Podcast - UC, the channel and the cloud

This week's UCStrategies podcast addressed some big issues that any VAR or system integrator faces with UC - what to do about the cloud? The topic was put together by Steve Leaden, and he did a great job facilitating the discussion with several other UCS colleagues. A number have hands-on experience working with channels, and it was a good validation about how big these changes are, and how quickly they are coming. I added some thoughts at the end, mainly around the opportunity the cloud presents for channels to pursue new markets and customers.

Most of the conversation to that point was around managing existing customers, but that only addresses the defensive nature of what the cloud represents. I think net revenues with these customers will shrink with the cloud, and for that reason I wanted to emphasize how they can leverage the cloud to find new business. Regular readers of my blog will know the storyline I've been advocating for some time around Apple and how the iPad can be their Trojan Horse into the business market. I think there's a business just waiting to happen around an Apple UC ecosystem, and I'm sure many channel players are thinking the same thing.

Enough banter - the podcast is up on the UCStrategies portal now, along with a transcript. Give it a listen - and/or a read - and drop us a line to share your thoughts - we'd love to hear from you.

UCStrategies Podcasts - Now on iTunes/Welcome Kevin Kieller

Just wanted to share this item, which is good new for our growing followers at UCStrategies. UCS readers will know that we do regular podcasts (ideally every Tuesday, but we miss a few weeks here and there), and it's a great way to get a roundup of expert opinions on topical issues in the UC space.

When those are posted, we do our best to get the word out, and you can certainly get automated updates via the RSS feed, but now we have yet another way to do this.

As Apple continues to rule our digital lives, we've gotten with the program, and our podcasts can now been downloaded from the iTunes Store. It's pretty simple - free, of course - and even I could do it. Just open up your iTunes account, go to the iTunes store and find the podcasts section. We're in the Technology category, sub-head is "Tech News". If that doesn't take, just search ucstrategies (it's one word - no space in between) in the Podcast search bar, and our podcasts will be there. Got that? Now go get it!

While I have you, I'd like to pass on a welcome to our latest UCStrategies member, Kevin Kieller. He's based in Toronto with me, so I like him already! He's contributed his first post, so that's a good way to get an introduction. Welcome Kevin, and am sure we'll be speaking soon.

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.

Podcast - Socialcast - Social Media in the Enterprise

I'm an occasional contributor to Business Trends Quarterly, and they recently invited me to do a podcast on social media in the enterprise. My guest was Tim Young, the Founder and CEO of Socialcast, an interesting company in this emerging space.

We had a pretty long chat, and covered things like what Enterprise 2.0 is starting to look like, and the role that tools like social media are playing. Tim is somewhat of a pioneer in the space and talks about what companies like Socialcast are doing to help enterprises harness the potential of social media and actually get their money's worth along the way.

The podcast is quite long - about 42 minutes - so you might want to download it to your iPod and listen to it on the go. I've got two ways for you to access the file. One way is to pick up the link from my website. Just look for the Socialcast podcast on the Media Citings section of the site.

Another way is to download it directly from the BTQ website, but you have to register first to get it. If you like podcasts from a wide range of thought leaders, it's worthwhile since there's so much good content there. To find my podcast, you need to go the Web Events section of the BTQ site, then scroll down - quite a ways down actually - to Web 2.0 podcasts. It's the last topic listed there, and once you're at Web 2.0, it won't be hard to find the link, along with my photo.

Either way, I hope you give it a listen, and would love to hear your feedback.


Technorati tags: Business Trends Quarterly, Jon Arnold, Socialcast, social media, Enterprise 2.0

Unified Communications - is it Happening? Sheryl and Ken Have the Answer Tonight

This is one of those one-thing-leads-to-another posts.

I'll start at the beginning, then work up the action item, and why you should tune in to Sheryl and Ken's Stardust Radio program - tonight at 9pm EST - to dispel the "myths" of Unified Communications.

Here we go...

On July 9, fellow industry watcher Carl Weinschenk had a thought-provoking post on his IT-Finance Connection portal about "the case against VoIP". That should get your attention, right?

Carl made some good points, but it wasn't totally convincing in my books. I followed up with a post to add my take - a bit more pro-VoIP - as well as to draw some additional attention to his post.

I also couched the topic in the broader context of Unified Communications, which in my mind is a bigger story. That, in turn, caught Ken Camp's attention. On Thursday, he had a lengthy, informative post on his blog about the whole UC topic, including a reference to my post. So, now Ken and Carl have two degrees of separation via the blogosphere.

Included in Ken's post is an invite to join him and his partner Sheryl on their radio program tonight at 9pm EST. I have a dinner tonight and may not be back in time, but I urge you to listen in, as I'm sure they'll have some very engaging dialog about UC. And if you can't, there will be a replay available, and no doubt Ken will be sharing that on his blog soon enough.

CODA - if you're interested in more of the dialog around this, Mitel's Simon Gwatkin left a notable comment on my blog post Thursday. Basically he says that lots of SMBs are showing serious interest in UC, but there's also a very real "wait and see" attitude out there for UC to become more proven.


Technorati tags: Ken Camp, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications, VoIP

Jazinga Squawk Box Podcast

The other day, I posted about the Squawk Box I was hosting this week in Alec's absence.

My guest was Shidan Gouran, CTO and co-founder of Toronto-based Jazinga. They're a promising startup with an easy-to-use, premises based SMB IP telephony solution. For small businesses looking for PBX-caliber telephony, and an alternative to a hosted offering, Jazinga is what they should be looking at.

We had a strong turnout for yesterday's segment - 22 participants - and lots of good questions and discussion about Jazinga and what they're bringing to market.

Iotum has been running these segments for some time as a Facebook application, and along the way, they've learned enough about doing these to develop their own branded conferencing solution. It's called Calliflower, and was just launched with great fanfare on Tuesday. Our Squawk Box segment yesterday was the second one done using Calliflower, and we had a few glitches, but everything worked out fine in the end. One of these prevented me - as the moderator - from being able to record the session. Carl Ford, who was on the call, came to the rescue and recorded things from his end - so a big thank you to Mr. Ford for saving the day.

So, with a bit of editing, our concall is now ready for listening. Alec got it posted to his blog late last night, and you can get the link here. It runs about 40 minutes, and even if you're just mildly interested in SMB VoIP, it's time well spent.


Technorati tags: Jazinga, Jon Arnold, Iotum, Alec Saunders, Calliflower, SMB VoIP

Iotum 2.0/Jazinga Squawk Box Update

In yesterday's post, I talked about Thursday's Squawk Box segment that I'm hosting about Jazinga. I also hinted at some changes coming with Iotum, at it's pretty neat.

So, Iotum's new conferencing application is called Calliflower. Love the name. It's really a 2.0 approach to conferencing, and if this is something you do a lot, am sure you'll like it right away. I've just been too busy to get caught up in all the launch buzz, so I'll steer you two items that will fill in the blanks nicely. First, is a writeup by colleague Jim Courtney on Skype Journal. His post yesterday provides a nice summary of what it's all about. Second is yesterday's Squawk Box segment about Calliflower. In this case, Alec and Howard were the guests, being interviewed about Calliflower and how it came into being.

I mentioned Bill Shatner yesterday for good reason. Well, he's going to be the first guest on their public showcase of Calliflower. It takes place this Thursday evening, and you can sign up to participate here. Upcoming speakers include Alan Alda and Peter Senge, so these won't be your average everyday conference calls!

Finally, regarding tomorrow's Squawk Box with Jazinga, you can sign up for Calliflower and register for the call here. We'll be on at 11am EST tomorrow - hope you can make it.

Technorati tags: Jazinga, Jon Arnold, Iotum, Alec Saunders, Calliflower

Podcast on IP Telephony with Carl Weinschenk

Colleague Carl Weinschenk launched his portal, IT-Finance Connection about a month ago, and it's a great resource for anyone wanting to better understand the dynamics between the CIO/CTO and CFO/COO worlds.

Increasingly, they need to work together, and Carl has picked an important area to focus on here. Carl is basically the Publisher, and in addition to his blog posts and podcasts, there's a newsletter you can sign up for. Better yet, if you're an advertiser wanting to address this space, I'm sure Carl would love to hear from you!

Earlier this week, I was Carl's first podcast guest, and we talked about issues around how IT departments need to position VoIP and IP telephony to their finance people. My key message was that these technologies need to viewed beyond just saving money on phone calls, and that the ROI model is different from the capital intensive PBX model they've been using for so long. And of course there are the productivity benefits that begin with VoIP as a building block. Finally, on a practical level, IT needs to explain that if it's done right, VoIP should be pretty seamless to adopt, and end user behaviors won't need to change for their everyday communications.

The podcast was posted last night, and I hope you give it a listen. Carl conducts a nice interview, and I love the intro music. If you like what you hear, please leave a comment on the portal - I know Carl will appreciate it.

Technorati tags: IT Finance Connection, Jon Arnold, Carl Weinschenk

Squawk Box - Telecom Conference Roundup/IP Comm Insights Launch

Marc Robins and I were guests on today's Squawk Box call, hosted by Alec Saunders. This was my first time on as a guest, and it sure was fun. The turnout was great, and the discussion lively - and quite earnest, especially regarding the state of the VON conference.

We went on almost an hour, first talking about our new venture, IP Communications Insights, and then about the recent conferences we've been attending - eComm, VON and Voicecon.

Many in the audience had been to these events as well, so if you want a good roundup of how a mini-sample of the market is feeling about them, the podcast is time well spent. Alec has posted the link to his blog, and I sure hope you give it a listen.

CODA: given the circles many of the people on today's call travel in, today's conference roundup was eerily timely given what a number of well-informed sources tell me is unfolding as I write with one of them --- and by the time you read this post, this won't seem so cryptic.

Technorati tags: Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, Marc Robins, Squawk Box

Interviewing on Squawk Box - Listen Up!

Just a short note, and I probably should have done this earlier in the day.

I'll be a guest on tomorrow's Squawk Box, which is hosted daily by Alec Saunders. We're on at 11am EST, and we'll be covering two things....

1. Colleague/partner Marc Robins and I will be doing a roundup review of the conferences we've attended over the last 2 weeks - eComm2008, Spring VON.x and Voicecon. Alec, of course will have his take, so it should be a lively discussion.

2. Marc and I will talk about the recent launch of IP Communications Insights, which is our long-gestating consulting venture. We're focused on creating a stronger voice for the independent analyst perspective, and if you join us on the call, we'll tell you why we think this is needed in the marketplace.

Alec's got a great thing going with these podcasts, and of course is a great way to showcase Iotum's free conference calling application for Facebook. Hope you can make the call, and if not, I'll post about it once the archived link is ready.

Technorati tags: Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, Marc Robins, Squawk Box

Russell Shaw - Podcast Tribute

Alec Saunders hosted a thoughtful, heartfelt Squawk Box segment yesterday dedicated to Russell Shaw. I had PC problems that prevented me from joining the call, but he got a really nice turnout.

The podcast runs about 30 minutes, and has several remembrances from Alec, Jim Courtney, Andy Abramson, Jeff Pulver and others. If you ever met Russell or just read any of his well-regarded blogs and journals, you'll come away from this with a warm feeling and sense of community that runs deeper than our everyday interactions. You can download the podcast from Alec's blog, and my thoughts were posted yesterday.

Technorati tags: Russell Shaw, Jon Arnold, Alec Saunders

Podcast with Jim Burton - Zeacom and Unified Communications

The TMC ITExpo took place earlier this month, and while the show is no longer newsworthy, I did a podcast there that has just been published.

Colleague Jim Burton runs the UC Strategies portal, to which I regularly contribute and often cite. During the ITExpo, Jim and I sat down to do a podcast, and we ended up talking about the overall state of unified communications, with a particular focus on an exhibitor that caught our eye - Zeacom. They've been making some noise about having had a UC solution for years, and based on the demos we saw, they do have a pretty interesting offering.

The podcast was posted to the UC Strategies portal earlier this week, and if these topics appeal to you, I think you'll find our chat worth a listen. Having been in Ottawa most of the week, this has been my first chance to post it, but I don't think you're missing anything picking it up now.


Technorati tags: Jim Burton, Jon Arnold, UC Strategies, Zeacom

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Brief Hiatus

I've been doing my weekly podcasts on the Canadian market for almost 2 years, and there's no shortage of interesting people to talk to.

No podcast this week, though, nor next week, as I'll be at the TMC ITExpo.

Am also on a mini-hiatus with these, as there are some internal admin issues being sorted out right now at Pulvermedia, so I don't have a production partner for the time being. This should be taken care of shortly, though, and hopefully I'll be able to resume my pods there in a week or so. Until then, you'll have to make do with my written posts, but if the spoken word is what you really want, then click on the Odiogo widget on my blog page!


Technorati tags: podcasts, Jon Arnold, Canada

VoiceCon - Podcasts with Key Speakers

I didn't attend VoiceCon last week, but I heard a lot of good things about it. As you may know, I contribute when I can to the UCS portal - Unified Communications Strategies, which is a great resource for anyone following UC.

They were definitely busy at VoiceCon, especially Blair Pleasant and Jim Burton. Jim was telling me they had put together a number of podcasts done with key speakers, and they're now posted on the portal. Lots of good content there about trends in UC, including podcasts with Microsoft, Avaya, Intervoice, IBM and others.

I especially liked the IBM podcast with Mike Rhodin. In addition to elaborating on IBM's plans to build on their Lotus Sametime installed base for UC, Mike talks about why they just acquired WebDialogs. It's always great to see small companies with great technology being acquired by the likes of IBM, and it's a nice payoff for Lou Guercia who has taken WebDialogs to the promised land - hopefully. I've gotten to know Lou a bit through Andy Abramson, who does their PR, and WebDialogs is actually the second client on his roster to become acquired recently (the other is GrandCentral). Good news all around, and I'm hoping we'll all see other at the TMC Expo in two weeks time.



Technorati tags: Voicecon, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications Strategies

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Elliot Katz - Microsoft Vista

This week, my guest was Elliot Katz from Microsoft Canada. Elliot is the Senior Product Manager, Windows Client, and I invited him to come speak about Vista and Office 2007. With Microsoft being so ubiquitous, I don't mind devoting a podcast to a company's product offering, since almost everyone uses it.

Elliot provided a rich perspective on the "four pillars" behind Vista, and we focused mainly on two - security and mobility. There certainly was a lot to talk about, and being a user of both products, I found this particularly interesting. Definitely a lot of security challenges when you're such a big, tempting target for all the bad guys out there, and Elliot also talked about some of the Vista features that protect corporate data on notebooks that get lost or stolen.

We also touched briefly on the Canadian experience in adopting Vista, which not surprisingly lags the U.S. Elliot also talked about the roles and contributions Microsoft Canada provides in developing Vista.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Elliot.


Technorati tags: Elliot Katz, Jon Arnold, Microsoft Canada, Windows Vista

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mark Farmer and Mobile Email for the Masses

For some reason, I seem to do podcasts with a lot of wireless companies, many of which are in Toronto, which otherwise is not really a VoIP hotbed. Tons of new media and video for sure, but it's a little lonely here otherwise. So, I always enjoy doing podcasts with someone in my own area code.

This week's guest was Mark Farmer, making his second appearance with me. He was previously with another wireless company, and has stayed in that space, but with a different focus. Recently, he went over to OceanLake Commerce, who has just launched meemo, a new offering of mobile email service to consumers using their existing handsets. It's not exactly the BlackBerry experience, but it's a very economical alternative that makes mobile email much more accessible without changing your handset or provider.

Mark and I talked about the broader market opportunity for consumer-based mobile email, which is still pretty much untapped. Solutions like meemo open up some interesting new markets and we explored what the end user experience is like as well as some possible business models that may emerge.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Mark.


Technorati tags: Mark Farmer, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Meemo

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mike Fox and High Tech Recruiting

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Mike Fox, who runs a local recruiting firm here in Toronto, Brightlights Inc. I really try to mix things up on my podcasts, and I think recruiters are a pretty important part of the tech sector ecosystem. After all, we can't all be startups and indies, and when you least expect it, a call from a recruiter can be the best thing that's ever happened for your career.

Mike knows the local tech recruiting market pretty well, and he shared some pretty interesting insights on what companies are looking for, and the realities faced by startups in landing senior level people. He also had some good words of advice for people starting out and looking at tech as a career option.

I should also add that Mike's a pretty good marketer, and I recommend his monthly e-newsletter, especially if you want to stay current on the Toronto scene.

You can listen to the podcast here, as well as read more about Mike and his company.


Technorati tags: Mike Fox, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Brightlights, tech recruiting

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Dave Dobbin and Toronto Hydro Telecom

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Dave Dobbin, President of Toronto Hydro Telecom. I've been wanting to do this for a while, as THT has a pretty interesting WiFi offering in Toronto's downtown core. Downtown Toronto has plenty of broadband as it is, but not so much on the WiFi front, and Dave provided some very interesting perspectives on how this is going for them. He shared some of the realities of providing service as well as the usage patterns of the service among different types of subscribers. Dave also made a point of mentioning that THT provides some of the fastest bi-directional WiFi broadband speeds in North America.

More broadly, Dave provided an overview of the events that led up to THT coming into existence, and the rationale behind Toronto Hydro's fiber optic buildout that runs over their power line infrastructure. We also made the distinction between their fiber based capabilities for voice and data service, and broadband over powerline, which instead relies on the power grid for transmission. Dave explained that regulatory issues, more than anything keep them out of the BPL market, and for now, WiFi is their technology of choice for offering broadband services.

You can download the podcast here as well as read more about Dave.


Technorati tags: Toronto Hydro Telecom, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Dave Dobbin, municipal WiFi

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Espial and the IPTV Middleware Market

My guest this week was Brian Mahony, VP of Marketing at Ottawa-based Espial Group. Espial is one of the leading indie IPTV middleware vendors, and are very much connnected to the market and technology issues around IPTV. Brian provided a great perspective on the IPTV market and some of the better-known deployments.

Espial also just had a successful IPO, and Brian touched on some of the realities of being a public company, as well as what makes Ottawa such a viable market for tech startups.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Brian.

NOTE - no podcast next week - family vacation...

Technorati tags: Espial, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, IPTV

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Iain Klugman - Waterloo Tech Community

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Iain Klugman, CEO of Communitech. This is an interesting entity that serves as a hub for supporting Waterloo-based tech startups. Iain has a deep perspective about what makes Waterloo such a great spot for tech companies, and explained more about the role Communitech plays, as well as how it compares to similar initiatives in other tech centers in Canada and the U.S.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Iain.


Technorati tags: Communitech, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Iain Klugman, Waterloo technology