Nortel/Ericsson Deal - BNN Interview

At this point, I'm doing this more for the record, but if you're still following the Nortel/Ericsson deal, you may find this of interest.

I'm late posting this as I had Internet access problems that basically kept me offline for 2 days. All fixed now, and I have some posting to catch up on.

Early Monday morning, I was interviewed on BNN - Business News Network - Canada's main financial news TV channel, and shared my thoughts with host Michael Kane.

The interviews runs about 7 minutes, and you can view the clip here. BNN leaves video clips on their site for 7 days, so if you want to see it after it's gone, please drop me a line.

If you do watch the clip, a correction is needed. Near the end, I talked about how Siemens is the lead bidder for Nortel's telephony business, but it's Avaya. Sorry about that!

New Venture and Conference Launched in Smart Grid Space

Been a very busy day, but the news is out now. I've launched a new venture in the Smart Grid space, and there are a few pieces to this.

First, I have teamed up with Shidan Gouran to form Intelligent Communications Partners. Shidan is a Toronto-based tech entrepreneur that some of you will know, and we share an interest in Smart Grid. We have formed ICP as an entity to partner with TMC and build a new community around Smart Grid, with a focus on bringing the worlds of energy/utilities, telecom and IT together.

The news release went out this morning, and there are two key items:

1. We have launched the Smart Grid Summit event. This will be a 1 day event running during TMC's IT Expo in Los Angeles. Our event runs on the first day of the Expo, Tuesday, September 1. We are in the process of putting together the sessions now, and are actively engaged with lining up speakers (and sponsors of course!). Response so far has been very supportive, as there really isn't a forum like this to brings these worlds together. Later in the week, the event site will be ready, at which point people can register to attend.

2. We have launched the Smart Grid portal. This will be our home base from which we intend to generate ongoing thought leadership about this space. As with most TMC portals, the content is heavy on news feeds, but we will soon be adding original, exclusive content to make this a destination for Smart Grid players, especially in thinking beyond what the utility sector is trying to do on their own. We see telecom and IT having a key role in making Smart Grid successful, and the portal will focus on bringing these worlds together.

There's lots more to come, and I'll be posting details and updates as we bring this venture along. Would love to hear your thoughts any time!

Smart Grid - Smart Utilities, Smart Homes, Smart Opportunity

Just a quick update on my new venture. I have formed a new partnership and on Monday, we'll be announcing a first-of-its kind event focused on the Smart Grid space. Our vision is to bring the worlds of energy, telecom and IT together with a common focus of creating the opportunities and ways forward into this huge new world.

Unlike telecom and the seismic shift to packet networks, Smart Grid has the force of government policy and funding behind, and there's no doubt this transition is going to happen. We believe the time is right to create a forum and community to bring these worlds together, and you'll hear more about it for real on Monday. In addition to the event, we'll also be launching a portal dedicated to Smart Grid thought leadership, and you'll be seeing lots of content from myself and others there quite soon. Should be a pretty exciting next few weeks - hope you'll check this out, and by all means I'd love to hear your thoughts.

iPod Touch - Bringing SIP to the Masses

Andy Abramson had a notable post yesterday about the new iPod Touch.

I don't post much about consumer gadgets since I don't use them, but I do see how my youngest son uses the iTouch, and it's not hard to see how things can unfold once you become totally dependent on one. As Andy notes, the "rumored" new iTouch will have everything you need to make it a poor man's iPhone - built-in mic, lots of memory and WiFi support. That's great news for mobile WiFi, and validates the touch-screen interface big time. With a touch-screen, pretty much any broadband-enabled/WiFi supported device can become a phone, whether it's mobile, bolted on to a wall, or projected from a really smart gadget on to your kitchen floor.

Scary, huh? I had similar thoughts earlier in the year, when posting about the first wave of VoIP apps on the iTouch from Truphone, and wondered how much this will cannibalize iPhone sales. I agree with Andy, though. For most teens/pre-teens, the iPhone is not affordable, mobile contracts are expensive, and adding voice to their iTouch will tide them over just fine.

I also wanted to echo Andy's thoughts on the bigger picture. Aside from this being good news for mobile VoIP - along with the booming opportunties around mobile video - it's really about bring SIP to the masses, something many people have long been waiting for. With mass-market products like the iTouch and super-cool brands like Apple, we now have the pieces in place to support consumer-friendly, SIP-based multimedia apps and mashups that will make the iTouch even more sticky. When that happens, I'm starting to think this could make the iTouch a bit like a scaled-down Microsoft Surface. When you start thinking of the iTouch like that, then the possibilities with SIP get pretty exciting. Has there ever been a better time for innovation?
By the way, if you don't know about Surface, you should - and you've come to the right place. This is a bit of a sidebar to the iTouch story, but I think it fits. My oldest son and I got one of the very first private demos of Surface in North America about 2 years ago, and it's pretty cool. You're going to hear a lot more about Surface going into 2010, and I think Microsoft knows they have more competition on their hands now that Apple has made the touch-screen mainstream. I'm going to let that thought hang out there a bit, and maybe follow up with another post. It's got me thinking...

Red Sox Slide - Worried? - You Bet

Not much to say, really, but the Yankees have finally caught and passed the Red Sox and taken first place - and that cannot pass unmentioned. The Sox do not hold up well under pressure, esp when it's NYY-related. Well, we haven't played the Yankees in a while, so there is more going on. The offense has dried up completely, and today's post from the Joy of Sox blog tells the story very effectively.

You know what this is?

0 000010 000 100 100 000 000 100 100 010 000 001 001

You might have guessed by now. Yeah - it's the box score for the last 40 innings the Sox have played. Yeesh. Not going to win many games when you can't score more than 1 run an inning. I don't know binary code, so maybe there's a clue in this - but I highly doubt it.

In true RSN (Red Sox Nation) style, it's panic time, and the Sox are in freefall. Their flaws are being exposed, and outside of Youkilis and Pedroia they don't have any big time hitters or anyone who scares opposing pitchers (maybe Lowell on a good day). You could well argue that age and injuries are catching up, and this will soon start to look like a tired, broken down team. It will also make us regret not getting Texeira, as this may well turn out to be the big difference maker by season's end, and the Evil Empire will prevail again.

To be even more bleak, Tampa Bay is just hitting their stride now, and could easily glide by the Sox, leaving them gasping in third place and - strange as it may sound - out of the playoffs. See what happens when you release Lugo?!?!?!? Between him and his pal Manny, there may be another curse shaping up.

How can things go from so bright to so bleak so quickly? I was at the Jays/Sox game on Sunday. Halladay pitched his heart out, and it was clear to me from the third inning on he was in shutdown mode, and the Sox weren't going to get anything more off him. Well, they got one more baserunner, but nothing else.

When everyone is hitting, they ARE the best team in baseball. However, they are just as likely to fold as a group, and then nobody hits. Right now, they've just been too inconsistent, and of course they're going cold just as the Yankees are getting hot. Topsy turvy. I can only hope the tables turn again, and the Sox come back to life in time to save the season.

Today, I'm not too optimistic, and it's looking more likely that they'll need to trade for a big bat by next week to rejuvenate the lineup. I really think it's necessary and my money in on Victor Martinez. That would be great, but short term, let's hope they just get back on the winning track and whimper out of Texas without getting swept. Oh, the joy of Sox...

SIP Trunking Podcast/Interview on BTQ

I've been a contributor to Business Trends Quarterly for some time, and also serve on their Editorial Advisory Board.

June was a busy month for content generation, and some of that is coming to market now. One of these was an engagement with BTQ to help organize and moderate a roundtable discussion about SIP Trunking. I've been pretty connected to this topic recently, and it was a great opportunity to aggregate viewpoints from across the ecosystem.

Joining me on this roundup was Steve Johnson from Ingate, Alan Percy from AudioCodes, Alan Klein from Avaya, and Michael Timar from Panasonic. Two outputs were produced from our session - a podcast along with a full transcript that is running in the current print edition of BTQ. As I've mentioned before, it's a solid publication, and the subscription is free.

If you don't have the magazine, you can access the transcript in PDF form. To access the PDF or listen to the podcast, you can find the links on the Work Samples section of my website.

Thoughts on Avaya's Bid for Nortel

Seems like everyone in telecom has an opinion about Avaya's long-expected offer to acquire the enterprise side of Nortel. I'm figuring it will happen, but there's a very real chance a better offer will come - maybe from the likes of Siemens, or maybe from a dark horse like Sonus, Huawei or even Cisco. How about a PE-backed mystery buyer?

Lots of possibilities here, but one way or another, it looks like Nortel is over and out in this space. That said, I was pleased to read about DiamondWare being part of the package, and if you don't know why, please check out my earlier posts on them, starting here.

We all have our trusted sources, and by now you've probably done your share of reading up on the buzz around this news. I just want to share two with you here. First is a short article in InformationExec that I was cited in.

Second is a podcast I participated in yesterday afternoon. I recently posted about my expanded involvement with Jim Burton's UCStrategies portal. Part of this involves a podcast based on a weekly roundup call with the other UCS consultants. We did our first one yesterday - it was a bit ad hoc, but Jim pulled it together very nicely. Surprise, surprise - we all wanted to talk about Avaya/Nortel.

So, if you want to hear a rather impromptu roundtable from our group, you'll get a wide range of opinions as to what this deal may hold in store. It's a quick way to get a digest from a lot of well-informed people - and all you need to do is click here and download the podcast.

Well, you're not quite done. After listening, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Then bookmark the site and come visit often. We plan to do these weekly, and I think it's the start of something good.