Lots going on this week, and my latest Service Provider Views article is running just days after the last one. This column focuses on the 4GWE event - 4G Wireless Evolution - running next week at the TMC IT Expo in Los Angeles.
I've addressed wireless issues in earlier columns, and this one serves as a timely preview for what 4GWE will be covering next week. To do this, I put together a Q&A with Carl Ford, who most of you will know, and he shares his thoughts on the the evolving mobility market as well as what's coming at 4WGE. The interview was published this morning on the 4GWE portal, and you can read it here. Their event runs September 1 - 3, and I'll be dropping by during the 2nd and 3rd days, as I'll be busy running the Smart Grid Summit all day on the 1st. See you there!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Fonolo Makes Time Magazine List
Making Time Magazine should be a big deal for anyone in our space, and it was so great to hear that hometown startup Fonolo just made their list of Top 50 Websites for 2009! How cool is that?
I haven't had time this week to blog about anything other than Smart Grid, but this was too good to pass up. Now, sure, I'm an Advisor to Fonolo, and am a bit partial to Canadian startups - and guess what - Fonolo CEO Shai Berger will be on one of my panels at next week's IT Expo. What a happy confluence of events! Let's just put those things aside for a sec - c'mon, this is great recognition for a company that happens to be on a pretty good roll these days. Just have a quick visit to their website and you'll see what I mean.
To provide some context, after looking over all 50 sites in the list, Fonolo is the only startup in our space that I recognize. However, they sure are in good company with other Top 50 sites, including household names like Skype, Flickr, YouTube, Google, Hulu, Twitter, Amazon, Wikipedia and Facebook. Pretty nice crowd to be running in, so hats off to Shai and his team for making this list! Needless to say, I'll be making sure the audience knows about this at our session, and I'm looking forward to buying Shai a drink - care to join us?
I haven't had time this week to blog about anything other than Smart Grid, but this was too good to pass up. Now, sure, I'm an Advisor to Fonolo, and am a bit partial to Canadian startups - and guess what - Fonolo CEO Shai Berger will be on one of my panels at next week's IT Expo. What a happy confluence of events! Let's just put those things aside for a sec - c'mon, this is great recognition for a company that happens to be on a pretty good roll these days. Just have a quick visit to their website and you'll see what I mean.
To provide some context, after looking over all 50 sites in the list, Fonolo is the only startup in our space that I recognize. However, they sure are in good company with other Top 50 sites, including household names like Skype, Flickr, YouTube, Google, Hulu, Twitter, Amazon, Wikipedia and Facebook. Pretty nice crowd to be running in, so hats off to Shai and his team for making this list! Needless to say, I'll be making sure the audience knows about this at our session, and I'm looking forward to buying Shai a drink - care to join us?
UC Strategies Podcast - Cloud Computing
This week's UC Strategies podcast was on a topic I'm quite keen on - cloud computing. We had the usual mix of UC analysts/experts/pundits, and a pretty lively discussion about the opportunities around UC, what it means for the telecom vendors, the software players, and the VARs/channels. We also (myself included) talked about what Mitel is doing in particular with the cloud, especially since a few of us got a detailed upate at their recent analyst event.
The podcast is running now on the UC Strategies portal, and you can download it any time. As always, comments are welcome, as are suggestions for topics you'd like to see us cover in future podcasts. We do these weekly, although I'll miss next week's call as I'll be in transit to LA for the IT Expo.
The podcast is running now on the UC Strategies portal, and you can download it any time. As always, comments are welcome, as are suggestions for topics you'd like to see us cover in future podcasts. We do these weekly, although I'll miss next week's call as I'll be in transit to LA for the IT Expo.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Smart Grid - Where Service Providers Meet Utilities
My latest article for Service Provider Views is running now on TMCnet. Not surprisingly, the focus is Smart Grid. With the Smart Grid Summit being a week away, that's what's on my mind right now.
With this article, I'm adding another dimension to my focus on the service provider space. The Smart Grid Summit is all about where energy meets communications, and with every passing day, we're convinced this is going to be a major trend in 2010. If you're not there yet, this article is a good place to start, and as you'll see, TMC has published it on our Smart Grid portal, so hopefully it will serve as a jumping off point to explore all the other content we're putting up there.
With all this being so new, I'd love to hear your thoughts or suggestions, and if you're coming out to the IT Expo next week, I sure hope to see you there. The summit runs only on the Tuesday, and we're starting at 9am sharp.
With this article, I'm adding another dimension to my focus on the service provider space. The Smart Grid Summit is all about where energy meets communications, and with every passing day, we're convinced this is going to be a major trend in 2010. If you're not there yet, this article is a good place to start, and as you'll see, TMC has published it on our Smart Grid portal, so hopefully it will serve as a jumping off point to explore all the other content we're putting up there.
With all this being so new, I'd love to hear your thoughts or suggestions, and if you're coming out to the IT Expo next week, I sure hope to see you there. The summit runs only on the Tuesday, and we're starting at 9am sharp.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Good Sox, Bad Sox - Who Can Tell?
Is it just me, or are the other Sox fans out there scratching their heads after a convincing sweep over the roll-over-and-play-dead Jays? This is a very different team compared to when I last posted after being swept in the Bronx.
Aside from adding V-Mart and Gonzalez, the cast is basically the same, and you just can't tell which team will show up. I was at a game when the Sox last came to Toronto, and they were just so lackluster. Now they return to Toronto and look like the championship-caliber team I've always felt they could be.
Not much more to say other than to vent a bit. If they could play with consistency, they would have stayed in first place and not be fighting for their lives to make the Wildcard. And now I'm not so sure they'll get that far. Sure, the pitching has holes, but it's the uneven offense that is killing them, and they just don't seem to have the ability to sustain a solid attack for more than a few games at a time. It's like the whole team has ADD - they just can't focus for long periods of time.
You'd like to think the Toronto sweep is a sign of getting on track, and with the Yankees up next at home, they'll have a true reality check. If they continue swinging the bats and sweep, all of a sudden they're in contention for the AL East. But if they revert being the Bad Sox, nobody hits and the Yankees blow them away. In that case, their only hope is the Wildcard, and their confidence to beat good teams will be totally shot.
It's coin toss to me. I'm certain that one of those scenarios will unfold this weekend, and opening with the #4 and 5 starters, this could be an ugly series. If they can keep hitting, they can probably overcome weak pitching, but the Yankees are playing so well right now, and will be pretty motivated to put the Sox away at Fenway.
Something tells me Texeira will have a lot to do with this, and that would be a painful reminder of how costly it was for the Sox to lose him to NY. I can't think of any recent scenario where one player could impact the balance of power so much between these two teams. The Angels didn't lose any ground seeing him go to the Yankees, but the Sox sure did, and I think it's going to haunt them for a long time. I'd better stop now and get back to Smart Grid - this is starting to ruin my weekend...
Aside from adding V-Mart and Gonzalez, the cast is basically the same, and you just can't tell which team will show up. I was at a game when the Sox last came to Toronto, and they were just so lackluster. Now they return to Toronto and look like the championship-caliber team I've always felt they could be.
Not much more to say other than to vent a bit. If they could play with consistency, they would have stayed in first place and not be fighting for their lives to make the Wildcard. And now I'm not so sure they'll get that far. Sure, the pitching has holes, but it's the uneven offense that is killing them, and they just don't seem to have the ability to sustain a solid attack for more than a few games at a time. It's like the whole team has ADD - they just can't focus for long periods of time.
You'd like to think the Toronto sweep is a sign of getting on track, and with the Yankees up next at home, they'll have a true reality check. If they continue swinging the bats and sweep, all of a sudden they're in contention for the AL East. But if they revert being the Bad Sox, nobody hits and the Yankees blow them away. In that case, their only hope is the Wildcard, and their confidence to beat good teams will be totally shot.
It's coin toss to me. I'm certain that one of those scenarios will unfold this weekend, and opening with the #4 and 5 starters, this could be an ugly series. If they can keep hitting, they can probably overcome weak pitching, but the Yankees are playing so well right now, and will be pretty motivated to put the Sox away at Fenway.
Something tells me Texeira will have a lot to do with this, and that would be a painful reminder of how costly it was for the Sox to lose him to NY. I can't think of any recent scenario where one player could impact the balance of power so much between these two teams. The Angels didn't lose any ground seeing him go to the Yankees, but the Sox sure did, and I think it's going to haunt them for a long time. I'd better stop now and get back to Smart Grid - this is starting to ruin my weekend...
Thursday, August 20, 2009
IT Expo/Smart Grid Updates
Been running hard since our vacation to get the Smart Grid Summit program together. I've been so busy with that, it's easy to forget about the bigger picture. TMC's IT Expo is a little more than a week away, and it's their 10th anniversary, which is a pretty nice milestone in the show business. They've recently announced that Sir Terry Matthews is keynoting, and it sure will be busy.
I'll be moderating two panels - one on SMB IP telephony, and one on voice/Web 2.0 - and you can read more about these here.
I'm also part of TMC's Editor Day, and will be doing my share of briefings in their part of the press room.
On the Smart Grid Summit front, there's lots going on. First, our Smart Grid portal has added some new content, including Q&A's I did with the SIP Forum and Redline Communications. We've got many more of these in the works, and over time, we'll be adding podcasts and video interviews in addition to written contributions.
For the summit itself, we've made some recent tweaks to the agenda, and a full update will be published probably tomorrow. I can't share the details quite yet, but our panels are well represented, and we know the sessions will be good. We are lining up a couple of keynote speakers, and these will be announced ASAP. I should add that we have Redline Communications on as a sponsor now, and we have active interest from a few other majors in the works.
The website is open for registrations, and we're attracting media interest as well as inquiries from the social networking communities. All told, we've come a long way in very little time, and we can see already that a great foundation is in place to make this a full scale event in January for the next IT Expo.
I'll keep you posted here, but don't forget to check out the summit itself, and hope to see you there.
I'll be moderating two panels - one on SMB IP telephony, and one on voice/Web 2.0 - and you can read more about these here.
I'm also part of TMC's Editor Day, and will be doing my share of briefings in their part of the press room.
On the Smart Grid Summit front, there's lots going on. First, our Smart Grid portal has added some new content, including Q&A's I did with the SIP Forum and Redline Communications. We've got many more of these in the works, and over time, we'll be adding podcasts and video interviews in addition to written contributions.
For the summit itself, we've made some recent tweaks to the agenda, and a full update will be published probably tomorrow. I can't share the details quite yet, but our panels are well represented, and we know the sessions will be good. We are lining up a couple of keynote speakers, and these will be announced ASAP. I should add that we have Redline Communications on as a sponsor now, and we have active interest from a few other majors in the works.
The website is open for registrations, and we're attracting media interest as well as inquiries from the social networking communities. All told, we've come a long way in very little time, and we can see already that a great foundation is in place to make this a full scale event in January for the next IT Expo.
I'll keep you posted here, but don't forget to check out the summit itself, and hope to see you there.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
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