Well, that's what Skype's Jonathan Christensen thinks. My latest Service Provider Views article ran yesterday on TMCnet, and the focus was on his keynote at the ITExpo earlier this month. I thought it was the most interesting presentation given, and is very much in line with what my Service Provider Views column is about.
Of course, it's a provocative question, so you'll just have to read the article yourself to find the answer. And whether you agree or not, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Technorati tags: Service Provider Views, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, TMCnet, Skype, VoIP, Jonathan Christensen
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Judging for the Channel Elite Awards
IT Business is one of the major tech trade publishers here in Canada, and they run a large stable of vertical titles. One of the publications, Computer Dealer News has an annual industry program called the Channel Elite Awards.
These awards are focused on IT solution providers, and they have 9 distinct categories covering the gamut, including managed services, collaboration, enteprise, SMB, etc. The Editorial team has asked me to be one of the judges, which involves reviewing submissions from dozens of IT services companies.
I'm in the midst of that process now, and it sure is interesting to learn about so many successful IT deployments. Am not sure if it's because so many companies use really outdated systems, or if they just haven't caught up yet to the latest technologies, but it's clear that a lot of IT companies are making a positive difference.
If you're thinking of submitting an entry, it's too late, but there's always next year. You can learn more about the program at the CEA website, and come back towards the end of October to see who the winners were. I don't know when the winners will be announced, but I'll meet them in person at the Awards Gala on October 28.
Technorati tags: ITBusiness.ca, Jon Arnold, Channel Elite Awards
These awards are focused on IT solution providers, and they have 9 distinct categories covering the gamut, including managed services, collaboration, enteprise, SMB, etc. The Editorial team has asked me to be one of the judges, which involves reviewing submissions from dozens of IT services companies.
I'm in the midst of that process now, and it sure is interesting to learn about so many successful IT deployments. Am not sure if it's because so many companies use really outdated systems, or if they just haven't caught up yet to the latest technologies, but it's clear that a lot of IT companies are making a positive difference.
If you're thinking of submitting an entry, it's too late, but there's always next year. You can learn more about the program at the CEA website, and come back towards the end of October to see who the winners were. I don't know when the winners will be announced, but I'll meet them in person at the Awards Gala on October 28.
Technorati tags: ITBusiness.ca, Jon Arnold, Channel Elite Awards
Jazinga Launches
Somehow, in the midst of everything else that kept me busy last week, I neglected to post about Jazinga's launch. Being Toronto-based, I'm always keen to support a local startup, especially one that shows this much promise. I've been beta testing their service for a while, and will be posting a review fairly soon. I've been waiting for the latest upgrades, which came just before my last conference. I hope to get this done before the week is out.
Back to the news. For those who don't know Jazinga, they have a premises-based IP telephony solution that's great for SMBs and SOHOs like myself. We all know about IP PBXs and open source-style solutions. Jazinga is a very practical, affordable alternative that's built around ease-of-use and a rich feature set. While most solutions are totally hosted or web-based, this has all the intelligence in the box, which doubles as a WiFi router/ATA.
I'll let the links tell the rest of the story, but if you want to hear more about it, I'll steer you to a podcast I did recently with their CTO, Shidan Gouran when I guest-hosted on Squawk Box.
So, a belated congrats to Jazinga on the launch, and here is some of the better coverage that I recommend you read - Telco 2.0,Garrett Smith, Andy Abramson, and PhonePlus Magazine.
Technorati tags: Jazinga, Jon Arnold, SMB VoIP
Back to the news. For those who don't know Jazinga, they have a premises-based IP telephony solution that's great for SMBs and SOHOs like myself. We all know about IP PBXs and open source-style solutions. Jazinga is a very practical, affordable alternative that's built around ease-of-use and a rich feature set. While most solutions are totally hosted or web-based, this has all the intelligence in the box, which doubles as a WiFi router/ATA.
I'll let the links tell the rest of the story, but if you want to hear more about it, I'll steer you to a podcast I did recently with their CTO, Shidan Gouran when I guest-hosted on Squawk Box.
So, a belated congrats to Jazinga on the launch, and here is some of the better coverage that I recommend you read - Telco 2.0,Garrett Smith, Andy Abramson, and PhonePlus Magazine.
Technorati tags: Jazinga, Jon Arnold, SMB VoIP
Friday, September 26, 2008
Toronto Tech Week - Highlights
Toronto Tech Week has been running all week, but yesterday was my only chance to attend. From what I saw, the content was quite good, and there's certainly no shortage of people here in Toronto who know what's going on with Web 2.0 and digital media trends.
Nothing much here on communications technologies, but that's to be expected. The closest was the session I moderated - mobile marketing. We had a pretty full room, and an engaged audience, which is my litmus test for a good session. The panelists did a great job touching on a lot of issues and I think everyone went away happy.
Overall, most of the sessions were oriented around Web 2.0 and social networking, with a lot of focus on what this means for marketers and advertisers. Pretty fascinating stuff, and while a bit removed from my everyday focus, it definitely has implications for my work.
Hats off to Dave Forde and his team for putting this together, and it sounds like TTW will become a regular event now, which is great news. I'm looking forward to coming back next time around.
Internet 2010 session...
Mobile gaming session - Dave Forde, far right...
Technorati tags: J Arnold & Associates, Jon Arnold, Toronto Tech Week, Dave Forde
Nothing much here on communications technologies, but that's to be expected. The closest was the session I moderated - mobile marketing. We had a pretty full room, and an engaged audience, which is my litmus test for a good session. The panelists did a great job touching on a lot of issues and I think everyone went away happy.
Overall, most of the sessions were oriented around Web 2.0 and social networking, with a lot of focus on what this means for marketers and advertisers. Pretty fascinating stuff, and while a bit removed from my everyday focus, it definitely has implications for my work.
Hats off to Dave Forde and his team for putting this together, and it sounds like TTW will become a regular event now, which is great news. I'm looking forward to coming back next time around.
Internet 2010 session...
Mobile gaming session - Dave Forde, far right...
Technorati tags: J Arnold & Associates, Jon Arnold, Toronto Tech Week, Dave Forde
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Cisco Goes Big on Collaboration
Yesterday, I attended an advance briefing at Cisco Canada's offices about their news today announcing their collaboration portfolio. I was one of four analysts/media people getting the full presentation yesterday - delivered, of course, via Telepresence by Laurent Philonenko in San Francisco. It's always fun to do things this way, and it sure is easy to get spoiled with TP. The rest of the world sure doesn't live this way, but that's another topic.
The press embargo ended this morning, but I haven't been able to blog til now. If you read the news, you've probably seen the press release by now, so I'm not going to rehash the details.
Basically, Cisco has pulled a lot of existing pieces together under what's now called the Cisco Collaboration Portfolio. There's really nothing new here, per se, but it certainly keeps Cisco up to the minute in terms of what's happening in the workplace. Actually, there are two new things, but are just an adjunct to this announcement. Last week, Cisco announced their acquisition of PostPath, and then Jabber. These are relatively small deals, but they add some strong capabilities to support this overall focus on collaboration. I have no doubt there is a method to all this, and Cisco wants to be sure it can deliver the whole package here.
Anyhow, during our briefing, we heard about the big themes that are driving collaboration. Nothing new there, but the main point from their perspective is that the network enables all of these tools. So, by extension, Cisco is right there, behind the curtains making all this possible. Fair enough.
Getting beyond this, what I liked hearing was how Cisco is bringing two distinct worlds together now - the network and the cloud. By doing so, Cisco can enable collaboration universally, whether you're tethered to the network at the office, or working remotely, and connecting over the Web and using Web-based applications. This is certainly not the Cisco of a few years ago, and I guess this is their way of saying that meaningful work takes place off prem, and they can now support collaboration in any environment.
They have defined their Collaboration Portfolio along three lines of business - Unified Communications, Video and Web 2.0. Each of these consists of many solutions, such as IP telephony, conferencing and Telepresence. These pieces will be familiar to any Cisco follower, but I do like this taxonomy. Each plays a distinctive role in the collaboration process, and by tying them together under a single portfolio, the intended result is a richer, more complete collaboration experience. It's a big-time promise, and time will tell if it delivers.
While all this makes perfectly good sense to those of us attending, I had to ask Laurent if the market will see things this way. During the presentation, the strategic messaging was "collaboration is the platform for business", and "the network is the platform for collaboration". Hmm. My most recent recollection of the Cisco mantra was that "the network is the platform".
Laurent concurred that the latter is still very much true, but it has now been extended to collaboration. I can see the logic, but I'm concerned that Cisco is now trying to position itself as more of a collaboration play than a network play. Nobody can challenge them for network supremacy, but collaboration is much more of a Web 2.0 story, and it's not clear to me if the market is ready to see them this way.
While Telepresence was largely built from the ground-up internally, most of their 2.0 capabilities have come from acquisitions, both large (WebEx) and small (Jabber, PostPath, etc.). I think it's much harder earning your stripes following the latter path, but with Unified Communications still trying to break out of the gates, I don't think anybody has a monopoly yet making the whole collaboration thing work. So, it's hard to see how Cisco could go about this any other way, and this portfolio is probably as comprehensive as anything out there right now.
Regardless, they've made a statement today that collaboration is the new black, and they're telling the world they can have it in any color, so long as it's black - Cisco black. Let's see what the market thinks.
Technorati tags: Cisco, collaboration, Jon Arnold
The press embargo ended this morning, but I haven't been able to blog til now. If you read the news, you've probably seen the press release by now, so I'm not going to rehash the details.
Basically, Cisco has pulled a lot of existing pieces together under what's now called the Cisco Collaboration Portfolio. There's really nothing new here, per se, but it certainly keeps Cisco up to the minute in terms of what's happening in the workplace. Actually, there are two new things, but are just an adjunct to this announcement. Last week, Cisco announced their acquisition of PostPath, and then Jabber. These are relatively small deals, but they add some strong capabilities to support this overall focus on collaboration. I have no doubt there is a method to all this, and Cisco wants to be sure it can deliver the whole package here.
Anyhow, during our briefing, we heard about the big themes that are driving collaboration. Nothing new there, but the main point from their perspective is that the network enables all of these tools. So, by extension, Cisco is right there, behind the curtains making all this possible. Fair enough.
Getting beyond this, what I liked hearing was how Cisco is bringing two distinct worlds together now - the network and the cloud. By doing so, Cisco can enable collaboration universally, whether you're tethered to the network at the office, or working remotely, and connecting over the Web and using Web-based applications. This is certainly not the Cisco of a few years ago, and I guess this is their way of saying that meaningful work takes place off prem, and they can now support collaboration in any environment.
They have defined their Collaboration Portfolio along three lines of business - Unified Communications, Video and Web 2.0. Each of these consists of many solutions, such as IP telephony, conferencing and Telepresence. These pieces will be familiar to any Cisco follower, but I do like this taxonomy. Each plays a distinctive role in the collaboration process, and by tying them together under a single portfolio, the intended result is a richer, more complete collaboration experience. It's a big-time promise, and time will tell if it delivers.
While all this makes perfectly good sense to those of us attending, I had to ask Laurent if the market will see things this way. During the presentation, the strategic messaging was "collaboration is the platform for business", and "the network is the platform for collaboration". Hmm. My most recent recollection of the Cisco mantra was that "the network is the platform".
Laurent concurred that the latter is still very much true, but it has now been extended to collaboration. I can see the logic, but I'm concerned that Cisco is now trying to position itself as more of a collaboration play than a network play. Nobody can challenge them for network supremacy, but collaboration is much more of a Web 2.0 story, and it's not clear to me if the market is ready to see them this way.
While Telepresence was largely built from the ground-up internally, most of their 2.0 capabilities have come from acquisitions, both large (WebEx) and small (Jabber, PostPath, etc.). I think it's much harder earning your stripes following the latter path, but with Unified Communications still trying to break out of the gates, I don't think anybody has a monopoly yet making the whole collaboration thing work. So, it's hard to see how Cisco could go about this any other way, and this portfolio is probably as comprehensive as anything out there right now.
Regardless, they've made a statement today that collaboration is the new black, and they're telling the world they can have it in any color, so long as it's black - Cisco black. Let's see what the market thinks.
Technorati tags: Cisco, collaboration, Jon Arnold
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
eComm 2009 Site Now Live
Just a quick post to let you know planning for eComm 2009 is well under way. Lots of work to do, and am contributing where I can as part of the Advisory Board.
The eComm 2009 website has recently gone live - unofficially - but it's there for you to check out. It's very much a work in progress, but you should at least bookmark it now. As the program firms up, we'll be updating the site, as well as other areas such as the Advisory Board section and the blog.
Lee Dryburgh remains the driving force behind eComm, but this time around, he's got more of a supporting cast, and I'm sure you'll like what you see once things fall into place.
The main message to communicate here is to follow the eComm blog. It hasn't been active lately, but over the next couple of weeks, those of us involved will start posting regularly. The idea is to use the blog as a forum to create broader dialog with everyone out there who would have an interest in this event. After all, it's a 2.0 type of event, so we need to use the tools to get the word out and get people behind it.
So, look for that soon, as well as here, as I'll be using my own blog to help create some viral support, as will other bloggers involved with the event.
Finally, for those of you who didn't get to the first eComm, Lee has done a great job of posting a lot of the content on the site - photos, presentations and videos. So, there's plenty there to keep you busy until the blog starts up again.
Technorati tags: eComm, Lee Dryburgh, Jon Arnold
The eComm 2009 website has recently gone live - unofficially - but it's there for you to check out. It's very much a work in progress, but you should at least bookmark it now. As the program firms up, we'll be updating the site, as well as other areas such as the Advisory Board section and the blog.
Lee Dryburgh remains the driving force behind eComm, but this time around, he's got more of a supporting cast, and I'm sure you'll like what you see once things fall into place.
The main message to communicate here is to follow the eComm blog. It hasn't been active lately, but over the next couple of weeks, those of us involved will start posting regularly. The idea is to use the blog as a forum to create broader dialog with everyone out there who would have an interest in this event. After all, it's a 2.0 type of event, so we need to use the tools to get the word out and get people behind it.
So, look for that soon, as well as here, as I'll be using my own blog to help create some viral support, as will other bloggers involved with the event.
Finally, for those of you who didn't get to the first eComm, Lee has done a great job of posting a lot of the content on the site - photos, presentations and videos. So, there's plenty there to keep you busy until the blog starts up again.
Technorati tags: eComm, Lee Dryburgh, Jon Arnold
Friday, September 19, 2008
Fonolo - Top Pick by Judges at Mobilize
Here's another very good news story from another colleague, and this one is closer to home. Fellow Torontonian Shai Berger, and his company Fonolo made it to the list of companies presenting at GigaOm's Mobilize event this week in San Francisco.
It's ok if you're doing a double take here. Turns out that Mobilize and the IT Expo are the same week, and a number of people split their time at both shows. I saw Shai several times during the Expo, and wished him good luck when he left for SF on Wednesday.
So, it's been a good week for people I try to keep close to - Shai and Tom Howe, whose good news I just posted about earlier this morning.
Back to Fonolo. Twelve companies were selected to present their story at Om's Launchpad, with each being reviewed by a panel of 4 judges. I wasn't at the event, and am just getting this off the GigaOm post, which I strongly recommend you read to see how everyone did. Each company is summarized in the post, and goes on to show that Fonolo was the top pick overall among the judges, and rated third overall by the audience.
I don't know about you, but it's great news, and another in a growing list of accolades that Fonolo is compiling in its very short history.
Even though I'm an Advisor to Fonolo, I think it's pretty fair to say this is a company to watch, and I have no reservations about waving the flag too. We've got a lot of great companies in Canada, and it's especially nice to see one in my own back yard of Toronto doing so well on a big stage like Mobilize.
Technorati tags: Jon Arnold, Fonolo, Shai Berger, GigaOm, Mobilize
It's ok if you're doing a double take here. Turns out that Mobilize and the IT Expo are the same week, and a number of people split their time at both shows. I saw Shai several times during the Expo, and wished him good luck when he left for SF on Wednesday.
So, it's been a good week for people I try to keep close to - Shai and Tom Howe, whose good news I just posted about earlier this morning.
Back to Fonolo. Twelve companies were selected to present their story at Om's Launchpad, with each being reviewed by a panel of 4 judges. I wasn't at the event, and am just getting this off the GigaOm post, which I strongly recommend you read to see how everyone did. Each company is summarized in the post, and goes on to show that Fonolo was the top pick overall among the judges, and rated third overall by the audience.
I don't know about you, but it's great news, and another in a growing list of accolades that Fonolo is compiling in its very short history.
Even though I'm an Advisor to Fonolo, I think it's pretty fair to say this is a company to watch, and I have no reservations about waving the flag too. We've got a lot of great companies in Canada, and it's especially nice to see one in my own back yard of Toronto doing so well on a big stage like Mobilize.
Technorati tags: Jon Arnold, Fonolo, Shai Berger, GigaOm, Mobilize
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