2008 Year in Photos - Part 2

This post rounds out my photo review for 2008. I posted about the first half of the year yesterday, and here's the rest.

That's it for me in 2008. Enjoy New Year's and I'll be back blogging in a few days.


Toronto Tech Week, Toronto, September




TMC IT Expo, Fall Show, Los Angeles, September

The Three Tenors... Amigos... whatever. How's that for an unlikely group shot? This would have been completely unimaginable a year ago, and it says a lot about how much the industy has changed in 2008.



Andy Abramson's wine dinner - always a highlight at conferences he attends.



BroadSoft Connections, Phoenix, October







Above: Walt Mossberg - what a treat! - and colleague Thomas Howe, winner of BroadSoft's mashup competition


Avaya Global Analyst Conference, Boston, October

Another interesting image you would have never imagined a year or so ago - Charlie Giancarlo leading the team at Avaya.




Ericsson Experience Center Roadshow, Toronto, October




CDN Channel Elite Awards Gala, Toronto, October




KOTRA Showcase - Korean Trade Association, Dallas, November



Just a few of the really interesting products on display - a Kindle-style reader, 3D television, and a mobile video cam that you can strap on pretty much anywhere...







My Dealey Plaza Pilgrimage, Dallas, November

Being in Dallas the day after Barack Obama's election win, how could I NOT do this? I thought it was a great alignment of history, with so many parallels and inspirations to be drawn from JFK. Here are a few highlights from my expedition, and to see/read more, please check out my more extensive photo essay.

Here's my favorite shot - not just for this trip, but for all of 2008. To me, it sums up the spirit of what I experienced that morning. It's bit hard to discern in this format, but the shot was taken in front of the JFK Memorial, with the inscription of his name showing in the cenotaph in the background. Of all the people who happened to be in Dallas on that historic day, I didn't see anybody making connections like this...



Here are a couple more - the infamous Grassy Knoll, and the view of JFK's motorcade route, including the "X" mark where he was shot, and the Book Depository building at the left...





Tekelec Analyst Day, Morrisville, NC, November

CEO Frank Plastina



Cisco C-Scape 2008, San Jose, December





Above: John Chambers holding court, Rick Moran's SMB breakout, Art Hair's presentation about how Disney is using Cisco's solutions - very interesting stuff!

Avaya Canada Analyst Day, Toronto, December

New Canadian GM, Gerard Baglieri

2008 Year in Photos - Part 1

One way I like to recap the year is a photo review of the events and cool places I got to see in 2008. I'm no globetrotter, but I do my best to participate in a wide variety of industry events. This goes a long way to keep me current and connected to a whole lot of interesting companies that are leading the way in IP communications. I also love photography, and try to live in the moment with whatever camera I've got.

This summarizes my travels in the first half of the year, and tomorrow I'll do the second half.

CBC's Test the Nation, Toronto, January

What a fun way to start the year. Test the Nation is a national quiz show on CBC TV, and is based on teams from various walks of life. I was invited to be on the Blogger team, and we were up against ths likes of Chefs, Pilots, Taxi drivers, and... Celebrity Look Alikes! Definitely the best perk I've had as a blogger.



The celeb look-alikes were better looking than the bloggers, but were the top team in the end. Got more pix like this in my original post.




Not only did we win as a team, but fellow blogger Rick Spence came away with the top personal score among all the contestants. Whoo hoo.




TMC's IT Expo, Miami Beach, January

Can't think of a better place to be in the dead of winter. The big giveaway prize was this red Mustang, and it sure helped bring traffic on to the show floor.




Jeff Pulver's Social Media Breakfast, Toronto, March

Jeff's never-ending world tour of social media breakfasts made a well-received visit to my town at our local deli. Definitely the shortest commute I've had outside of my home office.




eComm 2008, San Jose, March

Probably the most important event I attended all year, and it should be even better in 2009.





Above: Lee Dryburgh, me - moderating the wireless panel, Truphone's James Body helping my son Max unlock his iPhone, just bought that morning from the local Apple store

Dimension Data Analyst Day, Boston, April




Dialogic Analyst Day, New York

Really enjoyed this event, but the camera in my Nokia phone had a major meltdown, and I have no photos from the sessions. The personal highlight for me, though, was the Yankee Stadium tour they gave us. What a fantastic experience, especially for Red Sox fan like me. I was able to salvage a few shots from the tour, and here's one. You can view a bunch more on my original post.



IT360 Conference, Toronto, April

Canadian telecom conferences are few and far between, and generally smaller than U.S. events. This was one of the bigger ones, and I had my hands full chairing the tracks on Unified Communications.



MetaSwitch Forum, New Orleans, April

April was my busiest month in 2008, and the MetaSwitch Forum was the most fun. They always put on a great event, and the setting made it so enjoyable. Got plenty more photos of N'awlins if you're into virtual tourism on my original posts - view them here and here.





Above: Andy Randall, the amazing Mardi Gras World, a taste of the French Quarter


Nortel Analyst Day, Ottawa, May

I was one of only 3 analysts/media attending this event, and we got a very sneak preview at some things that Nortel had not previously shared with the public. It was quite the day, and you can read/see more about it on my original post. Things haven't gone too well for Nortel since, but they do have some cool technology that is going to find its way to your desktop sooner or later.





Above: Project Chainsaw demo, Telepresence demo


Cisco Channel Showcase, Toronto, May

BroadSoft Acquires Sylantro

After just posting that I'm not a news guy, you might be surprised to see this one!

Well, it's a hot story and has been talked about in the blogs few a while now. I've followed this space and these companies since 2001, so it's familiar territory. I'm not here with the breaking news, but the story is simple - today, BroadSoft finally announced its acquisition of arch-rival Sylantro Systems.

For sake of expediency, I'll steer you to Andy Abramson's post from this morning, which sums things up nicely. Since then, Telephony has come out with a more detailed summation, and they were nice enough cite me a few times.

Way back when, this used to be a 4 horse race, with NetCentrex and VocalData being the other two players of note. VocalData was always the smallest, and after some setbacks and twists, they ended up in BroadSoft's stable in August. NetCentrex became part of Comverse in 2006, and while never much of a player in North America, some metrics show them to be the overall global market leader, largely on the strength of their residential VoIP deployments in Europe.

For North America, that just leaves two standing, and now they're one. I was fortunate enough to attend this year's BroadSoft Connections event, so I can tell you first hand that BroadSoft has a good thing going. It was also clear at that time that Sylantro was becoming a weak #2, and the signs were there that something had to give.

I really could never see the logic of acquiring Sylantro, but it's a classic consolidation move, and I suspect it didn't cost them a cent. On that basis, I guess, it's hard not to do this, especially since the last thing you want is to see their assets turn up elsewhere. Early on, Sylantro had the edge on BroadSoft for Tier 1 relationships - AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, etc., but that's not so much the case any more.

Taking them out of the market under these conditions ensures market dominance for BroadSoft, so kudos to Mike Tessler and his team for getting this done. We're going into a tough market, but BroadSoft's Web 2.0 focus is going to help service providers get through these times, and their story becomes that much stronger when you hold almost all the cards.

Just like Mitel and Inter-Tel last year, the next step is integration, and I'm sure they've got this pretty well thought out, especially after a modest staff layoff recently. As with Avaya going private, these things are much easier to do than being a public company, and eventually, markets will improve, and the long-awaited BroadSoft IPO should be the payoff many loyal employees have been working towards.

Looking ahead, I see this setting the stage for healthy competition with another strong company I'm a big fan of - MetaSwitch. It's too early to tell how that will play out, but that's going to be a good story to watch in 2009.

My Take on 2008 - VoIP's Not Dead Yet

Everyone's doing their year-end review thing now, and in true fashion, I'm late to the party. All the mainstream pubs did their thing last week - year in review, top 10 stories, 2009 predictions, etc. I'm not a news guy, so I don't have much to add there, so I don't bother. Besides, I have to make a living doing these things, so I'm not going to spend all day blogging about where I think things are going.

However, I do have a few things coming this week. I have a year-in-photos review in the works so you'll know where I've been in 2008, and this has a lot to do with what I'm seeing in the IP communications space for 2009.

I've also just published my latest Service Provider Views article, and that will serve as a pretty good proxy for my contribution to the year that was. If you're a Monty Python fan, I think you'll like it. More importantly, if VoIP is in your lexicon, you should find this of interest.

Basically, I think VoIP is going to be huge in 2009, but not for reasons you may think. I'm trying to draw attention to smart companies doing cool things, like Voxbone, Fonolo, Jazinga, Vayyoo, Phone.com, Calliflower, Mobivox, Jajah, Vidtel and Truphone. They're taking VoIP to the next level, and if you're not watching them now, you better be in 2009.

The article went live on TMCnet this morning, and fellow blogger Andy Abramson has posted a nice piece about it already. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Season's Greetings!

Just a quick post to wish all my readers the best for the holidays. Hannukah and Christmas line up pretty nicely this year, so for people like me, it's the best of both worlds right now. The menorah is getting brighter by the day, and our little tree is doing just fine.

Lots to reflect on for the season, and it's a good time to appreciate what you have. 2009 will be challenging for most of us, so it's best to go into the year as positive as possible.

Blogging is going to be light this week and next, but I do plan to get a couple of year-end posts written at some point.

CBC TV Interview on Wireless Substitution in Canada

I was recently interviewed for a story on wireless substitution in Canada that aired nationally on CBC TV. It's quite short, but an interesting segment overall, and features a Calgary-based company that's come up with a device that allows you to route mobile calls on to your wired phones inside the home. Not a bad idea, and it can be pretty practical, especially for people who get poor - or no cellular reception inside their home.

I don't normally post about things like this, but as I'm learning more about the new blogging platform, it looks like this is the only way I can share the interview so you can see it for yourself. You can view the segment here - it runs about 2.5 minutes.

Blog Transition Coming Along

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who has picked up on my new blog home so quickly, and for those who have posted about it, Twittered about it, and updated their blog rolls. I've had a nice spike in traffic since Monday, so I know the word is getting out.

I have LOTS more outreach to do, and with so many lists and touchpoints, you may hear from me more than once - so apologies in advance. All I ask is that if you come across any citings or links to my blog that still have the old link, please let me know. I'm doing my best to update the ones I know about, but am sure I won't get them all. Thanks.