothing new here - specialized industry groups like this are widely dispersed and it's hard to get everyone out to conferences. Regardless, lots of great expertise on hand, and it was a great way to network and learn about how consultants are going to market.

Not much else to say, I'm afraid, as I wasn't there for the whole conference, especially since I was part of the SIPTones, and we needed a full day to rehearse for the closing dinner event on Thursday night. Definitely hard work, but always worth it, and when people are dancing, you know it's going right. In time, the video highlights will get posted, and I'll share that with you here.

Group photo session - they sure picked a challenging space to squeeze everyone in, but the photographer managed to make it work!

 Sound check before the music - the Excellerators first, then us, and one more set from them

 Three of us in Johnny Cash black - myself, Steve Leaden and Rick Hathaway

Next Stop - SCTC Conference, Atlanta

Got some business travel coming up, starting with this week's SCTC conference in Atlanta.

This is not the crowd I normally run with, but I come to it via the CTCA. I became a member there last year, and they have recently folded their lot in with the SCTC. I'm the only analyst in this group, and while that makes things a bit lonely, I have regular involvement now with the consultant community. It's a fair trade as they get to hear my industry-based perspectives, and their feet-on-the-ground dealings with customers complements my ongoing research.

I'll be flying to Atlanta tomorrow, and am staying through til end of the conference. For me, the end is actually the best part, as I'll be playing again with the SIPtones at the finale dinner on Thursday night.

If you want to connect in Atlanta, my member profile is on the SCTC site, or you can just ping me directly. I'll be tweeting as time allows, and you're welcome to do the same - #SCTCATL.

CTCA Golf Tourney - Last Hurrah

On Wednesday, I came to the dinner following a full day of golf with the CTCA. They do this annually, and while this marks their 30th anniversary, it will be their last. Back in June, I attended their annual conference, at which time a vote was taken - and passed - to fold CTCA into the SCTC.

I'm an outlier in this world of communications consultants, and am the only analyst among the CTCA ranks, but I get a lot out of it, and I know they want to see more of my kind in their ranks. As the transition to SCTC unfolds, I think more of this will happen, as I know SCTC wants to broaden its reach.

J.R. Simmons is the common thread for me in all this, as he's an SCTC Executive, a fellow UCStrategies Expert, and he came up here to speak at the dinner about why the SCTC will be good for CTCA members.

For independents like me with U.S.-based clientele, I'm looking forward to the change, and you can expect to see/hear/read things from my end under the SCTC banner in due time. I just booked my travel for their conference next month in Atlanta, and that will be a first for me. If you're attending, I hope to see you there, and if you're free on the last night of the conference - October 8 - I'll be playing again with the SIPtones. What could be better?

J.R. Simmons during dinner

Making Music - Again - with the SIPtones in Indy - Video Highlights

Another hat I wear is music-making, which I would do all day long if I could spare the time, but that's a longer conversation. I got to play again with the SIPtones - again, at the 2015 Interactions conference put on by Interactive Intelligence back in June.

This time around, we got to play two full sets, and I played keyboards on about half the songs. As always, it was great fun, and band leader Rick Hathaway did his usual video compilation, and he's just posted that to YouTube.

Lots of music that night, so it's a 16 minute clip, and I'm sure you'll recognize most of the songs. The audio isn't great, but maybe next year we'll get a video sponsor and a get a full camera crew - any takers?

If you like the music, we also played at last year's ININ conference, and here's the link that includes the video highlights from that set.