Vidtel Pushes into SMB with Polycom

Been trying hard to get this post up before the day is out. It's been an intense week on a few fronts, and it's been a good week for Vidtel. This is Scott Wharton's startup, and he's put together a solid team and a great offering since launching in early December.

You can read up the background in that post, but the story today is a nice progression. Vidtel came to market with a Grandstream video phone, selling a video telephony service to consumers. It's a huge opportunity, but you have to win business one household at a time, and that will take a while for an unknown startup. No matter. Scott has a plan, and with a solid offering, I'm confident he will make this work.

The SMB market is another frontier altogether, and to tackle that, they need an upgraded handset and partners with an installed base of customers and/or channels. Well, they have that now with Polycom, and together, this should be a winner.

Earlier this week, Polycom announced the launch of their VVX 1500 media phone, which features HD voice, video telephony, and open APIs to support third party and SIP applications. It's another step along the path of how telephones and PCs are morphing into appliances that support IP and Web-based applications.

Vidtel enters the picture with a follow-on announcement about how they are now the world's first provider of an SMB services offering built around the VVX 1500.

Now we're getting somewhere, folks. To me, this is big news - it's probably the coolest, sexiest SMB offering out there, and once people wake up to what's on offer, they should be running to get this service. Speaking with Scott today - on Vidtel of course - I can see how excited he is about the news. It's truly an industry first, and Vidtel has come a long way in a very short time.

Actually, Scott noted that my call with him was probably the world's first real-world session using the VVX 1500 over Vidtel's network. Well, that makes two of us who were excited to be talking about this today - cool! So, for what it's worth, maybe I have the scoop for a change, and I can tell you that the call quality was great. The video image was crisp, the colors were bright, and the session ran pretty much in real-time. No noticeable jitter or image degradation - it was a solid experience. That may be the most important takeaway from this post - it works, folks - and I'm sure the market will love it once they try it out.

When I presented about SIP Trunking last month at the IT Expo, this is exactly the type of offering everyone is looking for to leverage the power of end-to-end IP. HD voice is a big part of the story, and you'll know what I mean if you've experienced it. Combine this with high quality video, and the VVX 1500 becomes a powerful communications hub, and will be a great driver for videoconferencing, something I've been bullish on for a while. For more background on HD voice, I'll steer you to an interview I did recently with Polycom's Jeff Rodman, who is regarded as the "father of HD voice".

To sum up, it's been a big week for Vidtel, and a good one for both Polycom and BroadSoft. Scott had a long tenure at BroadSoft prior to Vidtel, and their BroadWorks platform is a key component to enable and support the applications that make the VVX 1500 such a powerful communications device. Lots of familiarity here, and in this case, I think that's a big reason why all these pieces fit together so nicely.

Max's Take on the new iPod Shuffle - Small is Beautiful

Got a new post to share from my closest blogging competitor - my son Max. He's written a review on the latest iPod Shuffle, and has an interesting take on its size and perceptions in general about the size of Apple's devices.

It may not be of interest for telecom types, but as always, a teen's point of view of tech and gadgets is distinct, and Max in particular has his own take on things. Enjoy, and by all means, let him know your thoughts!

Google Voice - VoIP is Alive and Well

I don't jump on news items all that much, but today's Google Voice story is a good one, and is a great validation for my position that VoIP is far from dead. Followers of my blog would be familiar with that topic, which I wrote about in a favorable light in December, but sparked lively debate on both sides of the dead or alive argument about the state of VoIP.

I've been trying to get this post out all day, but project work is keeping me busy, plus I've been fielding a handful of media calls about Google Voice. So what's the fuss?

You should start first with the media - Fierce VoIP and the San Fran Chronicle, then move on to the blogs, namely GigaOm and Andy Abramson. Andy has to be particularly happy since he was an early backer of GrandCentral and they were one of his many clients to have successful exits - very nice.

I was happy to be contacted about this story by the media, as I've followed GrandCentral for some time, and wrote about their being acquired back in 2007. This morning I was cited on the BBC's coverage of Google Voice, which was also picked up by Negocios. That one's in Portuguese - I've got no idea what they're saying, but I'm in there! The SF Chronicle called about this yesterday, but the timing didn't work out, so I missed that one - sorry Verne.

Finally, Wired got my take on Google Voice this afternoon, but it's not running yet. The article running there now on Google Voice is from yesterday, and the updated story should be posted any time now. I'll revise this post once it's up.

UPDATE - the Wired article referenced above has now been posted. I figured it best to leave the link for the earlier article, and now provide the link to today's Wired article that I was cited in.

As mentioned, this is good move for Google, and really helps make their Google Apps suite more sticky, and with GC's voice rec piece, it could be an important driver in bolstering their mobile search capabilities. It makes them a more interesting alternative to Skype, but I'd say it's more of a threat to Microsoft and even IBM/Lotus for business users. There's enough here to keep you busy for a while, but if you still have questions, please drop me a line!

Vayyoo Service Now Launched

I wasn't able to post about this at eComm last week, but I was using their service then, and posting with it to my blog. I'm referring to Ottawa-based Vayyoo, who had their official launch last week of vPost for BlackBerry users.

vPost is this cool application that allows you to capture and upload multimedia content on your BlackBerry smartphone device to an online destination, whether that's your blog, website, etc. It's easy to upload one item at a time today - an email, a photo, a video snippet, etc. However, it's much harder to upload multiple items at once, so vPost can be a real time saver. Plus it allows you to integrate the content, such as annotating a photo. vPost is a natural for power bloggers, social networking junkies, mobile workers or anyone who wants/needs to post information in near real-time to a broader community. Think of being at a music event with your friends, or a journalist with breaking news on location.

vPost got a nice review the other day on CNET/Webware, so if you don't believe me, give this a read. This is just the beginning for Vayyoo, and as things progress, they'll be extending this application to other mobile platforms, so don't worry if you're not a BlackBerry user.

I'll have more to say about Vayyoo as I have more time to use it and as they build on this announcement. For transparency, I will note that I'm an Advisor to Vayyoo, but that aside, you have to admit it's a pretty neat application!

February Media Roundup

I'm later than usual getting this monthly roundup post done, thanks largely to eComm keeping me so busy last week. February was light in terms of press coverage, but I was quite active with the launch of 2 white papers and an industry study - 1 of which is cited in this post, and another will be cited in my March roundup.

On the press front, I have just two items to steer you to:

- Tech Media Reports - Mobivox's Talk-Out customer announcement (subscription required, but I have a soft copy)

- Calysto PR Vibes - IT Expo roundup (posted on Rich Tehrani's blog)

Technically, I can point you to a third citing, but it's actually a mis-attribution. I'm really doing this to illustrate the lighter side of the blogosphere, as I'm sure it happens all the time. I have no idea who these people are, where they got this quote from, or why/how the attributed it to me! This is either sloppy blogging (I'm hesitant to call it journalism), or a really botched job of stealing content from other sources.

- Live Journal - Skype's video calling for the Mac


Regarding those launches, one had a press release last month that cited me:

- Jajah - launch at Mobile World Congress of their 2009 Telecom Industry Issues Index - you're welcome to download the report from my website

On TMCnet, my bi-monthly Service Provider Views columns ran, both of which built on the SIP Trunking seminars I presented during the IT Expo in early February:

- SIP Trunking – the 6 Cs of Communications Evolution

- SIP Trunking - What's in it for Service Providers?

Finally, I wrote an Ask the Expert response for Tech Target's Unified Communications portal. You need a membership to access the content, but it's free and just takes a minute. I'm about to start doing a few more things with them, so look for more contributions from me there soon.

- What is the future of VoIP in the remote emerging telecom markets?

Why You Needed to be at eComm 2009

I've been posting photos and snippets during eComm this week, but composing my overall impressions has been another matter. Sitting through 3 days mostly filled with continuous 15 minute presentations is a surefire recipe to fry your brain, and most people I talked to were topped out well before things wrapped up Thursday night. It's information overload of the highest - and best - order, and I'm not alone in needing some time to decompress and gather my thoughts about what it all means.

Here's my top-line takeaway, and reading the rest of this post is really just detail. But it's detail you'll probably love if you really want to know what you missed. So, what does it all mean, this eComm thing? I don't know - really.

Was it a conference? Sure - we met, we conferred, we learned, business got done. A trade show? Definitely not - thankfully. It had elements of an unconference and the feel of an academic symposium at times. eComm has a distinct feel that's different from other events, and I'm beginning to think it's becoming the prototype for 2.0-style conferences - whatever that means.

Leaving all that aside, my main message is this - how I feel at the end of the day is what really matters. Whatever you want to call eComm, I came away feeling that Lee was right - this wasn't an event you should have attended, it was an event you NEEDED to attend. If you already know that, then you don't need to read any further - but if you don't know why, then stay with me here for a few minutes.

First off, the requisite kudos to Lee Dryburgh must yet again be pronounced. I've never seen a conference organizer get a standing O before, but it was warranted, and everyone felt good doing it. As an Advisory Board member, I know all too well how much heart and soul Lee has put into eComm, and in case you didn't know, he's not doing it for the money. Sure, he wants to make a buck like all of us, but it's not his motivation for doing eComm - otherwise, it never would have gotten this far. Thanks again Lee - now go spend some parental time with your daughter - am sure she misses you.

Lee's still a novice in the show business, and while many things could have been done better, nobody was complaining - there's a feeling here we're all in this together - kind of like the way rock music was before it became big business in the mid-70's. Before that, audiences had a much more direct connection to the bands, and it was all about the music. Nothing like the way it is today. Many of us in the audience at eComm were speakers, and there was a fluid flow of engagement between listeners and presenters - the way it should be. And of course with most people Twittering away, there was a real-time sense of community developing and bonding before our eyes. I'm pretty sure that was the vibe Lee was shooting for, and he got it in spades. You can't buy that, and it sure doesn't happen at bigger, more professionally run shows.

I should also mention that Lee added a nice touch by donating 10% of the show profits to a local charity, and had a brief presentation around this towards the end of the last day. As mentioned, it's not about the money for Lee, and while we're all happy that eComm 2009 did turn a modest profit, it says a lot when someone who gets such a small return for so much work still has enough heart to share with those who truly need a hand, especially in today's economy. This is not how show business is usually done, and it's another reason why eComm is different from other conferences.

Before moving off the thank-you soap box, kudos are also due to Comunicano for all their behind the scenes work to get eComm in the media spotlight and help generate the coverage it deserves. Andy Abramson and his team know this territory as well as anybody, and their pro-bono support makes them an important part of this emerging community.

It's always a special feeling being part of something from the start, and that alone made being there great. Most of us were more than just passive spectators, and Lee was quite receptive to giving people a chance to contribute. Many of the speakers would not fit into the formats of other shows, so the diversity of viewpoints and topics was another important reason to be there. The eComm format is fairly rigid, but content themes were the opposite - loosely defined at best. There weren't multiple tracks where you go to Hall B for wireless, Hall G for video, Hall J for regulatory issues, etc. It all took place in one room, and we were all subjected to a nearly endless parade of 15 minute speaker slots.

Lee was the ruthless timekeeper, and when the gong sounded, off you went. Some begged for 10 seconds more, but to no avail. I was very sceptical about this approach last year, but he's made it work, and now I'm a fan. Anyhow, this is a long-winded way of saying eComm is a pretty distinct breed of conference, and if you came for the content, your time and money was well-spent. The challenge, of course, is trying to absorb it all. That's my major concern, but even if you just take half of it in, I'm pretty sure you'll come away some very fresh and inspired thinking.

Oh - one other thing - and it's a big one. Although the audience makeup seemed heavy on developers and light on service providers, it's not clear to me whether eComm is friend or foe to the carrier community. I had this fundamental concern last year, and I'm not sure if it's any clearer this time around. You may say that's a red herring since it's obvious that the eComm crowd is not a fan of big telcos. It's like trying to ignore George Bush while he was in office.

No amount of chest thumping from iPhone-toting developers is going to change the status quo. I need to be careful here, of course, since good changes ARE happening. eComm is helping define an incredible market opportunity that will happen, and you could just as well argue that the onus is on the incumbents to decide if they want in and be on the right side of history. And a few of them were at eComm - Sprint, T Mobile, SaskTel - either bravely or with a sense of vision. So, maybe it's by design that eComm is ambiguous in its embrace of the telcos - or maybe Lee hasn't figured that part out yet himself.

It IS clear, though, that Lee is calling for an evolution in the telecom world - not a revolution and overthrow of the evil regime. This problem is not unique to eComm. In its heyday, VON was not seen as carrier-friendly by the telcos, but some came along grudgingly because they knew change was coming and needed to see what all the fuss was about. Tricky stuff here - let's move on. The main thing I'm getting at is that the eComm message needs to be heard by the incumbents - it's still their world. On that count, I think eComm still has a ways to go.

So, I'll share some of the content highlights with you now. I should preface this by saying that from what I could tell I was just 1 of 3 industry analysts at eComm, and the only one from North America. Lucky me. So, don't waste your time scouring the websites of Gartner, IDC, Forrester, etc. for first-hand accounts. This is the only one you're going to find on this side of the Atlantic.

It's an Apple world, folks. No surprise, given we were in San Francisco. The vast majority use Mac computers and iPhones. I'm definitely in the minority with my Bold and Toshiba notebook, but hey, the broadband worked just fine for all of us. Despite that, I have no qualms recognizing how brilliant Apple is at branding their products. I was onstage only once, moderating the Voice 2.0 panel. Looking out into the audience, I couldn't help but notice a sea of illuminated Apple logos beaming back at me from the covers of everyone's Macbooks. Great marketing.

I digress. Regarding content, the iPhone was a recurring theme, perhaps the most common one overall. You'd think developers have sworn wholesale allegiance to Apple. Actually there was quite a bit for Android too, and this points to a broader meta-theme of wireless applications. No surprise there, and if mobility is your passion, you would have found something of interest in almost every presentation.

Baby, baby it's a wireless world. I've been waiting a long time to use that line, and I'm sure Cat Stevens won't mind. Aside from all the life-changing - or just plain fun - wireless apps we learned about, there was a lot of time spent around wireless spectrum issues, and the broader topics of regulation, social policy, net neutrality. It's actually a pretty bleak picture for those of us in the U.S. and Canada for that matter. There's so much opportunity being squandered by a lack of will, vision and the trumping of private interests over the public good, and we just look so philistine compared to Europe and Asia. The people who have the right answers were in our midst at eComm, but there's a sense of frustration, anger, resignation, etc. about how to get good governance in place to properly equip us for the Information Economy. Lee - we need more focus on this in 2010.

The future is cool - really cool. I found Thursday the best in terms of speakers telling us what the future holds. In particular, there were really engaging presentations from Mark Rolston of Frog Design, Jeevan Kalanithi of MIT Labs, and Stefan Agamanolis of Distance Labs. Other standouts that made me think and re-think about what's coming include Thomas Howe - now of Jaduka, Malcolm Matson of OPLAN Foundation, Xuedong Huang of Microsoft, futurist Gerd Leonhard, Ge Wang of Smule (can you perform Stairway to Heaven on your iPhone? - he can show you how). I'm not going to expend another 2,000 words telling you what we saw - just take my word for it, or do some searching on your own. Better yet, plan to come to the next eComm and see for yourself. You won't be disappointed.

Ok, folks, this post is getting long, and I'm not getting paid to do this, so I'll close off with a few more quick highlights that made eComm worthwhile for me.

My Voice 2.0 panel. Not so much because of me, but we had a great lineup who showed the audience that innovative and profitable voice-based applications are out there today. It was also very satisfying to see that the Wall Street Journal picked up on this theme and wrote an article about our panel.

Daniel Brusilovsky/Teens in Tech. My personal favorite highlight. Daniel is just 16, and is a budding 2.0 star. He's got a cool portal, does quite a bit of consulting, and manages to stay in high school. This is another thing that makes eComm cool - where else are you going to see a 16 year old up on stage? It was particularly sweet for me, as my oldest son, Max, presented last year (he was 15 then) and set a nice precedent that I hope Lee continues. Anyhow, Daniel spoke about how teens are using things like the iPhone, and pretty much stumped the audience when he asked what the average age of an iPhone user is. Care to guess?

Two more quick snippets that have been rolling around in my mind...

Martin Geddes - he's gone to BT now, and was the first to go in Andy's draft list. He spoke via video, and was very good - he always is - that's why BT hired him on. Anyhow, he said one simple thing that seems very much at the root of the tension eComm is trying to get us focused on. Telcos have long assumed that our time is not valuable, but their network operations are. No doubt that networks have historically been expensive undertakings, but just because we pay for the privilege of using your services doesn't mean our time is cheap.

Martin correctly notes that today the opposite is true - networks are relatively inexpensive to operate (IP, anyway), and our time is in fact quite valuable. With so many options for communications and entertainment, our time is damned valuable - why the hell do you think we multitask so much!?!? Too much choice can be a bad thing, but in this world, we have to make choices about where we spend our time, how we spend it, and with whom. Telcos that take our time for granted will be left with expensive networks and no customers. I can only presume that BT gets that.

Ribbit's presentation - Crick Waters gave a nice Darwinian-flavored overview of how communications has evolved and how the natural selection process explains which features survive. No revelations there, but I don't think he ever referenced the fact that Ribbit is now part of BT. Interesting, since his talk followed Martin's, who was clearly wearing the BT hat. Is it just me? For those of you who follow Ribbit or read my TMCnet column, you'll know that the Ribbit brand stays in place, and in fact, they are free to pursue other carrier business outside BT. Am not sure how they did that, but it gets them the best of both worlds. Nice.

Anyhow, given my earlier comments about whether eComm is friend or foe to big telcos, I thought this would have been a great opportunity to say how savvy BT was to embrace this space and put their money on the line for Ribbit. Whether they overpaid is another story, but considering where Ribbit was a year ago at the inaugural eComm, they are without a doubt the poster boy to which all voice platform vendors aspire to - and I think it's great that eComm attendees get to bear witness to how much can change in a year's time - wow.

There were quite a few Ribbits-in-waiting at eComm - Voxeo, Mobivox, Jajah, Jaduka, Ifbyphone - and my instincts tell me that at least one of these will have a good news story to share with us at the next eComm. If so, Lee, you'll start to get a rep as a king-maker, and in that case, you'd better start raising the cost of admission and sponsoring!

That's my story, and it's a long way of saying eComm was a great event, and should now be considered a must-attend for thought leadership, innovation and community in the telecom/communications sector. I'm glad to have been a part of it, and am looking forward to helping get the next one going.

If you haven't had your fill, have a look at posts from fellow eCommers such as Dean Bubley, Andy Abramson and Jim Courtney.

And if you can spare another few hours, hop over to the eComm site to review the play-by-play Twitter backchannel, the eComm blog, and Duncan Davidson's photo gallery. If you can do all that, you'll make Lee feel real proud, and you won't have any excuse not to attend eComm 2010.

eComm 2009 - Day 3

The eComm 2009 blur continues, but we're done now. Today's sessions were the best and most thought-provoking. Really good stuff, and if you just came for today, it would have been worth your while. I only have enough energy to post some photos, but I will add my overall impressions after I've had some time to decompress.

Hats off to Lee Dryburgh - he's done a fantastic job to make this conference happen. I'm convinced now that eComm was not a one-off wonder, and that Lee has the makings of a viable, ongoing conference now. He's already talked about doing a European event in the Fall, so stay tuned.


Stefan Agamanolis, Distance Lab - thinking more broadly about how we communicate - imagine floating in a pool and speaking to someone while being in a sensory deprivation environment --- you had to see the video to see what he was getting at - loved it



Thomas Howe, Jaduka - as always, he grounds us all in reality



RJ Auburn, Voxeo - more examples of innovation around voice - their Tropo launch was one of the highlights of the conference




Daniel Brusilovsky, Teens in Tech - my personal favorite of the conference. He's 16, and gave a great presentation about how his generation is using today's tools, especially the iPhone - a star in the making. Many parallels here to my oldest son, Max, who presented at eComm last year, and was 15 at the time. These guys are the future, and it's not hard to see why.




XD - Xuedong Huang, Microsoft - great opening line - he explained that the reason why the audience was almost exclusively using Apple Macs instead of PCs was simply that they don't have Windows 7 yet! Gotta like that. He had a great video showing a futuristic vision of what's possible with ubiquitous broadband that's literally in the air - very magical, and similar to a video he showed recently at the IT Expo. I don't think Microsoft hired Pixar to make this, but it's certainly in that vein.



Martin Gedddes, BT - sharing his thoughts on the future of telephony remote via video