Cisco's New Vision for Telepresence and Collaboration

Last Friday I had an engaging briefing with Cisco about their latest vision for collaboration, Unified Communications and Telepresence - perhaps the largest words in Cisco's lexicon these days. I mean that in the strategic sense of course, as these have been major growth themes for them since last year. Their news was under embargo until today, but I've been quite busy both in and out of the office today, and this is my first chance to post.

We all know about Cisco's Telepresence ambitions at the high end of the market, and they've done a great job there. It's getting a lot harder to find takers in this economy, and it's been just a matter of time until Cisco scaled down the product for the rest of us. They've been going in this direction for a while, but the latest iteration puts it that much more within reach of the mainstream business market.

There are a lot of moving parts to this story, so much so that there were two news releases about it - here and here. All told, this forms the Cisco Collaboration Portfolio, and pulls together a multitude of technologies and solutions that serve to make us more productive in the workplace.

Apologies if I'm sounding a bit vague here, but I'm struggling to share the essence of this in words. We covered an awful lot of ground in our briefing, and touched on just about every form of communication and collaboration, with all of it in some way falling under this portfolio umbrella. I know there's a lot of good value here, and during the briefing we talked about the challenges of pulling this together and articulating a clear value proposition.

On one level, this portfolio concept is Cisco's way of building on network-centric solutions and becoming more applications-centric. Looking at the bigger pieces - Telepresence, WebEx, mobility, iPhone support, integration with Microsoft Office - it's mostly about apps and endpoints - not a lot here about routers and switches or their more recent move into blade servers. Fair enough - we know this is where the growth is, and Cisco has rightly bet heavily that video is a key driver.

All told, there is a lot to like about what Cisco is doing here, and I wish I could convey it in short, simple terms. On a marketing level that could be a challenge unto itself, as the story I'm hearing is mostly about productivity and efficiency rather than cost savings. I don't want to sound too pedestrian, but saving money seems to be the big - and sometimes only - thing people I'm in contact with want to talk about right now.

Cisco does not chase these cost-driven businesses as a matter of course, but it's harder to be picky these days. That said, there is certainly an important segment of the market that will buy into their portfolio concept - and one of the press releases is largely built around an independent study validating this.

My main takeaway from all this is that if collaboration and improving business processes is high on your strategy agenda, then Cisco's Collaboration Portfolio will resonate very well. It was great to see a scaled down Telepresence system - the 1300 - and I really loved the Recording Studio concept.

The very first time I saw Telepresence, I asked whether sessions could be recorded. At the time, the answer was no, but clearly it's yes today. During the briefing we touched on some great examples of how Telepresence is being used to record video segments for things like training, job interviews, making announcements and recording presentations for future use. To me, that's what makes this technology cool - enabling new ways of working that could not be done before. Not to mention in Hi Def.

To balance out this post, my main caveat is that if it's this complex to explain, then it's too complex for the market. Maybe not all the market, but a big piece, I'd say. I know Cisco has a good idea here and the right idea, but it takes a bit of effort to understand all the pieces and how they fit together. That's fine - it's an emerging space, and nobody has figured it out, so it's hard to expect the precision of Procter & Gamble here. That time will come, I'm sure, but we're not there yet.

On another level, of course, this is tricky territory in that Cisco is extending its market presence into areas that have usually been the domain of their partners, and invariably conflicts will arise - not just with these partners, but the channels and enterprises themselves. I don't have an easy answer to all of this other than saying business is business, and if Cisco has what the market wants, they must be doing something right.

Samsung Canada - Analyst Event/Omnia Launch/Other Thoughts

Last Thursday, I attended Samsung Canada's first in-person analyst briefing. Unless you follow them, this is one of those companies that's far bigger and more diverse than you may have ever expected. They're a bit like GE in that they only want to be in markets where they are either the number one or number two player. Like many Asian electronics giants, we were shown how Samsung came from humble roots, and now is a dominant brand across the full gamut of consumer electronics and home appliances. This was pretty evident from their showroom which had all of these products on display, so if you just think of them for one type of product, you're definitely missing the bigger picture.

The focus of our get-together was mobile phones, with four agendas. First was an overview of Samsung's position in the Canadian mobile market, with recent news showing them to be in the number one spot, which is pretty impressive considering the playing field.

It was pretty interesting to hear how well they've segmented the market - as any leading mobile vendor must do these days. Not only did we see various types of phones for various types of end users (I especially liked the CLEO model for women that looks like a makeup kit, and the RUGBY model for the well, rugged market) - but of course they have exclusive models for each carrier. So, Bell gets the Ace smartphone and Rogers gets the Jack, etc. Nothing unique here, but it's a good first-hand reminder of just how competitive the handset market is these days. We're a very long way from the days when a handful of models could carry a vendor a long way.

Second, Alec Taylor presented from Microsoft Canada about Windows Mobile 6.1 and how it brings out the best in Samsung's phones. This was a good opportunity to update us on what's new with their platform as well as how closely they are working with Samsung.

Third was the Canadian launch of the Omnia, their touchscreen answer to the iPhone. Being exclusive to Bell and Telus, it's for the CDMA crowd and will compete head on with the likes of HTC. The news was under embargo until today - which is why I couldn't blog about this sooner - and the release hit the wires first thing today.

We all got to play with it a bit, and at first glance it looks like a great device. Not being an iPhone user, I can't make a fair comparison, but what stood out for me was the 5.0 Megapixel camera, which is right up there with the Nokia smartphones I've spent so much time with.

Pricing wasn't discussed, and come to think of it, I don't think anybody asked - hmm. Anyhow, the tie-in to Microsoft was pretty clear as Windows Mobile 6.1 enables not just our everyday Office applications to make this a great device for work, but also for play with all kinds of multimedia apps, high-end video shooting/editing, cool online widgets and easy to use uploading/file sharing features for social networking. As the name says, Omnia does it all. That's a nice bit of branding - another example of how Samsung is a savvy consumer-oriented company. I like that.

Fourth, but not finally was the green theme. They talked about the "Blue Earth" phone, which was pretty neat, and was green by virtue of being solar powered and having biodegradable corn-based plastic components. Am not sure why it's got blue in the name, but these are pretty forward-thinking ideas. It's hard to tell just how effective solar power will be here, but they sure have the right idea. I'm not a huge mobile device user, and am astounded - among other things I won't express here - at how they're treated pretty much as disposable gadgets.

I'm sure the vast majority of cell phones we move on from work perfectly well, but are simply out of fashion and can't compete with the latest cool models. No doubt there's an element of fashion to these devices today, and marketing is all about turnover, but it doesn't ever seem to be the vendor's problem when it's time for a new phone.

As some of you know, my son Max has become very adept at buying and selling phones in the secondary market, but he'll never make a dent in the untold millions of phones that we stop using but don't know what to do with. I better stop now, and let's not bring up Apple, who takes the cake for planned obsolesence with batteries that aren't meant to be replaced and devices that are only built to last 1-2 years.

Enough - let's end on a high note and stay friends, ok? This is a long-winded way of saying that I admire what Samsung is doing here, and would love to see more of the same down the road.

Finally, I'd like to come full circle to the beginning of this post and pose a simple question. There aren't many companies out there that make just about every electric or battery powered product we use on a regular basis both inside and outside the home. Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't Samsung in a great position to tie all these things together with Smart Home-style solutions?

It couldn't be that hard to embed broadband-enabled RFID tags in all these devices so they can communicate with each other and have centralized control. On the bright side, there was a touch of this with Omnia, which can easily/quickly relay video files wirelessly to TVs and PCs. That's not really what I'm getting at, but it's the closest thing that I could see from what was on tap.

Y'know, poll your family on your Jack - collaborate a bit - and decide what's for dinner. Pick up what you need in the store, and on the way home, send off a message to preheat the oven (for those of us who still cook with a stove!). Then you get a message from your dryer saying that the clothes could use another 15 minutes - click yes to start now. If it works as advertised, it's a beautiful thing. Of course if it doesn't - or your clever but angry teenager does some hacking - you may come home to a house that's burning down.

You get the idea - how cool would that be? I've seen the futuristic vision that Microsoft has with Natural User Interfaces, so why not partner up and let us have some fun stringing all these things together? It would sure be an interesting way to cross-sell Samsung products and come up with some creative bundling for retailers and the builder/developer community. Well? I'm either dreaming or giving away some good ideas here. The meter isn't running, so I'll stop now. Thanks Samsung, and maybe next time around we could have a session built around this.


Samsung's Paul Brennan and the Omnia launch; Microsoft Canada's Alec Taylor and Windows Mobile 6.1

Project GhostNet - Canada (and Google) Saves the World From Cyber-Spying - Again!

Wow, what a story. While most people I know are at either VoiceCon or CTIA this week, this one is worth staying home for. Also, I'm sure all the Skype followers are focused today on the news about working with the iPhone - and that IS a big story. However - for very different reasons - I'm sure you'll find this one of interest too.

This was a front page story in today's Globe and Mail, and no doubt many other Canadian dailies. I don't particularly follow cyber-crime, but this story is pretty incredible, and for the VoIP crowd there's an important Skype tangent. This will make a great thriller movie some day (maybe I should write it!) with all kinds of angles that normally don't have much to do with one another - China/Tibet, cyber-spying Toronto, Canada, Google and Skype. Are you intrigued? Read on, please.

In short, a team of academics/tech researchers based at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, discovered a Dr. Evil-like cyber-spying network with global implications. The threat is largely around how data that is sensitive to Tibet's security is being poached and monitored from PC's all over the world, and how many of the links point to servers located in China. I'll stop there - am sure you can imagine for yourself just how charged these issues and allegations are. Phew!

I'll leave the politics aside, but as the reports describe, it's a story that took a life of its own with one small discovery leading to many others, and finally to the news that went public today. I'm no hacker, but can appreciate how complex these things are, and how you have to think like a hacker to reveal the Rosetta Stone that gets you on the trail to the source.

Incredibly, the breakthrough that cracked the code was not an ingenious repeat of what went into Colossus (the famous Bletchley Park-developed computer that solved the code of Nazi messages - arguably saving Britain from defeat in WWII) - but a simple Google search!!! Amazing, Mr. Smart, as Harry Hoo would have said to Agent 86 in his slow, incredulous manner.

If that doesn't get you going, I don't know what else will. There's a lot to this story, and I'll steer you straight to the article from today's paper. I love citing the online edition of stories because you also get the reader comments. At last count there was well of over 500 comments, so if cyber-spying is your thing, you could be reading for a while.

This story should be of huge interest to anyone working in PC/Internet security, as it highlights just how vulnerable we can be. As smart as we think we are, the bad guys are often smarter, but in the end - and here's the scary part - nobody is smarter than Google! What does it say about cyberspace when an operation this sophisticated can ultimately be exposed by searching on Google? Sure makes you wonder what else about our personal/private lives is just a few clicks away from those don't have the best of intentions.

So many implications to consider here, but I want to just touch on a couple here - and perhaps this will lead to some interesting dialog about other things...

First, waving the flag, it's great to say that this discovery/expose came from Canada, primarily Toronto, and some from Ottawa. The article provides quite a bit of detail about them, but the key players are Nart Villeneuve, Greg Walton and Ron Deibert from the lab at U of T, and the Ottawa-based SecDev Group.

Second - here's where the Skype connection comes in. This isn't the first time China has been associated with compromised data security. Last fall, just after the Beijing Olympics, there was an unsettling discovery about how Skype traffic was being monitored in China. Ugh. I posted about it, and the story was widely covered in the media and blogosphere.

So why am I dragging Skype back into this messy place again? Well - the same team at U of T that just exposed this cyber-spy operation also discovered what was happening to Skype in China. I know what you're thinking --- if they're smart enough to do GhostNet, when you've got a cyber-spy problem, who ya gonna call?

eComm 2009 - New Presentations Online Now/Mobivox White Paper

I've got two eComm messages to pass along here. While the conference took place earlier this month, there's a lot of sharing still to be done. Another of Lee's virtues is his commitment to building community and sharing knowledge.
In earlier posts following the conference, I've mentioned that Lee will be adding content from the presentations to the eComm website as time allows. This is a big job, and it's great that Lee is still doing this, long after the main buzz from eComm has run its course.

So, in case you missed it, or want to read transcripts or view videos of the sessions, head over to the eComm blog page for the latest content, such as:

- Smule's Ge Wang - among other head-turners, he'll demonstrate how to turn your iPhone into a bona fide musical instrument

- Asterisk's Mark Spencer talking about how Skype and Askerisk fit together

- Columbia University's Tony Jebara talking about how mobile devices and apps are impacting social behavior

- Skype's Jonathan Christensen talking about their new SILK codec and how improved voice quality makes Skype a better experience

Staying with eComm updates, I wanted to pass on a link for Mobivox, who was on my Voice 2.0 session. They launched a white paper at eComm (which I wrote) on how voice can be used in new ways to add value to CRM. If you didn't pick up on it at eComm, you download a copy of the paper by using this link.

Busy Thursday - MTS Allstream, Samsung, Canadian Blogging Idol

I had a triple-header on Thursday, with 3 different events. They were all different, so I covered a lot of ground, and got all my meals covered from sunup to sundown - that worked out well. Being out all day/night set me back on things today, and before the week is out, I wanted to share the basic highlights.

Stop 1 - MTS Allstream at the Board of Trade

The Toronto Board of Trade runs a breakfast series on IT, and I was invited to attend this one. The keynote speaker was Dean Provost, President of Enterprise Solutions at MTS Allstream. He's definitely an up and coming exec on the Canadian telecom scene, and he gave an up-to-the-minute presentation on the challenges faced by CIOs and IT in today's challenging economy. The themes were familiar but really well handled, and if MTS Allstream can execute on these challenges, they'll be in good shape.

Preceding Dean was John Pickett, long time Editor and now Community Advocate at ITWorld Canada, and he shared highlights from some recent research on what's on the mind of Canada's CIOs. Again, no surprises, but it was interesting to note how much focus CIOs put on reducing costs, and how much lower innovation and new services is on their list of priorities.


John Pickett, ITWorld Canada


Dean Prevost, MTS Allstream


Definitely a full house



Stop 2 - Samsung Canada

This was their first-ever analyst get together, and I was glad to be part of it. This is one of those companies that's bigger than you think, and their market presence is pretty impressive. The news of note, however, is under embargo until Monday, so the rest of Stop #2 will have to wait until then.


Stop 3 - ITWorld Canada - Canadian Blogging Idol Contest Launch

I had a double shot of ITWorld Canada Thursday, but this time with a whole different set of people. ITWorld Canada has come up with a blogging competition, and the launch of Canadian Blogging Idol was my evening destination. I'm not an IT guy per se, but I'm close enough to the space and comment on their stories often enough to be considered for the contest. Well, let's see how it goes.

All I can say right now is to check it out, and vote for the posts you like best. Also, it's not too late to enter, so jump in if you think you can win! You can follow the posts and participate in the voting from their website. By all means, tell your friends, read the posts, and cast your votes. I just got this going this afternoon, and look for me to start posting for real next week.

ITWorld Canada's Shane Schick leading us through the demo

Service Provider Views - Surviving in the New World of Telecom

The latest TMCnet article for my Service Provider Views column was posted today, and I hope you give it a read.

This article is the first of two on high level service provider themes that came out of eComm 2009 earlier this month. There is a lot to talk about that I think is relevant for service providers, and while the new world that's emerging in telecom poses all kinds of threats, I saw lots of opportunities at eComm.

A lot of ground was covered in three days there, and my intent is to provide a taste of what the possibilities look like for operators ready, willing and able to embrace what many are calling Telecom 2.0.

Calysto White Paper - Social Media and PR

Calysto is one of the PR firms I've been close to in this space since I began covering it in 2001. They've got a solid track record and do a great job updating us on the comings and goings of the industry through their client e-letter PR Vibes.

They just launched a white paper about the role social media can play in today's marketing and PR programs, and I wanted to help create some awareness about it. I reviewed this early on, and now it's a public document, which you can download from their website.

PR firms, especially indies, aren't known for their own thought leadership, and this is a pretty good example of an agency being proactive and sharing some best practices with the market. Social media is a huge unknown for everyone, and we all feel compelled to use it one way or another. PR firms and their clients all struggle with this, and nobody is ever quite sure about what tactics to use or how much to spend. However, PR firms are increasingly expected to know how to handle this space, and I'm sure it's one of the big questions companies have when hiring an agency.

So, it's great to see Calysto doing something about this and outlining their thinking on how social media can be incorporated into PR programs. Is this a pitch for business? Well, sure it is, and after reading this paper, you'll know exactly what kinds of programs and capabilities Calysto has to offer.

I'm ok with that, because I think most people will come away with some new ideas and answers to some basic questions they have about the value and impact social media can have on their business. A lot of you may be very immersed in social media, but I can guarantee you that a lot of people are not, and for that audience in particular, this white paper will serve a useful purpose.

Kudos to Laura Borgstede and her team, and I'm glad to see PR companies doing things like this. I know it's an important focus for Calysto, so hopefully this will be the beginning of something good that will help us all make sense of how social media and PR can best work together.