Sylantro Appoints New CEO, Raising the Bar

Today, Sylantro Systems announced the appointment of Marco Limena as President/CEO. As outlined in the press release, Mr. Limena was previously at HP for 14 years, and was most recently VP of their Network and Service Provider Solution business.

This was news to me, and while I do not know Mr. Limena, I've got a pretty good handle on where Sylantro is going, having just attended their customer conference a few weeks ago in Las Vegas.

My initial reaction is this a very shrewd, sound move by Sylantro, and it raises the bar in a critical area. Mr. Limena seems to have solid, high profile, global, Tier 1 experience, which is important on many levels. All these things matter for a maturing startup company trying to come out a winner in its space, and to position itself for the all-important Tier 1 carrier business. All the app server platform vendors have cut their teeth on the Tier 2s and Tier 3s - Sylantro, BroadSoft, VocalData, NetCentrex, and even LongBoard if you go back far enough. Things have certainly evolved, but if you're aiming high, the big money will be made with the Tier 1s.

Aside from extensive leadership and management experience, no doubt Mr. Limena brings an A-list set of Tier 1 carrier contacts and relationships, and this could well be Sylantro's trump card. They've done a great job to build up their management team, and his addition gives them even more major league presence.

I'm sure this will please Sylantro's investors, as his addition will probably make it easier to raise money and inspire investor confidence if/when they go public. Filtering down into the organization, I would think Sylantro will now be better able to attract and retain talent from the same pool Mr. Limena comes from. It also sets the bar higher for their competitors who will be looking to keep pace as these vendors ratchet up the stakes to be the next Acme Packet.

Finally, I should mention that this is a move of addition, and not subtraction or substitution. Sylantro's founder, Pete Bonee, moves out of this role to become Chairman, which only makes sense. He's taken the company a long way, and I don't think it's a stretch to say their Board wanted someone with Mr. Limena's background to take Sylantro to the next level. It's not the first time a move like this has happened, and I'm sure everyone involved sees this as a way to keep moving the boat forward and to separate themselves from the pack as the IPO siren call gets louder.


Technorati tags: Sylantro, Jon Arnold

Cisco's Master Specialization Channel Partners Program

This morning, Cisco has announced an expansion to the high end of their channel partners program. I don't normally comment on breaking news releases, but I happened to get a briefing about this on Friday at Cisco Canada's office, so I got an extended look at what this is about, and was asked to keep it under embargo until the news came out. So here we are.

It's a mouthful, but the Master Unified Communications Specialization is a bit like getting your MBA, or as I'm seeing with my youngest son in Tae Kwon Do, getting your 9th Dan Black Belt. There's a lot involved, but the briefing and today's news gives me a better appreciation for Cisco's approach to channel partners, and just how central this is to their overall success. No doubt Cisco is the gold standard for the channels, and I'm sure their competitors are watching this closely.

Cisco's channel programs have 3 levels along 2 axes - Depth and Breadth. For Depth, the tiers are Express, Advanced and Master, whereas Breadth has its own tiers - Premier, Silver and Gold. Today's news essentially focuses on channel partners with Master Depth and Gold Breadth in the Unified Communications space.

Any Cisco follower knows that Unified Communications is a core element of their enterprise communications business. Their UC platform was launched in March, and builds on key IP enablers such as presence and SIP to support multimedia communications across all networks and types of devices/endpoints.

Underlying this is their view that growth will be driven by the applications rather than the cost savings that initially drove IP adoption. This isn't just about growth for Cisco, but growth for everyone involved. It's about growth for enterprises as they learn how to use UC to become more innovative and competitive. It's also about growth for their channel partners. This is where the Master Specialization status comes into play.

For the channel partners who really get it with UC, and know how to sell it and support it, they grow too. As I learned in the briefing, this elite group sells more Cisco and makes better margins than channel partners down at lower levels. I got a taste of that from one of Cisco Canada's top channel partners, Unis Lumin on Friday. As their President, Glenn Mowat explained, when talking to enterprises about what UC can do for them, it's not really about ROI - these become "dream with me" conversations, where the focus is about business transformation. It's a classic consulatative selling approach, and one that's entirely appropriate in these situations - so long as the channel parter really knows how to walk the walk. And that's what the Master Specialization is all about.

Cisco relies on channels for virtually all their business, and given the strategic importance of Unified Communications, it only makes sense to create this new designation. These channel partners need to be schooled at the highest level to do right by Cisco, and need to be incented and rewarded accordingly.

Stepping back a step, this the second vertical Master Specialization for Cisco's channels, and the first vertical - network security - was launched in September. So, UC adds another dimension to this Depth level, and further demonstrates Cisco's commitment to supporting its channels. Works for me.


Technorati tags: Cisco, Jon Arnold, Unis Lumin

StockIM - Getting Attention in Barron's

A few weeks back, I posted about StockIM, and how J Arnold & Associates has an affiliation with them.

It sure looks like they're getting some traction now, which is great to see. Last week, they were cited by Barron's, and they just passed this along to me. Thought you might find it interesting, especially in the sense that IM-based platforms look to be finding a home in the investment community, esp among small cap traders. It's my understanding that StockIM is approaching 1 million hits a month now, and I don't mind getting that kind of exposure at all...



Technorati tags: Barron's, Jon Arnold, StockIM, J Arnold & Associates

Canada's Income Trust Fallout - Who Ya Gonna Call?

Trust Busters!

Am sure you know how that tune goes - catchy, corny, but apropos for this post.

Income Trusts are a different type of trust-busting, but that's what happened in Canada today - both figuratively and literally.

Our Income Trusts were literally broken up today, as the Federal government mandated an end to the dominant trend in Canada's high finance world. These trusts have been all the rage this year, and are rapidly spreading to all kinds of sectors as the tax benefits are simply too attractive to pass up for big corporations. As usual, money is at the root of the problem, as these trusts are diverting tax revenues away from government coffers, and it's simply getting too expensive for them to let it continue - despite the fact that our government is posting healthy surpluses. I digress...

Telecom isn't really the main player here, but it was the catalyst that brought in the change yesterday. Our two biggest telcos, Bell and Telus have been very public about their Income Trust conversion plans, and with their pending conversions coming back to back, it looks like this is what pushed the Feds over the edge, and they now stand to break one of their election promises to not tax the trusts.

So, that's the figurative angle to the story. The Feds have busted the trust of taxpayers/investors, who are now fuming about how much wealth they've just lost on paper in the last 24 hours. Talk about burning your bridges at both ends with voters and corporate Canada. Everybody is angry, but you know what - they have probably done the right thing. I'm not going to expand on this here - tune in to next week's podcast, when I talk with Mark Goldberg about this story.

A big concern for the government was a need to stem the tide before it becomes unstoppable. Telus - and especially Bell - are arguably Canada's shining corporate icons - and if they go trust, the next mega sector - oil and gas - will be next - at least those that haven't gone trust already. It's bit like a Coach's Challenge in the NFL. The Feds feel that Telus and Bell's plans are a bad idea, and they need to throw out the red flag before the telcos can get the ball back in play to negate the challenge.

I didn't see any U.S. coverage on this, but I'm not that surprised. It's not really a telecom story, but it's a HUGE story for Telus and Bell. There are many ramifications and angles to explore, and to give you a taste, here's a bit of the coverage in today's Globe & Mail. To get a feel for the vox populi, I urge you to review the reader comments where provided.

Quick sidebar - one of the hot stories these days is how print media is dying and journalists are finding other things to do (fellow bloggers Om Malik and Mark Evans are perfect examples). Well, you can't get reader comments immediately after the papers come out, but you get them in the online edition. There's a whole layer there of rich commentary that the print edition readers never see, which is too bad. Anyhow, have a read if you want to see what all the fuss is about, and what this means for Bell and Telus...here, here, here, and here.


Technorati tags: income trusts, Jon Arnold, Mark Goldberg

Espial Making Their Mark in IPTV

Espial is a company I've been following for a while - they're based in Ottawa, and have a strong IPTV middleware offering. I happened to come across a nice article about them in Light Reading today, and it was great to see them get some U.S. media attention.

For me, this was nicely timed, as Espial is one of the companies I mentioned in my post yesterday regarding the Deloitte Fast 50 and my podcast with John Ruffolo.

Speaking of pods, I also did a podcast with Espial in July, so if you want to hear more, check it out.



Technorati tags: Deloitte Fast 50, Jon Arnold, Espial, IPTV

Tandberg Videoconferencing - Up Close and Personal

With Cisco's recent news about TelePresence, one might think they invented videoconferencing. Of course that's not true, but they're trying very hard to give the established players like Tandberg and Polycom a run for their money, even if it means re-defining the market, at least at the very high end. That's a story unto itself, and I'm one of many who has weighed in on TelePresence. I'd also like to point you to a nice piece that ran in VoIP Magazine last week.

And if you want to hear/see more, check back in with me in early December. That's when Cisco is giving analysts a demo of TelePresence in their Toronto office, and I'll be capturing whatever I can to share with you here.

Enough about Cisco for now - this post is about Tandberg! They are one of the "legacy" vendors in this space, and hold their own pretty darned well. I'm just getting to know the Tandberg Canada team, and earlier this week I had a chance to experience their boardroom videoconference setup in their offices. I had a video meeting with one of their U.S.-based executives, and it was a great experience. I haven't seen the life-sized systems like Cisco or HP, so I can only compare it to traditional systems.

It doesn't feel intrusive at all, at least after you do the setup to make sure the camera is properly positioned and focused for where you're sitting. After that, the quality was great - the image was crisp, the audio was clear, and there wasn't any noticeable delay or jumpiness. This may not be an HD experience, but considering this needs under 1 Meg of bandwidth, it's a pretty good solution for most situations.

It's also a pretty interactive experience, and at one point, my Tandberg colleague put our screen images to one side, and used most of the screen to add a large third panel to show his PC screen. It was very clear, and it's easy to see how effective this can be for collaborating on documents and presentations. You can also have a bit of fun zooming in and out at any time, and the optics were quite good, even for close-ups.

That's as far as I can take this, as I'm not that technically steeped in video systems. However, the overall experience was great, and you certainly don't feel self conscious at all.

I'll leave you with a couple of shots, courtesy of my Nokia N90. If you need to know what system is in their boardroom, it's their 6000 Profile MXP.









Technorati tags: Cisco, Jon Arnold, videoconferencing, Tandberg

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - John Ruffolo and the Deloitte Fast 50

In late September, the Deloitte Fast 50 winners were announced, and the list included some IP communications companies that I follow to varying degrees, namely Espial, Aastra and Tira Wireless. They also announced a list of "Companies to Watch", which included other familiar companies such as Objectworld, Oz Communications and Impact Mobile. So, with all this common ground, I wanted to do a podcast about it, and brought back John Ruffolo for his second podcast with me.

On the podcast John talked about the Fast 50 and Companies to Watch, explaining what they look for in companies, and the trends that Deloitte is seeing. They also have a broader Fast 500, which includes US and Canadian companies. Of the 500, 56 are Canadian, as are 5 of the top 10. I think that says a lot about Canada, although none of the top 5 are in the IP space.

John noted another interesting finding about how the two countries differ. He said about 75% of of the US-based Fast 500 companies are venture backed, whereas the opposite is true for Canada - about 75% are NOT venture-backed. John feels this goes a long way to explaining the quality of these Canadian companies, as they've had to really bootstrap themselves, and focus heavily on R&D and product development rather than marketing and promotion.

He feels this will give Canadian companies more staying power, and it also makes them good acquisition candidates for companies looking to enter new markets. I think he's right, and Canadian companies like Convedia come to mind right away. They were recently acquired by US-based Radisys for a very nice valuation, and their hard work to build up a single-focus, R&D intensive company really paid off. This is a textbook example of what John is talking about.

Back to the Fast 50, John noted a growing trend in that the upper half of winners are shifting away from software companies to those focused on the wireless marketplace. That's pretty evident when looking over the list, and certainly validates the growth of wireless in the IP communications sector.

Finally, the podcast touched on the next round of nominations, which will start early next year. For any companies considering applying, you should bookmark Deloitte's site, and check back regularly starting in January.

You can download the podcast here, and read more about John and his practice at Deloitte.

Next week my guest will be telecom consultant Mark Goldberg, and we're going to talk about yesterday's Income Trust decision, which as expected, was bad news for our big incumbents, Bell and Telus, and is really too big of a story to not discuss further.



Technorati tags: Deloitte Fast 50, Jon Arnold, John Ruffolo, VoIP podcasts