April 30, 2008
Fonolo Wins Best New Product at eComm
Another interesting story I missed out on yesterday. Toronto-based Fonolo announced they won Best New Product at last month's eComm, an event that I blogged about quite a bit. The news was posted yesterday on eComm's website, along with a video of Shai Berger's presentation. It was one of the few presos I missed at eComm, but I'm close enough to the company as it is - Shai is on my blog roll as well.
Fonolo just re-named itself and are ramping up to become a successful startup. In a word, their application is deep dialing, and to learn more watch the video, or spend a few minutes at their website. I've liked what they're doing from the start, and they really do solve real world problems that you'll relate to as soon as you check them out.
I'll leave at it that for now - I'd rather pique your interest here than spell it all out. The main thing is to recognize their win, and say congrats. It's a good day to be a Canadian startup!
Technorati tags: Fonolo, Jon Arnold, Shai Berger,eComm
Posted by jonarnold at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2008
Dimension Data Analyst Day
UPDATE - this post was written on Monday to summarize this analyst event. Due to the unavailability of broadband at our hotel, I'm only now able to get this posted...
Am in Boston for Dimension Data's analyst conference. It's the first time they've held an event like this in North America, and is part of their efforts to become better known here, especially among the analyst community.
Dimension Data is based in South Africa, but is truly a global IT services player, with revenues in the $4 billion range and customers in about 45 countries. They have quite the global footprint, and offer a complete set of solutions to help enterprises do the right things with IT. We've been hearing executive presentations about their full range of capabilities and their vision of how they pull all these services together and create value for their customers.
They're a public company, they're profitable, and are growing fast. Their solutions are heavily based around Cisco and Microsoft, with a lot of integration between them. Over the course of the day, they've been sharing lots of case studies across various geographies and vertical markets. There isn't much they can't do, so it's a great story in terms of what IT services providers need to be doing today to really add value for enterprises.
Was also nice to hear about their recent expansion into Canada. Their presence is small, but growing quickly. I'll certainly be spending more time with them locally once I'm back.
Good time to be here, and a good day to keep our attention. I was here over the weekend, and it's all sports right now. Last night, both the Bruins and Red Sox were playing here, and the street scene around the Fleet Center nearby was a blast. There's hasn't been this level of intensity around the Bruins for ages, and it was great to see a sea of Bruins and Habs jerseys everywhere. Bruins finally beat Montreal, and I think they've solved them, and just might make this a memorable series. Sox beat the Yankees again, so all is good here. And there are no games today, so Dimension Data truly has my undivided attention!
Jere Brown, Americas CEO
Brett Dawson, Group CEO
Technorati tags:
Dimension Data, Jon Arnold, Boston
Posted by jonarnold at 06:15 AM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2008
IT360 Conference Recap
The IT360 conference finished up today, and over the course of the past 3 days, Henry Dortmans and I saw through the 8 breakouts and 2 half-day tutorials on Unified Communications that we've been putting together for the event.
The quality of the sessions was very high, and we're quite pleased with how they turned out and are very thankful to all the speakers who put quite a bit of time and thought into their presentations. Thanks as well to the moderators who did their piece to help run the sessions and engage the audience.
Unfortunately, the sessions were very lightly attended, but let's just leave it at that. Canadian telecom conferences are by nature small and low key, and the experience is visibly different from comparable US events on many levels. For a change, that's all I'm going to say - it's just different. It's done. Time to move on to the next events - more on that later.
I'll just leave you with a few photos, courtesy of my Nokia N81...
Matthew Glotzbach, Google Enterprise
Ernie Wallerstein, Zeacom
Technorati tags:
IT360 Conference, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications
Posted by jonarnold at 08:52 PM | Comments (1)
April 04, 2008
Branham 300 - Canada's Top Tech Companies
Just saw this list, which is published annually in Backbone magazine. It's one of the better known barometers of Canada's tech sector, and I just wanted to share a few highlights with you.
The Branham 300 is actually 3 separate lists. The big one is the Top 250, ranked by revenue. No surprise to see Nortel #1 at $10.8 billion. Of course, it's debatable just how Canadian they still are, but they're clearly our biggest tech company. Following them is Celestica at $7.9 billion. Not much surprise for this IBM spinout, but they're not really in my everyday radar.
Rounding out the top 5 are the Big 3 operators - BCE at $7.7 billion, Telus at $6.0 billion and Rogers at $5.1 billion. Honorable mention - RIM is #7 at $3.0 billion. They probably have the strongest growth story of all these big players, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them move up a notch or two next year.
After this, things fall off rapidly, with a few companies in the $1 billion range, and then another drop off to around $500 million. Canada has always had very concentrated ownership, and it's no different in tech. Only 17 of the top 250 are $500 million or more, and only 11 are $1 billion or more.
So, in terms of service providers, after you get beyond the Big 3, there's Shaw at $1.4 billion, and everyone else is pretty much south of $1 billion. You don't need to look much further to understand why the regulators are so obsessed with the lack of competition up here.
With that said, I'd like to cite some of the other companies that are closer to my focus in this list - Mitel, Aastra, Ascalade, Vecima Networks, Sigma Systems, AirIQ, PIKA Technologies, Digital Fairway, Espial Group and Counterpath. Congrats to all of these for making the top 250 list.
The other two lists are much shorter and more focused - the Top 25 IT Multinationals and the Top 25 Up and Comers. The former has all the usual suspects - IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, HP, Siemens, etc. No surprises there. The other list is more my cup of tea, and two in particular are worth noting - Mobidia and Octopz. Most of the others are more focused on pure IT or softward, but there were a few I didn't know who are more into telecom and IP communications, so I've got some homework to do.
All told, it's a great snapshot about our tech market, and you're free to review it in more depth off the website.
Technorati tags: Branham 300, Jon Arnold, Backbone magazine, Canada
Posted by jonarnold at 10:58 AM | Comments (1)
April 01, 2008
IT360 Conference Coming Next Week
Time flies when you're busy, and I've been one of many people working in the background for the past few months on my part of the IT360 Conference coming here in Toronto next week. There aren't many conferences here in town for me to participate in, so I'm glad to have a chance to be part of the programming mix for this event.
I've posted about IT360 before, and along with Henry Dortmans, I'm co-chairing the Unified Communications track.
We've got a great lineup in place, and across the 3 days, you'll learn more than you need to about UC. If you're attending, I sure won't be hard to find, and I'll be most visible during two sessions in particular.
On Monday, I'm running a UC Overview tutorial from 1pm to 4pm, along with Simon Gwatkin of Mitel. Complementing my presentation, Simon will be doing some live demos of UC in action, so this should prove to be a very hands-on, multimedia session. Sort of like UC....
I'm also moderating a panel on Wednesday, bright and early at 8:30, on Vertical Market Scenarios. Simon will be with me on this one as well, along with Jeff Lowe from Telus. This will be another multimedia session, and by having both a vendor and carrier on the panel, we'll give the audience a pretty complete perspective on how UC can be tailored to add value for a specific line of business.
If you're in town, I hope you can make it!
Technorati tags:
IT360 Conference, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications
Posted by jonarnold at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2008
Jeff's Social Media Breakfast - Toronto Edition
Bright and early today, Jeff Pulver brought his world tour social media breakfast to Toronto. Lucky me, it was held at my neighborhood deli, so it was a quick 5 minute walk. I'll take that commute any day.
Jeff has been doing these for a while now, and even a casual visit to his blog will tell you how important these have become for his regimen as well being an incredible way to leverage the energy he has been putting into Facebook.
The turnout was great - about 40 or so came, including a number of familiar faces. That said, there wasn't a lot of social media going on, but the traditional sitting at the table over breakfast human networking was just great. Many of the people attending were new faces for me, and they looked to be more of a Facebook crowd than a VON crowd. Jeff is a master at creating grass roots communities, and this was a great example. If there was time I would have eventually gotten around to everyone, but I ended up having productive chats with just a few people.
The takeaway for me was having more inspiration and purpose for making greater use of Facebook, and I hope to use it soon to connect with some of the people I didn't spend time with this morning.
Jeff, thanks again for bringing this event to town. Funny how it takes a New Yorker to come all this way to get a bunch of local techies, bloggers, VCs, etc. together in one place. If that's what it takes, so be it - beats staying here at my desk all day!
Photos courtesy of my Nokia N81...
Jeff welcoming us in his standard issue attire - Hawaiian shirt - summer or winter, you can bet on him wearing one...
Jim Courtney chatting with Dan York via Skype on his Blackberry 8320. Love it - hi Dan!
Technorati tags: Jeff Pulver, Jon Arnold, Toronto, Facebook
Posted by jonarnold at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2008
Geosign - what a story!/Welcome Kevin Restivo
This is a two-for-one post. First item is Geosign, a very mysterious company based in Guelph, Ontario. I posted about them last March after they quietly received a humongous funding of $160 million. This kind of money is unheard of in Canada, especially for an obscure company in an obscure town. In the IP communications space, most ventures are lucky to scare up a few million, and this raise is probably more than the whole space has received combined. I've never seen anything so out of whack at this level of magnitude. It just didn't add up.
After hearing about the funding, I approached them for me to come out and do an interview with their CEO. Initially, they were receptive, but suddenly the trail went cold - they were no longer giving interviews. Over the course of last summer, I had a dialog going with a journalist who was trying to get the story, and she had all kinds of interesting tidbits that were difficult to substantiate, but you just could tell something wasn't right. We fell out of touch, and Geosign has been off my radar for a while - but I've always wondered what the real story was.
Well, the other day I got my answer. Last weekend, the Financial Post Business Magazine ran a cover story on Geosign, penned by Robert Thompson. It's one of those you-have-to-read-this-to-believe-it stories, and I'm not going rehash it all for you here. I'll just say this was the classic Google pay-per-ad-click model on steriods, with hundreds of bogus websites set up as landing pages with nothing more than online ads on them. The scheme worked well enough for Geosign to attract $160 million - incredible! - but once Google caught on to their M.O., they changed the rules of the game, and the whole thing collapsed practically overnight.
Someone should make a movie of this. Canada is such a nice, modest, polite place, and you'd hardly ever suspect something like this would come out such a wholesome place like Guelph. Incredibly, as you read through the story, no crimes were committed, and the founders have simply moved on to other things - as if nothing ever happened.
I just want to say enough here to tempt you into reading the article. It's a great read, and I don't want to take away from Robert Thompson's good work.
Now for Part 2 of my post. I never would have seen this if it weren't for fellow analyst Kevin Restivo. He actually used to cover tech for the same paper as Robert, the Financial Post here in Toronto. He left a few years back for the analyst world, and is currently at IDC. We see each other at local events, and more recently, he's made me aware of his blog, which was started back in the summer.
While scrolling through his recent posts yesterday, I came across his post about Geosign. That was the first news I'd heard about Geosign in ages, and I'm so glad he referenced the magazine article, as I never see the Post. So, now I have the full story, and am happy to share it here.
More importantly is a shout-out here to Kevin and his blog. It's really good, not just for local and Canadian coverage, but Kevin is a strong analyst, and has keen insights on technology trends in general. We have very few analysts blogging about the Canadian market, and I'm glad he is. We have reciprocated links on our blog rolls, and I'm happy to introduce Kevin to my readers.
Technorati tags: Geosign, Jon Arnold, Kevin Restivo
Posted by jonarnold at 11:53 AM | Comments (1)
February 21, 2008
AT&T Canada adding video to their marketing mix
Just a short post about how corporate giants like AT&T are starting to use more multimedia tools in their messaging. AT&T Canada recently opened a data center in Canada and have made a series of announcements about their capabilities to support multinational enterprises. This includes a very good series of white papers and research briefs about their various capabilities and their current state of thinking about the value proposition of hosted network services. They also have produced a couple of videos with their key executives expounding on these themes, and I was invited to contribute my thoughts on one of them (Globalization and Emerging Trends). All of this has just been posted to AT&T Canada’s website, where you can view the clips and download some of these materials.
It’s a pretty good effort and is more engaging than most other corporate web sites – not Marketing 2.0, but not 1.0 either – 1.5 is where I’d put it. Maybe add some blogging, interactive video, a wiki, a click-to-call – that would get us closer to 2.0. In time, in time. This takes me back to my post from Monday previewing Cisco’s Uber Networker announcement. Very slick, and much closer to 2.0. AT&T Canada isn’t there yet, but they’re definitely going in the right direction.
Technorati tags: AT&T Canada, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates
Posted by jonarnold at 09:46 PM | Comments (1)
February 19, 2008
Bell and Cisco Partnering on Managed Services
Today started off with an early briefing at 8:30 with Cisco and Bell Canada. That's what this post is about, and I had every intention of getting this written and posted by 9am, but boy has the day zoomed by. I'm off to New York for the next two days on consulting work, and there has been a non-stop stream of things to tie up, so here we are.
So, when Bell and Cisco asks you to be on a briefing at 8:30 the morning back after a long weekend, you gotta figure this is big news. In some ways it is, but I wouldn't say it's earth shattering, so I don't feel you've missed too much hearing about from me at this point in the day. Haven't seen anything about this from the bloggers, although to be fair, many of them are blogged out after last week's mega conference in Spain, MWC - Mobile World Congress.
Closer to home, today's news is somewhat interesting at face value, but I think it's more interesting for it may represent. At face value, Bell and Cisco have partnered to provide managed services to Bell's customers - high level details are in the press release. This is a win-win - more or less - in that Bell comes to market with a complete solution to leverage their nationwide network and deepen their customer relationships. Cisco wins by getting the upper hand into Bell's enterprise customer portfolio with managed services, deepening their existing relationships on the networking side. Two Tier 1 players working together makes for a very strong proposition. Fair enough - that's just the way the markets go these days - the big get bigger, and hopefully that's good for the customers. Time will tell.
The other interesting part of the story is the 'knowledge gap' they referred to a few times. IP is advancing quickly, and it's no surprise there is a shortage of well trained, qualified technical people to deploy, manage and maintain these wonderful technologies. To address this, Cisco and Bell are opening two 'Knowledge
Centres' - Montreal and Toronto. Makes sense. Not only will enterprises gain more Cisco-certified staffers, but these centres will become test labs where new features, applications, etc. can be trialed before being launched in their networks. Good idea, and a great way for Cisco to further embed itself in these networks.
All good, right? It is for these companies, but am not sure what this means for others. I can't imagine this is good news for Nortel, and maybe even Microsoft - two companies that have an alliance of their own. These companies are all vying for the Unified Communications vision, whereby they have a chance to control most if not all of the customer relationship. The stakes are high here, and I think Cisco has made a savvy move here to get the inside track with Bell, who has the lion's share of Canada's enterprise business. Let's not forget that the privatization track for Bell is a bit shaky these days, and they need all the good news stories they can get. I'm sure Cisco recognized they could help Bell's cause with such a move, as they need to do whatever it takes to hold on to their customers. It will be interesting to see what MTS Allstream and Telus do in response.
Technorati tags:
Cisco, Jon Arnold, Bell Canada
Posted by jonarnold at 03:34 PM | Comments (1)
February 14, 2008
Mitel Analyst Update
This is Part 2 of what I was up to yesterday here in town. Mitel is in the midst of an analyst roadshow to update the community on the Inter-Tel integration.
I was part of the Toronto contingent, and for a full morning, Don Smith and Simon Gwatkin had our undivided attention. This was complemented by a full presentation led by Tim Kostyniuk, who was dialing in from Ottawa via a conference phone.
The session was a good mix of candid conversation from Don and Simon, and a detailed update on the new product portfolio from Tim. At a high level, all I can really say is that Mitel seems to have a good handle on bringing Inter-Tel into the fold, and a clear vision as to what markets they want to grow into, as well as how they're going to do that.
They definitely have been moving forward on many fronts, and one of the main benefits I think we'll see from the deal is a strong go-to-market capability for both SMBs and enterprises. Inter-Tel had a direct sales presence for the latter, and when combined with Mitel's product line, they now have a strong story for enterprises. On the SMB front, they found limited channel conflict with Inter-Tel, and indicated they are now becoming more attractive partners for resellers, often at the expense of their competitors.
They provided quite a bit of insight as to the rationale for Inter-Tel, along with broader capabilities it brings them today. I definitely have a clearer picture of this now, and can see why it made sense.
There was a fair bit of discussion around integrating the product lines, and while this is still a work in progress, it's clear to see how much focus there is on IP and SIP. They updated us on several other fronts, including their partnerhsip with Sun, collaboration and presence-based applications, vertical market solutions, IP phones, and mobility/FMC.
Maybe it's Mitel's culture, or their UK/Canada makeup, but they do a great job of being accessible and open with their updates. Of course, this also means I'm going to be careful and not broadcast the fine points. It's a two-way street. Not all vendors are as easy to engage with, and I hope they keep it this way. Makes our job a lot easier!
Technorati tags:
Mitel, Jon Arnold, Inter-Tel
Posted by jonarnold at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2008
IT360 Conference Agenda Posted
Been meaning to post about this for a while. The IT360 Conference is coming here in Toronto from April 7-9, and the agenda was recently posted to their website.
It's still a work in progress, but will give you a good idea of the range to topics being covered. I'm Co-Chairing the Unified Communications track with colleague Henry Dortmans. Most of our program is set, but we still have some adds and changes coming. We've been at this for a while, and have a strong roster in place, and you can get a sense here for what we'll be talking about. I'll have more updates as we get closer to the date, but can tell you now it's a strong program, and should be a great opportunity to get apprised on where Unified Communications is going in Canada.
Technorati tags:
IT360 Conference, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications
Posted by jonarnold at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2008
Helping Canadian Companies Sell Globally - Upcoming Teleforum
One of the biggest challenges facing Canadian companies is our small domestic market, especially for telecom. To succeed, you need to sell into other markets, which is something Canadians aren't by nature very good at.
That's a topic unto itself, and if you want to understand this challenge better and hear first hand how some local companies are doing it, you'll want to participate in an upcoming teleforum.
This teleforum is the first in a series being launched by colleague Mike Fox. He's a Toronto-based tech recruiter, and I've featured him on previous posts. His firm is called Brightlights, and you can register here as well as explore what his company does.
The first teleforum will be on Wednesday, February 20, and runs from 1 to 2 pm. Mike's guests will be the CEOs of MyThum Interactive and Opalis Software, and they'll be talking about topics such as what it takes to sell into markets outside of Canada and what types of talent they need to support that. I've posted about MyThum before and they're a great example of what Mike will be covering during the call. You can learn more about the session from a backgrounder Mike has prepared.
Unfortunately, I'll be out of town that day, so I'll miss the call. This shouldn't stop you, though, and if this topic is of interest, it will be time well spent.
Technorati tags:
Mike Fox, Jon Arnold, Brightlights Inc
Posted by jonarnold at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2008
Phonetime Graduates to Toronto Stock Exchange
Well, here's a good news item I'm pleased to share, especially as North America teeters on the brink of recession.
One of our local companies - Phonetime - has graduated from our venture exchange to our big board, the TSX. The news was announced today, and I say that they've graduated for a good reason - their trading symbol is PHD. Hah - can't get any smarter than that!
This is a really positive sign for a company that doesn't get much attention and operates a pretty simple, Voice 1.0 business. They've been on the venture exchange since 2000, and I've been friendly with them for a few years, so I can say first hand this is a good story.
Phonetime is basically a one-stop-shop for long distance telecom services across Canada. They operate their own national network, and have a healthy mix of both wholesale termination/origination business as well as retail offerings, primarily through calling cards. Sure, it's a low margin/high volume business, but if you establish your network and maintain a reasonably loyal mix of customers and distributors, it can be a decent business.
Not very sexy, but with Toronto's unparalleled mix of cultures and immigrants, this is a great market for these types of products, especially the calling cards. VoIP may not mean much to this audience yet, but calling cards make a lot of sense, especially for people who do not even have the luxury of their own landline.
For sake of transparency, I'm not a shareholder, but it's been on my to-do list for a while. I think I'll follow their progress on the TSX for little bit first and then see about becoming one.
Technorati tags:
Phonetime, Jon Arnold, TSX
Posted by jonarnold at 08:31 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2008
Meet Some of Ontario's Best IT/IP Companies - in Miami
This is the first of a few posts I'm trying to get done today around the ITExpo that runs next week in Miami.
For this post, I'm focusing on a pavilion being run by the Government of Ontario and the Consulate General of Canada. It's a showcase for leading IT/IP companies based in Ontario, and on Thursday, they're hosting a reception that's open to all exhibitors.
I've been asked to be the host, and will be making some opening remarks to welcome everyone to the reception. If you can make it, I'm sure you'll come away with a good feeling about the quality of companies coming out of Ontario in our space.
To learn more about the reception and the companies being showcased, have a look at their announcement, which I've posted here.
Technorati tags:
Government of Ontario, Jon Arnold, ITExpo
Posted by jonarnold at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2008
Are Bloggers Smarter than Backpackers? Find out Sunday Night!
I recently posted about how getting on TV was a nice benefit of blogging. Well, it's coming - this Sunday night - 8pm on CBC television. The show is called Test the Nation, and if you live in Canada, you can watch it then - it's live, coast to coast. It's a quiz show using a team format and I'm on the Blogger team! Don't ask how or why - it's happening, and it should be fun.
So, there are 6 teams squaring off - Bloggers, Backpackers, Celebrity Look-Alikes, Flight Crews, Cab Drivers and Chefs - and beyond that, I don't have much else to say.
Well - the only downside is I miss the Patriots/Chargers game - we need to be at the studio in the afternoon to prepare. And there's no live blogging onsite, so there won't be any posting on the fly.
Somehow, I think we're gonna win. Why? Well, the show has its own blog page and a Facebook Group. These are tools of the trade for us bloggers - not so sure about all those other folks - and the CBC people are pretty smart, and of course they look to us for all the latest in modern ideas...... hmmm, let me re-think that one...
Well, don't listen to me - you can vote any time for which group you think will win - the poll is on their site and blog page. So, speak your mind, tune in, and watch us prove what know - or don't know.
Technorati tags: Test the Nation, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, CBC TV
Posted by jonarnold at 12:39 PM | Comments (4)
January 10, 2008
Max's Palm Treo Review
It's been a while since I've posted something from son #1, Max. Priorities change when school starts up, but he's keeping pretty busy in his spare time, most recently designing websites.
We were recently given the Palm Treo 755 smartphone to review, but we only could keep it for a few weeks. Time flies, and we've given the phone back and have reverted to our Nokia phones - reviews on those are coming....
Anyhow, Max has posted his review to his blog, so for those of you who want to hear how a sharp teenager makes use of an adult product like this, you'll find his post a good read, as usual. He's pretty direct and quite savvy - lots of candid comments and keen observations - I hope Palm is listening....
I'm due for my review of this phone, and hopefully that will be by early next week. I only got to use it a fraction of the time Max did, so it won't be as detailed.
Technorati tags: Max Arnold, Jon Arnold, Palm Treo
Posted by jonarnold at 07:13 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2008
Need a cab? Dial #TAXI!
I do my best to fly the Canadian flag when I can, so here we go again.
Most of you would not be familiar with a Toronto-based company called Cellwand Communications. I've been working closely with them for years and happen to a shareholder. Ok, now that I've made myself totally transparent, let me get back to waving the flag. If it's not enough that our hockey Juniors won the Gold this with weekend, Cellwand finally has a U.S. story to tell.
They've been developing a suite of Location-Based Services for cellular carriers, and their flagship service is called #TAXI. Simply dial that on your cell phone, and their database will search and connect you to a taxi service that will get a taxi to you in minutes. This may not be an everyday problem for most people, but when you've been out clubbing and can't find a cab anywhere, the charge is money very well spent. Think of it as an intelligent 411 service where you only have to make that one call, and #TAXI does the rest.
Cellwand has been refining this service a while with all the major Canadian mobile operators, and now they are in the U.S. market, available today on AT&T and Alltel's networks. Other major mobile networks should also be on board fairly soon. I think that's great news, and it's what all Canadian startups dream about doing.
The story should only get better, as they have other services in the pipeline - which you can read about on their website - and represent exactly what all carriers are desperately seeking - new apps and new revenue streams. Winning the World Juniors is great, but I like this story just as much.
Right now, Cellwand is getting the word out virally, and I'm doing my part here to spread the news. Here's the news posted on Digg, and here's their PSA - Public Service Announcement - posted on YouTube.
Technorati tags: Cellwand Communications, Jon Arnold, #TAXI
Posted by jonarnold at 11:14 AM | Comments (1)
January 03, 2008
2007 Highlights - Part 2
Yesterday was Part 1 of my 2007 highlights, and here's my review for the second half of the year. Hope you enjoy these, and maybe you were at some of these.
That's it for my 2007 review. Time to move ahead and get going on 2008.....
My Kitchener/Waterloo Mini-Tour, Waterloo - with John Tennant and Mark Whaley (he was on the ICF panel from the PTC event that was in yesterday's post - and now winner of world's most intelligent broadband community!)
Telus/RIM launch of their worldphone BlackBerry, Toronto.
Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown. We all need a break, and this was one of mine this summer. The "Red Sox Holy Grail" was a personal highlight for me, and I just had to put it in here - the bloody sock, Curt's cleats (say that one 3 times fast), and the ball, all from their 2004 WS championship. I can die happy now.
Fall 2007 TMC ITExpo, Los Angeles. Chris Lyman, enthusiastically telling me the virtues of his company, Fonality!
IT Expo, Los Angeles - Andy Abramson's client/blogger dinner.
Ottawa Venture Technology Summit, Ottawa
BroadSoft Connections, Phoenix. Scott Wharton moderating a session, and a view of the grounds where the event was held at the Biltmore. I sure could get used to that...
Fall VON, Boston - Jeff Pulver's keynote
My Skype Mobility session
Happy Town - talk about being in the right place at the right time...
Nokia Siemens Mobile Experience Demo, Toronto. Very cool FMC apps, done here in real time.
Avaya Canada Analyst Day, Toronto. CEO Mario Belanger kicking things off.
Cisco C-Scape Analyst Conference, San Jose. John Chambers doing a Telepresence demo on stage with 3 different speakers.
Technorati tags: J Arnold & Associates, Jon Arnold, blogging
Posted by jonarnold at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2008
2007 Highlights - Part 1
Am slowly getting back to a working groove, but really won't be fully back til Monday once everyone's out of the house and back at school. Don't know about you, but I've been using some of this down time to not just reflect on 2007, but also about where I'm looking to go in 2008. It's both easy and hard being an independent, and a priority for me this year will be to deepen many of the relationships that I built in 2007, and that's already happening in the first few days of the new year.
I'm also trying to find a better way to balance all the proprietary consulting work I do for clients along with the public things I do that keep me visibily involved - conferences, blogging, podcasts, etc. With all the back and forth with my recent posts about whether the Facebook phenomenon is good or bad for blogging, I've really got to consider this more closely and see if FB can help me manage that balance. All suggestions are welcome!
Ok,enough self-reflection - time to move on to the scripted part of this post. I've been off the blogs for most of the break, but have seen a few year-end summaries, predictions, etc. I could spend a lot time doing the same, but I've decided to do a photo review instead. Others have already done the same - really liked Jeff Pulver's photolog post - and I'm doing mine in two parts.
Over the course of 2007, I've mostly been using the Nokia N93 and Nokia N95, and that's what these photos were taken with. The fun part of being an indie is attending a variety of events - some are very analyst-centric, and some are very media/press-centric. I'm a bit of a chameleon, and work out of both camps, so I get to a wider range of things than a straight-up analyst or journalist would get to. And sometimes I get to go to things just because I'm a "blogger" - although these days I'm not really sure what that term really means.
This is especially true since I'm based in Canada. Most of the industry people my paths cross up here are only focused on the home market, whereas I try my best to keep on top of the U.S. as well. So, this is one of the few blogs where you'll see a healthy mix of what's going on in Canada as well as the U.S.
Whatever - listen - I'm just one guy. I don't have a company sending me places - it's up to me to make all this stuff happen, and I'm grateful to have been able to see so many things in 2007. I can only hope that the song remains the same in 2008, and I look forward to sharing my adventures with you as they happen.
So, in today's post, here's Part 1 - my year in pictures - basically the first half of 2007. It will give you a flavor of the events I participated in and the places I was lucky enough to travel to. I could tell you a lot more and show you a lot more pictures about any of these, but not here. By all means, feel free to search my blog for the original posts these came from for more. Otherwise, maybe there's a book in this somewhere.....
Aloha! Can't think of a better way to start 2007 being based in the Great White North, eh - the Pacific Telecom Council conference in Hawaii. And, yes, I got an authentic Hawaiian shirt there that I hope will come in handy one of these days...
The ICF panel at PTC. This is the Intelligent Communities Forum, where they were announcing the finalists for their annual awards. As it turns out, Waterloo, Ontario came out the winner, chosen as the #1 intelligent community in the world. Go Canada.........
TMC's ITExpo, Fort Lauderdale. I chose this photo of colleague Moshe Maeir (with Rich in the background)since he was nice enough to post it on his year-end review - thanks Moshe!
Deloitte's 2007 Predictions event, Toronto. Group shot of their team, including keynoter Guy Kawasaki. He's quite the hockey junkie - and he's from Hawaii - who knew?- so they gave him an customized Leafs jersey as a nice thank-you. I'm starting to see a Canada-Hawaii theme happening here - strange....
Launch event for BlogTV.ca, Toronto. This sure was fun, and Canada was the first market Israel-based BlogTV expanded to. Unfortunately, the project was canned in the fall - easy come, easy go. BlogTV is going strong in the U.S., but it came later. I guess we were the guinea pig, but didn't quite get it right - gee, where have we heard that before here in Canada?
Microsoft Canada's launch event for adCenter, Toronto. Don't mean to nitpick, but if this is for Canada, shouldn't they spell it "adCentre"? I'm told life is in the details.....
Cisco's Channel Partner Summit, Las Vegas. From what I've seen, nobody stages a big event like Cisco.
MetaSwitch Forum, Orlando, with Martin Taylor. If you're into Harleys, you should check out my post about this event - really...
IT360 Conference, Toronto. Don Tapscott talking about Wikinomics and his vision for our Web 2.0 world.
ANPI AGM, San Diego, with CEO Dave Lewis.
Canadian New Media Awards, Toronto, with Adam Froman, CEO of Delvinia
Microsoft Surface, Toronto. We were lucky enough to get a private, 1 on 1 demo of this very cool look at what being connected will really mean, and what the coffee table of the future is going to look like. Max got to have the fun, while I took the photos.
Aftermath of a heavy summer storm, Toronto. Taking a drive about our neighborhood following a very intense storm, I came across some of the damage and for 5 minutes, felt like a roving TV reporter. Here's one shot of a mature tree being fully uprooted and crashing on top of van in someone's driveway. Thankfully, nobody was hurt, but as you can see, it also took down all the Hydro wires, and went a long way to explaining why our phone lines went dead - but of course, my VoIP lines were working fine...
Microsoft Canada's Unified Communications launch, Toronto. With Michel Burger, CTO and a glowing Microsoft blue cocktail....
Mitel Forum 2007, Las Vegas. Mitel's brain trust taking questions from the analyst community.
Part 2 is coming tomorrow, stay tuned....
Technorati tags: J Arnold & Associates, Jon Arnold, blogging
Posted by jonarnold at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2007
Iotum- Let it snow, but let's talk about it....
Quick post - a twofer for Canadian cohort Alec Saunders and the team at Iotum.
First,Ottawa got buried with its worst snowstorm since anyone can remember - about 2 feet yesterday. A lot of Eastern Canada got hit - we got it pretty good here in Toronto, but Ottawa got way more. The US Northeast got socked last week, but that was a different storm. Well, there's no doubt now it's going to be a white XMas.
Anyhow, if you want a geek's take on the weather, Alec has a great post today. Oh, as I'm writing this post, Alec has just updated his blog with some photos - nice work.
I was in San Jose last week for Cisco's analyst event, and even though it was quite chilly there - and even an outdoor skating rink next to the hotel - I'll gladly head back there now compared to what we've got here. I don't ski, but it's not hard to see how the Alpine set is over the moon about all this snow - no thanks....
Second item - since I have your attention - today Iotum announced something really interesting and fun with their Facebook conferencing app. For those of you who plan to be online on New Year's Eve - and I'll bet that's a lot of you, Iotum has a great way to reach out and touch 1,000 of your closest friends. They've been building some nice traction with their voice conferencing application on Facebook, and are using this opportunity to add some festiveness to social networking. Alec's post tells you all about it, so if you want to have some social networking fun on New Year's, and do a virtual midnight countdown with a cast of thousands, you just gotta be there.
It's a great idea, and to help promote it, Iotum has even produced a demo video, which you can view off of Alec's post. Aside from all the fun people can have doing this, the promotion is a great test to demonstrate the scalability of Iotum's platform, and I think that's the real story. This is the kind of proof point that up and coming vendors like Iotum need to convince large operators that their application will work for them and that they can make money today using it. In the world of social networking, New Year's is about as social as it gets, so hats off to Iotum for connecting the dots and creating a great opportunity for themselves. Can't wait to hear how it turns out.
Technorati tags: Iotum, Jon Arnold, Alec Saunders, Facebook
Posted by jonarnold at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2007
High Road Communications Holiday Party
I don't get out like I used to, but I had a great time last night at High Road's holiday party here in Toronto. High Road is one of the top PR agencies for tech/telecom in Canada, and it looks like they're going to have a great 2008. You can be sure I'll be staying close to them and working with them on a few fronts.
For my U.S. readers, I want to clarify this is a different shop than High Road Communications, another PR agency with the exact same name, but based in Indianapolis. Looks like they got the full length URL first, so to find the Canadian agency, you have to use the highroad.com URL. Small world.....
Some photos, courtesy of my Nokia N95.....
Avaya's Amir Hameed with Claire Rankin
Team Avaya, with Aastra's Yves Laliberte, left
Stefan Dubowski, showing that men can look good in argyle....
Sarah Spence with Morris Shawn of Roadpost
Technorati tags: High Road Communications, Jon Arnold
Posted by jonarnold at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)
Avaya Canada's Analyst Day
Been one of my busiest weeks of the year, and I just haven't been around much to do any blogging. On Wednesday, I attended Avaya Canada's analyst day here in Toronto. Well, technically Markham, but still, not far from home for a change.
Pretty informative day, with lots of roadmap updates and what to expect in 2008. I wasn't able to attend Avaya's global analyst conference last month, but I did go last year.
All I can say is that last year, Avaya laid out a pretty strong vision about "intelligent communications", and how powerful IP communications can be when you put it all together. Avaya Canada's event this week was on a more modest scale, but looking at things a year later, what really struck me was how right they've gotten the messaging and positioning for what these technologies can do at a human level. I think they're doing a great job of translating the technical aspects of their solutions into the mantra of better living through technology, both at home and at work. This builds great brand equity for Avaya, creating the "Intel inside" association any technology vendor would love to have.
Not being a technical analyst, I operate under the assumption that these things work and that the technology is more or less ready to do what it's supposed to do. I know that's not 100% true, but it's far enough along that vendors like Avaya can deliver pretty high functioning solutions that go well beyond bringing voice and data together under one tent.
The other comment I'll make is that during the afternoon session, we were under "heavy NDA" for some bigger picture presentations that set the stage for where Avaya is going in 2008 and beyond. Can't say more than that other than I think this gave us a better understanding as to why Avaya went private. Glad I was there!
Avaya Canada's CEO, Mario Belanger and a room full of smart people!
Roberta Fox demo'ing the One-X Quick Edition, one of Avaya's SMB solutions
You know you're special when you get a blue phone. Just like iPods and iPhones have cool skins, why not your desk phone?
Technorati tags: Avaya Canada, Jon Arnold
Posted by jonarnold at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2007
Telus Consultants Program Highlights
Yesterday I attended a day-long session held by Telus, which they do on occasion for the consultant community. It's one way they do outreach, and in this case, the focus was an update on some of their key partner relationships. The day was split up with presentations from Intel, Nortel and Microsoft, with a lot of focus how well they're partnering with Telus to bring innovation and value to the Canadian market.
The audience is largely technical and IT consultants, so most of the messaging was about speeds and feeds, as opposed to business and strategy issues, which is more my cup of tea. I was really the only industry analyst there, so I didn't have any expectations otherwise. That's fine - was still pretty interesting, and it's clear that Telus is thinking more like a Telco 2.0 carrier than 1.0 carrier, although this may take time to percolate down to the masses.
Even though Microsoft and Nortel have a strategic alliance going, they each did their own thing yesterday, so there wasn't any indication of joint solutions coming with Telus. However, Nortel did have some nice SMB solutions on display, and I got a good demo at their table. To be fair, I couldn't stay til the very end, but I didn't see any evidence of cross-vendor synergies finding their way into Telus' portfolio. Not to say this couldn't happen, but these were for the most part serial presentations, and if I had to do it over, I'd look for Telus to talk more about the collective benefits these partnerships are bringing, as well as how they are helping create some distinct integrated solutions that customers can't get anywhere else.
As an aside, much of the banter between the presentations was about the major news that hit the media that morning about new regulations to open up the wireless market here. It's a big story, and in some ways it overshadowed what was going on in the sessions. None of the speakers made any reference to it, and given that Telus is one of Canada's 3 major wireless players, I think this could have led to some interesting discussions.
Here are some photos, courtesy of my Nokia N95....
Comments from Bill Edwards, who leads the Telus Consultants Liaison Program
An Intel blade server - or is it? Sure looks like one, but it's actually a cardboard life-size version they passed around so we could get a sense of its footprint. Pretty fun prop...
FMC demo from Nortel
Microsoft - nothing to really show, but here's a cool image off their monitor
Technorati tags: Telus, Jon Arnold, Intel, Nortel, Microsoft
Posted by jonarnold at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2007
Canada's Mobile Markets Are Opening Up Too!
I've been offsite all day at a Telus symposium - post about that coming tomorrow - and wanted to get this post out now for two reasons.
First, this news broke late yesterday, and I haven't had a chance to comment about it at all. It's a huge breakthrough for Canada's wireless market, and needs some blog attention.
Second, this news comes fresh on the heels of Verizon's ground-breaking news earlier this week about opening up their wireless networks. These two developments are quite different and certainly unrelated, but together, show that the stars are aligning for an even brighter future for mobility. I think it's pretty incredible that both items are occurring so close in time together.
The Verizon news is really out there and has been blogged everywhere, and I'm not about to add my two cents. It's late, I'm tired, and I'd rather draw attention to the Canadian story, against which Verizon forms a great backdrop.
In fact, I'm not going to tell you anything about the Canadian story. It's been covered quite well already, and I'll lead you first to colleague Mark Goldberg, who I saw briefly this morning at the Telus event. His post from yesterday is a great place to start. I'd also suggest Mark Evans' post.
The main idea is that Canada's mobile market is dominated by three carriers - Bell, Telus and Rogers - and with our small population, it's tough to see how we can support more operators. With a wireless spectrum auction coming next year, yesterday's news set the ground rules to ensure that enough spectrum will be made available for new entries.
There are many issues around this, but it's definitely a pro-competition development. While it does sow the seeds for new players, the likely reality is that only major operators will be able to get in the game, namely Videotron, Shaw and maybe MTS/Allstream. Foreign ownership restrictions will likely remain in place, so this would rule out some tiny carrier coming to market with heavy foreign backing.
Bottom line - the government may be doing the right thing to ensure opportunities for more players, but it's hard to create a more competitive market via regulation.
Videotron wasted no time announcing bold plans to invest $500 million in wireless broadband infrastructure once they acquire spectrum. It's going to take a lot of money to keep up with the big 3, and as with VoIP, it sure looks like the wireless market will quickly be come reduced to a battle between the telcos and the cablecos.
So, the gloves are off, and it's safe to say that the U.S. won't be the only market where wireless is about to undergo a radical shift. Never a dull moment....
Technorati tags: Test the Nation, Jon Arnold, Mark Evans, Videotron
Posted by jonarnold at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2007
Blogging Has Some Side Benefits - Being on TV!
This is a fun post, really. Just sharing with you one of the payoffs that can come from blogging. I sure don't do it for the money - don't know anybody who does. The only monetization scheme of note that I participate in is with Newstex, who has been tracking me for almost 2 years. If you scroll down the right margin of my blog page, you'll see a blue Newstex box. Just click on that, and you can learn more about it.
Anyhow, I recently got my current royalty report, and I've earned a whopping $28.42. As you can tell, my blog doesn't carry ads, and I don't really take advantage of the web tools you need to build online traffic, so I have no expectations of turning my blog into a money machine. If that was my business, I'd be doing things very differently, that's for sure.
That aside, I'm happy to say that my blog does generate regular inquiries from people/companies wanting to know about my services and the things I do to make a living as Principal of J Arnold & Associates. And a good portion of those have turned into paying clients, including two this week already. So, if you're wondering if blogging is worth it, that's a hands-down yes, at least for me.
I'm posting now to tell you about a nice side benefit that's come from blogging. I get to be on national TV, but not to tell the world about VoIP. Get this - our national broadcaster - the venerable CBC - has been airing a show since March of this year called Test the Nation. It's an IQ-type quiz show that originated in Holland back in 2001, and the format has been used in some 40 countries, although I don't think it's in the U.S. yet.
The show works on a team concept and 2 teams face off against each other. So, guess what - one of the teams for the upcoming series is.... bloggers. I've been back and forth with CBC on this for a bit now, but I'm on the team. The new series airs on January 20, 2008, and the overall theme is 21st Century knowledge. I'm pretty solid aside from up to the minute stuff, so I'll be leaning on my kids to make sure I'm schooled in all the latest cyberknowledge.
This sure should be fun, and for a change, blogging leads to something totally unexpected, and something I wouldn't be doing otherwise. It's one thing to be on business TV talking about telecom, but an IQ quiz show? Why not, right? So, if you have aspirations of getting on national TV, blogging might be your ticket. I've got no idea what kind of questions they'll be asking, but I sure hope they have something about VoIP - I'll be ready for that! :-)
Technorati tags: Test the Nation, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, CBC TV
Posted by jonarnold at 08:50 PM | Comments (5)
November 23, 2007
IT in Canada - New Web Resource
With things being quiet in the U.S. right now during Thanksgiving, it's been a catch up day for me on a lot of Canadian things I've been meaning to get to.
One of these is a portal that launched a few weeks ago, and I've just gotten around to checking out.
The portal is called IT in Canada, and was put together by Michael O'Neil, a veteran telecom/tech researcher and consultant. I've known Michael for many years, and it turns out he's also from Boston and follows the Red Sox closely. My kind of guy....
Anyhow, the portal is just getting going, and is focused on creating a national forum to discuss IT issues. As Michael explained to me earlier today, there really isn't anything out there addressing these issues on a national level. Most dialog is local, and IT in Canada serves as a national platform where anybody can share their issues around IT.
There's a lot there, even though the site is just a couple of weeks old. I don't think Michael is running this as a commercial venture - at least for now - so it's not cluttered with ads or popups, which is fine by me.
So far, there are quite a few news posts, white papers and posts from individual members. You don't have to be invited to join, so if Canadian IT issues are up your alley, you'll want to be a regular visitor, and maybe even a contributor. I'm sure Michael will be happy to hear from you.
Technorati tags: IT in Canada, Jon Arnold, Michael O'Neil
Posted by jonarnold at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2007
My Afternoon with Nokia Siemens
Yesterday I the benefit of a private briefing with Nokia Siemens and Personeta to showcase all the cool things they're doing around IMS and FMC applications. It turned out I was the only person present during my alloted time, so I had the team all to myself.
This was quite the experience in quite the setting. However, it was a great way to demonstrate a variety of applications, utilizing combinations of broadband, mobility and video. So, for example, you may be using mobile-to-mobile video calling today with the likes of AT&T or Rogers, but they were also able to show some things you're not likely getting today from your carrier. Let's go see.
Welcome to the Nokia Siemens mobile experience (photos courtesy of my Nokia N95 - which they were very happy to see)....
Has the inside of a tractor trailer ever looked so good? Looks like something out of a James Bond movie.
Video calling, mobile-to-mobile - nothing new there...
Mobile-to-PC video calling - that's getting more interesting...
Let's move on to IPTV. This is on a Sony HD screen, and notice how the home page fills out the whole TV screen, as well as the high quality resolution. This particular site is called dotdaily, and it's a customized home page, where the viewer selects the content and news feeds of interest.
Now we move from the big screen to a small screen. Here is live, streaming TV - CNN in fact - running on a Nokia N95 - of course.
And now something even more interesting. How about accessing content stored on your PVR/DVR on your mobile phone? Or control the settings to remotely set up a recording session? Literally, a mobile, remote control. That's pretty neat. The service isn't launched yet, but it's coming. Hence the deliberately murky picture to protect the innocent.
Finally, a quick word about the magic bus itself. This is the first time I've ever had a briefing in a parking lot! While it may sound suspicious, this is one well-equipped rig.
Note the satellite dish mounted on top of the cab in the first picture. The front end of the inside of the trailer was hidden behind a curtain, but I got to see it briefly. Basically, there's enough equipment there to simulate a Central Office environment, which provides a realistic, real time setting to demonstrate all these services.
Note how both sides of the trailer slide out from the middle like wings to create all the space you see inside. Not quite Transformers, but pretty impressive.
Technorati tags: Nokia Siemens, Jon Arnold, Personeta, IMS
Posted by jonarnold at 09:12 AM | Comments (1)
November 06, 2007
Our Dollar May be Stronger, But Wireless is no Bargain - Will the iPhone Come to Canada?
Here's another post I've been wanting to write since coming back from VON, and I'm glad I waited. Anyone who knows me is familiar with my seemingly odd habit of hardly ever using my cell phone when I'm on the road, especially in the U.S. I know it defeats the purpose of have a mobile phone, but I seem to manage just fine.
While Americans take it for granted that cell phone usage is practically free, that's far from the case in Canada. I may seem like a voice in the wilderness when I try to explain this when I'm in the States, but now I've got some great backup to support my story. I've got two items to share with you on this front, and if you're wondering about the high cost of cell phone service in Canada, you'll find these well worth reading.
First is a terrific post from Friday by colleague and fellow Canadian blogger, Alec Saunders. Alec and I were at VON last week in Boston, and he's a much better technology adopter than me. We're seeing a proliferation of mobile VoIP solutions right now - I've posted about some, and Alec has posted quite a bit more.
Alec's post is a great case study in how a Canadian can use these various solutions to keep their cell phone costs down when travelling in the U.S. Most travelers routinely get local SIM cards to reduce their mobile costs, but as Alec explains, you can take the savings to a whole other level by using solutions such as Mobivox and Truphone. He's got the right idea here, and I plan to follow his lead when I travel next to the States. Great workaround, Alec!
On this note, by the way, I'll steer you to a panel I moderated at VON last week about adding mobility to Skype, which Alec attended. Mobivox, Truphone and others provided a rich perspective on the various ways you can cut mobile costs with Skype. These are all companies to watch, especially iSkoot, who is partnering with Skype on 3 Skypephone, which just launched last week.
Secondly, there was a timely article in today's Globe & Mail about the iPhone's pending launch in Canada. The article brings to light a number of issues that illustrates how the market up here is different, and how the iPhone would be a very expensive proposition based on our existing rate plans.
The print edition of this article provides detailed comparisons of rate plans for Canada, the U.S. and the E.U., and you'll just have to take my word that Canadian rate plans are simply not competitive. You can be sure that Apple is concerned that our expensive service plans will dampen demand for the iPhone, especially when Canadians can see how much cheaper it is to have all these goodies in the U.S.
So, we may have a stronger dollar right now, but this is not a great market for something as game-changing as the iPhone. Apple is setting a precedent for a handset vendor to dictate market terms to the mobile operators, and it will be interesting to see how Rogers plays this card. Regardless of how it unfolds, this article is a big picture exclamation point on what's driving Alec Saunders to do what he's doing - and you can be sure that others will follow.
Technorati tags: Fall VON 2007, Jon Arnold, Alec Saunders, iPhone
Posted by jonarnold at 03:11 PM | Comments (4)
November 05, 2007
Current State of Canadian Telecom Sector
The past few days have seen Q3 earnings calls and announcements from Canada's leading service providers - Bell, Telus, MTS Allstream, Rogers and even Videotron. So, lots of attention being focused on how the sector is performing, and there sure is lots to talk about.
On Friday, I was asked to share my views on BNN - Business Network News - which is Canada's major financial news TV station. Pat Bolland interviewed me, and you can view the segment on BNN's website for the next 7 days. After that, it comes off the site, and if you still want to see it, you'll have to contact me. Our segment ran at 10:40am last Friday, and you can view it from this link.
Technorati tags: Business Network News, Jon Arnold
Posted by jonarnold at 03:43 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2007
Dialogic Acquires Cantata
I got a press release this morning announcing that Dialogic has acquired EAS Group, which in turn owns Cantata. That was news to me, and I haven't seen any commentary out there about this yet. Either people are busy with other things, or it's a non-event. Not sure.
Anyhow, you can read the release for yourself on Dialogic's website, or if you go to Cantata's site, there's a message directing you over to Dialogic's site, or a click-through to the same press release that's running on Dialogic's site. So, I guess it's official.
To be fair, I haven't followed Cantata as closely as I used to, but it's no secret they've had difficulty making their mashup of VoIP infrastructure companies work. Cantata is made up of three Massachusetts-based vendors - SnowShore, Excel Switching and Brooktrout. They've all had up and down rides, and at this point, it's clear that a better plan is needed. Consolidation has been a major trend this year in IP, and Dialogic's move is another step in that direction.
I can't really add much else right and will have to look into this a bit further. At first look, there are some parallels to what Radisys did by acquiring Convedia last year. Media servers are a common aspect to both moves, and this is an important nextgen building block, not just for everyday VoIP, but IMS as well.
Clearly Dialogic thinks there's a fit here, and maybe they're trying to become a consolidator now. That said, no financial details of the deal were provided, and it's not explained how Dialogic is funding the deal. The fact that not much is being said about this raises some questions, so it's hard to draw firm conclusions right now.
Of course, if you didn't know, Dialogic is based in Montreal, so it's worth noting that a Canadian company has come into the milieu and acquired an American company. Hate to say it, but it's probably a good time to be doing this given that the Canadian dollar is trading above the greenback. So, for a change, the economics are attractive for Canadian companies to do this.
Actually, with the US dollar being weak relative to other currencies, I wouldn't be surprised to see vendors from other parts of the world follow Dialogic to take advantage of their stronger currency. Time will tell. Meanwhile, it's Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday, so I'm sure the Dialogic execs will be enjoying their turkey. Gobble gobble.
Technorati tags: Dialogic, Jon Arnold, Cantata
Posted by jonarnold at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2007
AT&T Global Services - Canadian Expansion
This afternoon I attended an Analyst and Media Roundtable with execs from AT&T Global Services. They are launching some new services for the Canadian large enterprise market this week, and I'll have another post about that in a day or so.
Today's session provided a pretty good overview of the scope of what AT&T Global Services has to offer, and when you're talking about providing global services to global companies, you come away with a greater appreciation of what goes into building and running a giant network like theirs.
I was especially impressed by the range of services they have around security and how complex this area is, particularly in terms of Web-based threats. Until today, I had no idea that there are cyber hackers out there who literally extort ransom money from large companies in exchange for not unleashing a destructive virus, worm, etc. to crash their network.
Pretty interesting stuff, and in the noisy world of open source, Web 2.0 and SaaS, it's easy to forget that the job of running large scale networks is much harder than it looks, and AT&T isn't the world's largest networking company for nothing.
AT&T management team - Jay Plummer, Andrea Messineo, Steven Taylor, Stan Quintana
Technorati tags: AT&T Global Services, Jon Arnold, Canada
Posted by jonarnold at 08:47 PM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2007
Welcome, Telecom Dispatch - More Canadian Coverage
This is another better-late-than-never post, as I catch up on the week from being at the Ottawa Venture and Tech Summit (my post of that event will come either over the weekend or Monday).
Veteran Canadian telecom consultant Roberta Fox launched a newsletter this week, and I find it a really nice news digest for a couple of reasons. It's titled Telecom Dispatch, and is published under her corporate moniker, Fox Group. The inaugural issue went out last Friday, but because it's email-based - and not web-based - I can't send you a link. If you want to read it, you just need to sign up at the Fox Group website. It's free, and doesn't take long, so if you want a quick read on what's happening up here, it's time well spent.
I say that the newsletter is welcome news for two reasons. First is the simple fact that Roberta has a long history serving enterprises for technical consulting, and hopefully this will generate some nice business leads for her business. So, she brings a great industry perspective, and has surrounded herself with a solid group of contributors, all of whom have a similar pedigree to Roberta.
Secondly, and perhaps closer to my heart is the sad demise of print media, which is rapidly losing relevance in the Web-based world. Canada has a very small telecom media sector as it is, and the few publishers left are consolidating and/or losing their best writers to better opportunities. A while back, the National Post lost its two main telecom/tech writers - Mark Evans (went back to a startup gig) and Kevin Restivo (industry analyst now), and earlier this month, good friend Stefan Dubowski left Telemanagement for the PR world. So, in my view, Telecom Dispatch is a welcome voice in a space that needs new blood, and it's great that she's giving a platform to share with all these seasoned industry experts.
Technorati tags: Roberta Fox, Jon Arnold, Telecom Dispatch
Posted by jonarnold at 09:15 PM | Comments (1)
September 27, 2007
Microsoft Canadian Connections Newsletter - Fall Issue
Microsoft Canada's Fall 2007 issue of Canadian Connections has just been published, and they've asked me back for another article. I thought I'd share it with you, both here and live on their site. Feel free to share your comments now if you like.
Telco 2.0 – Easier Said Than Done
by Jon Arnold
IP is the foundation of what we call ‘Telco 2.0’ – the concept of integrating voice into other applications to enrich the end-user’s communication experience. The good news is that with IP, anyone can deliver Telco 2.0. The bad news is that with IP, anyone can deliver Telco 2.0. For service providers with existing subscriber bases, the key will be understanding what customers really value and finding ways to deliver. If not, they will quickly be reduced to connectivity providers, while the real money is made by the content providers delivering services on top of their networks.
Conversely, operators without subscriber bases can develop their own Telco 2.0 offerings and enter the market to challenge the incumbents. With broadband becoming readily available, there are endless opportunities for anyone with good technology to be creative and devise combinations of services that are just right for a given customer set. In this regard, successful Telco 2.0 providers will simply be those that can deliver services at a low cost per bit as well as generate a high price per bit from subscribers.
This seems like an easy formula for success, but in reality it is very difficult to achieve. On the technology level, the elements that go into Telco 2.0 are in varying states of market readiness. There are still issues around standards, interoperability, reliability, security and scalability. It remains to be seen if either software-based or Web-based offerings can match those that are hardware-based, especially for mass market scale.
These will become resolved in time, and once that happens, the challenges will be about costs and margins. The balance between low cost per bit (on the carrier’s side) and high price per bit (on the subscriber’s side) will be quite difficult to achieve. IP-based communications are so popular because they are inexpensive to provide, meaning that many services and applications are offered for free or a low price point. Unless operators want to subsidize their offerings with advertising, only the most creative and innovative providers will find the right balance between free and paid services. So far, this has been the exception, not the rule, and is a key reason why Telco 2.0 will be harder to do than it looks.
To summarize, Telco 2.0 holds undeniable promise for both service providers and subscribers. Service providers need it to transition from Telco 1.0, and subscribers need it to take full advantage of what the world of IP has to offer. In time, both sides will be happy, but the road ahead will not be easy, and we see this taking longer than either side expects. The wait will be worth it, however, and just when we get there, do not be surprised to hear that Telco 3.0 is on the horizon. IP will remain ever-evolving, and for operators to succeed with it, they must embrace change as constant.
Technorati tags: Microsoft Canada, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, Telco 2.0
Posted by jonarnold at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2007
Next Stop - Ottawa - Tech & Venture Summit
Just a quick post to say I'll be participating at the Ottawa Technology and Venture Summit next week. I'll be there Tuesday through Thursday, and am moderating a panel about video convergence on Thursday morning.
Really looking forward to getting closer to the Ottawa tech market, and no doubt I'll meet up with some pretty interesting companies. If you happen to be attending, by all means, look me up.
Technorati tags: Ottawa Venture and Technology Summit, Jon Arnold, OVTS
Posted by jonarnold at 08:53 AM | Comments (0)