Jon Arnold's Blog

May 01, 2008

Tech Target - Ask the Expert on UC

New things come my way all the time, and one of the most recent has been with Tech Target. They run a group of IT and communications portals catering to a variety of topics, and for each one they have all sorts of resources, such as white papers, newsletters, webinars, etc. It's actually not that different from the portal I recently launched with my partner Marc Robins, IP Communications Insights.

Anyhow, Tech Target has invited me to be part of their roster and contribute on a few fronts. We're starting out with me handling various Ask the Expert inquiries, and the first batch have been under the umbrella of Unified Communications. They don't exactly fit there, but that's where these questions have been slotted, and my responses have just been published.

I've contributed answers to questions on four topics - benefits of VoIP for travelers, why VoIP is ready for mainstream use, issues faced by VoIP vendors selling to enterprises, and the difference between VoIP and IP telephony.

To review the responses, you have to register, but it just takes a minute and it's free. Would love to hear your comments if you have a chance to give these a read. I'm looking forward to doing more of these, and in due time, am pretty sure you'll see me doing other things with Tech Target.

Technorati tags: Tech Target, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications

Posted by jonarnold at 09:51 AM | 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 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)

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)

December 12, 2007

Cisco C-Scape 2007 - Reprise

The C-Scape event finished up this afternoon, and overall, it was a really well run event. Today was mostly break-out sessions and 1 on 1 interviews, all of which were very good. Time well spent for sure.

It's been a full day and with an early flight home tomorrow, I'm not up for much analysis right now. The next best thing is to share with you coverage of the event on Cisco's corporate blog, which also includes a number of video clips of a few presentations.

I'll add my parting thoughts in a separate post once I'm back. Stay tuned....

Technorati tags: Cisco, Jon Arnold

Posted by jonarnold at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2007

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 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)

October 23, 2007

Fall VON - Unified Communications Conference

Finally getting a chance to post today. Got a few shout-outs to do for Fall VON. This one is for the Unified Communications Conference, one of a few conferences-within-a-conference taking place next week at the event.

My colleagues at UC Strategies.com - especially Jim Burton and Blair Pleasant - are media sponsors and more importantly are running most of the tracks. It's great to them getting a showcase like this to devote 2 full days to unified communications, and if this topic is high up on your radar, these sessions will be time well spent.

Lots of familiar names will be speaking, and if I wasn't so involved with the Unconference and Innovator's Track, I'd be spending most of my show time there. I'll certainly do my best to drop in on the sessions, and hope to see you there.

Technorati tags: Fall VON 2007, Jon Arnold, UC Strategies.com

Posted by jonarnold at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2007

Next Stop - BroadSoft Connections

It's in-between time for me in terms of the two major IP communications shows I usually attend this time of the year - TMC's ITExpo and Pulvermedia's Fall VON. I've got plenty of client work keeping me busy and I'm not trying to travel too much.

For now, I've got one travel event of note lined up during this time period, and it's a good time for me to put it on the blog. About 10 days from now, I'll be attending the BroadSoft Connections 2007 event in Phoenix. I've been once before, and they really do a great job. Am looking forward to catching up with their team and getting a close look at their roadmap.

BroadSoft is one of those companies that has stuck to their plan, and it's working quite well for them. If I had to pick an IPO-in-waiting in our space for 2008, they'd have to be at the top of the list, so this should be an especially good time to go.

I love going to industry events, but I enjoy attending vendor events almost as much. I've been lucky to get invites to several of these, for both Tier 1s and Tier 2s, and I always come away feeling the time was well spent. I'm sure Connections will be no different, and what's not to like about Phoenix? Hey, they may even still be playing baseball then.

Technorati tags: BroadSoft Connections, Jon Arnold

Posted by jonarnold at 08:17 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)

Podcast with Jim Burton - Zeacom and Unified Communications

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

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

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

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

Posted by jonarnold at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)

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 18, 2007

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launching Tomorrow

Tomorrow - September 19 - is the beta launch of IP Convergence TV. Chances are this will be news to you, but hopefully not for long.

IP Convergence TV is an industry-based web portal focused on the broad spectrum of IP Convergence, which includes IPTV, Triple Play, FMC and some IMS. The portal has been developed to become a focal point of thought leadership and high quality content to help service providers better understand how they can effectively adopt convergence technologies.

I'm involved in this initiative and serve as the Portal Editor and Community Advocate. It's a pretty engaging role, and my job is keep the content on target, and I'll be making regular contributions of my own. I should point out that this is a non-commercial site. The core content is contributed by a charter group of sponsors, led by Comverse. That said, we are also drawing from a wider pool of thought leaders, so the perspectives will be pretty broad.

I'll leave it at that for now, and would simply encourage you to visit and learn about what the portal is all about and what it has to offer. There's lots to explore, and you can sign up free for regular updates. The portal is definitely going to evolve, but as a beta site, it's quite good, and if you're following IP convergence, I'm sure you find the content and the concept of interest. Hope to see you there.

Technorati tags: IP Convergence TV, Jon Arnold, Comverse

Posted by jonarnold at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2007

TMC ITExpo - Show Highlights

It's been a long time between posts, but the week just sort of worked out that way. I flew out on Sunday to LA for the Fall edition of TMC's ITExpo, and was there the first 2 days. I moderated a couple of sessions, took in a bunch of briefings, saw a few sessions, did a podcast with Jim Burton (coming soon!), and made my way around the show floor a few times.

All told, it was a pretty strong show - good size, but not huge, so there was time to see everything, which was great. Seemed to be a lot of energy, and most of the exhibitors I spoke with said the quality of the traffic was very good. No huge announcements and nothing radically new at the show, so the world I came home to was pretty much the same as when I left.

As expected, there was lots of enterprise-focus, with dedicated tracks for call centers, unified communications, SIP, open source and SMB VoIP. I saw what I could, and what I missed seeing the most was the IPTV track on Monday. Seems a bit out of place for such an enterprise-focused lineup, but as with most of the shows today, to cover IP effectively you need to have content in hot areas like IPTV.

Definitely worthwhile, and as always, it's a great chance to get a whole bunch of in-person briefings done, and of course do some business development. Met some interesting new companies, and I hope to be blogging about them soon.

I should also give kudos to Rich Tehrani and the TMC team for putting on another good event. My only quibble would be the lack of WiFi in the press room, but otherwise I think everyone went home happy.

I'll leave you with some photos, courtesy of the Nokia N95. Yes, you heard me right! I've been talking this phone up for ages, and I've finally pried it away from Max, and it's now my turn to use it.

Approaching the LA Convention Center - lots of interesting curves, angles and shadows from this perspective...

Fellow blogger Ken Camp and his legendary technosack. This man is prepared for virtually any high tech situation at conferences.

Ken's session on enterprise security; Norm Stout, Inter-Tel

Chris Lyman showing off Fonality's Trixbox; Hmmm - not sure what they're doing here, but yes, they got my attention! Actually to get the real story, and several views from the front, a smiling Tom Keating can fill you in. Lucky guy....

Simon Gwatkin, Mitel; Steve Johnson during Ingate's SIP Trunking session

Chuck Rutledge, Quintum; Janice Hewins selling me something at the Comverse booth!

Rich Tehrani - thanks Rich!; Bryan Martin of 8x8 doing a video interview from the booth

Andy Abramson's wine tasting dinner for clients and bloggers - doesn't get better than this...

Saving the best for last - maybe. The show venue is adjacent to the Staples Center - home of the once fab-U-luss Lakers and the always mediocre Kings, and the Clippers too, I think. Things are pretty quiet there this time of year, but it was fun to walk around a bit. So, right by the ticket office, there's the "L.A. Sports Arch of Fame". Ok, pretty neat idea for honoring your heroes. You can see behind the arch a statue, which you really can't make out from this photo. With all the Lakers' titles - and nothing for the Kings, a lot of legends come to mind for who this person just might be. Not hard to come up with a few all-time greats who brought titles to LA - Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Kareem, Magic, Shaq, even Kobe. Any of these would be a good - and logical choice, right? So who is it?

Drum roll....it's.... The Great One - Canada's Wayne Gretzky. Wow! Can you believe it? Sure, he made hockey a glamor sport in LA, which was great, but no Cups. If you're from Canada, you just have to smile a bit at this one. Is there any statue in Canada as bold and beautiful as this honoring him? If not, there should be. But here in LA? How can hockey possibly trump basketball in this town? Some questions are probably better left unanswered....

Technorati tags: TMC ITExpo, Jon Arnold

Posted by jonarnold at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)

September 07, 2007

Microsoft UC Vision Team Meeting

A few months back I was invited to join the Microsoft Canada Unified Communications Vision Team. It's basically a forum to provide insights about their unified communications initiatives from people following this space. Most vendors have forums or councils like this, and I think it's a great to way create a dialog with the outside world, and I'm glad to be part of it.

Yesterday I attended my first group meeting at Microsoft Canada's offices. They usually do these as a conference call, but the in-person setting is so much more engaging - good idea. The Vision Team draws from all kinds of spaces, including academia, but also telecom consultants of various stripes. I was the only analyst and blogger in the room - at least from what I could tell - and it was great to hear all the different points of view about what Microsoft is doing, and what unified communications means to each of us.

Lots of talk about end user experiences, and we all shared our personal regimes of the devices and applications we use on a daily basis. That was fun, and it sounds like the Microsoft team - Bryan Rusche and Erin Elofson - had lots of good takeaways.

I'm looking forward to continuing with this group, and I know there will be some tangible outputs that will help Microsoft better sell its vision to enterprises.

I'll leave you with a few photos, via my Nokia N93, of the meeting and the demos we saw.

Bryan and Erin demonstrating a typical UC session. Using presence, they see each is available, so they start to IM chat. This gets escalated to a video call, and you can see here Bryan in the larger picture, and Erin in the tiny picture embedded in Bryan's screen view.

Demo of Live Meeting and Roundtable, which is their 360 degree view of the room, split across multiple screen images. This will be launching later this month, so stay tuned.

This photo doesn't do much justice to the concept. I attended a more extensive demo of Roundtable this summer, and for a better look at this, have a look at my post and video segment of the demo.

Technorati tags: Microsoft Canada, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications

Posted by jonarnold at 09:20 AM | Comments (1)

August 31, 2007

VoiceCon - Podcasts with Key Speakers

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

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

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

Technorati tags: Voicecon, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications Strategies

Posted by jonarnold at 11:43 AM | Comments (1)

August 28, 2007

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Elliot Katz - Microsoft Vista

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by jonarnold at 08:34 PM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2007

MetaSwitch Article on Unified Communications

I've been a fan of MetaSwitch for a long time, and they're a great example of a company that's focused on their market and their customers. They don't make a lot of noise, but they get their share of business and are constantly innovating. All the hallmarks you want to see in a successful company.

MetaSwitch started publishing an e-Newsletter late last year, which is something I think all vendors should be doing. They asked me to contribute an article for the current issue, and I wrote about Unified Communications. The August 2007 issue went live a few days ago, and I just wanted to pass the word on - not just about my article, but for their newsletter as well. If you like what you see, then sign up - am sure they'd be happy to add you to their list.

Technorati tags: MetaSwitch, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications

Posted by jonarnold at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2007

Update on Telus/RIM 8830 Launch

Fellow blogger Jim Courtney left a comment on yesterday's post about the launch I attended for the BlackBerry 8830.

Just wanted to amplify his comment, as my post needs correcting. Telus stated that they had an exclusive on the 8830, and he rightly points out that Bell has been recently advertising this phone. To follow through more on this, please check out his SkypeJournal post that is linked on his comment. Thanks Jim!

Technorati tags: Telus, Jon Arnold, Jim Courtney, BlackBerry 8830

Posted by jonarnold at 08:35 PM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2007

Telus/RIM Lauch BlackBerry 8830

Yesterday, I attended an early morning launch of the BlackBerry 8830. You could argue this is Telus's answer to the iPhone, but only in a small way. It's an exclusive deal with Telus for the Canadian market, and it's dubbed the "World Edition" smartphone. This event was jointly produced by Telus and RIM, and the message was pretty clear: if you do a lot of international business travelling, this is your must-have device. I don't fall into this category, but the room was packed, and I know this corporate lifestyle is the norm for a lot of people these days. If you're in this camp, the benefits are pretty clear, and I can see why this should be a big hit for Telus and RIM. Aside from lots of new and cool features, it becomes your world phone that works just about anywhere. Another step forward in the quest to be always on/anywhere/anytime...

In short, here are some of the neat features of this device....

- Multiple band coverage - CDMA/EV DO for North America, and CDMA/GSM for international use. They also took the time to remind us that Telus has the best, fastest wireless network in Canada, so when you do your Web browsing, you'll be getting a better experience than with Rogers or Bell.

- Built-in GPS - they had a pretty good demo of a voice-activated navigation system, giving you turn-by-turn directions while you're driving. I don't quite agree with their take that this is a better solution than the map in your glove box, but sure, when you have a rental car and you're in the boonies trying to get to a meeting, no doubt, this is a great thing to have.

- Trackball for navigation - whoa - no more thumbwheel! Am sure that's big news for anyone with CrackThumb disease. Also, being situated in the middle of the device, it's dexterity-agnostic. How's that for an awkward term? So, lefties will be happy now - they can use it just as easily as righties.

- Full QWERTY keyboard - just to be sure you don't think the Pearl is the ultimate RIM device. Power users gotta have this.

- Enhanced media player. A while back, Jim Balsillie stressed that the BlackBerry was successful because it focused on mobile data only - it didn't have any distractions to water down the performance. Times have changed, of course, and the multipurpose device is the norm. So, the 8830 touts its enhanced media player UI, including video, photos, MP3 for music and even ringtones. It's not a camera, but it plays all these things, so it's certainly got the look and feel of a smartphone.

- MicroSD slot with 4 Gig of memory. Definitely a business class feature, as the idea is to make this your mobile work station. Aside from watching movies, the idea is to be able to view large files, and work on things like spreadsheets and read pdfs.

- 33% more battery life - makes sense given what I just said

- Government-grade security features. They emphasized that if RIM's network support for the 8830 is good enough for both the U.S. and Canadian goverments, it will be secure enough for just about any business environment.

- Business continuity. They stressed this a number of times, and that's definitely a benefit of having a mobile device that allows you to stay productive under just about any set of conditions. It was very nice to see Wallace Wireless featured as a Telus solutions partner at this event. I just did a podcast with their President last week.

All told, a pretty good launch and they sure got a good turnout. I wasn't crazy about the early start, but it's good to get these things done before the day gets too hectic. That's the easy answer, but I think the real answer for the early start ties into the overall theme in addressing the target market for the 8830. I don't know if this was by design, but people who travel a lot are used to getting up at ungodly hours to catch early flights. So, an early start here is just a reminder of how much easier business travel will be for them with the 8830.

Thinking along those lines, I now understand why the event was staged the way it was. The venue was called the "Departure Lounge", and was held in an upscale nightclub downtown. It was way too early in the morning to be going to a club for anything, so that took a bit of getting used to. When you called in earlier to RSVP for this event, you were calling into a "Reservation Center". And when you got to the venue, you were greeted and guided by models dressed up as flight attendents. Are you getting the picture now? I didn't clue into this until seeing the models, but I get it.

Ok, so they're treating the whole event as a simulated air travel experience, which heavy business travellers would be very familiar with. I don't know if this sunk in with the attendees - maybe the marketing was a tad too clever and subtle - or maybe not. Anyhow, somebody spent a lot of time and money putting this together, and I don't know if people are awake enough at this time of the day to get the clues. I hope so....

Here are some photos, courtesy of my Nokia N93.

A lot of circles and curves at this event - is there a pattern here?

Technorati tags: Telus, Jon Arnold, RIM, BlackBerry 8830

Posted by jonarnold at 09:40 AM | Comments (1)

July 05, 2007

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Rob Moffat and Mobile Business Continuity

On this week's podcast, my guest was Rob Moffat. Rob is the President and co-founder of Toronto-based Wallace Wireless. His company focuses on mobile applications to support business continuity, a space that's starting to get more attention.

Rob talked further about what's behind this trend and why it's important to provide a mobile solution. We also talked about how being in Toronto has been a real plus for their largest customer, RIM, as well as some of the factors that make Canada a good market to support companies focused on the wireless space.

You can download the podcast and read more about Rob here.

Technorati tags: Wallace Wireless, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, business continuity

Posted by jonarnold at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)

July 04, 2007

Mitel Forum 2007 - Highlights

For the most part, going away to conferences and industry events is a good thing. It's the best way to stay current, to gain a deeper understanding of companies and technology, to meet with clients, to network with others, and to meet new people. No argument there. The downside to going away is the disruption for everyday stuff, and no matter how much multitasking I do on the road, it always takes a few days to catch up.

Last week I was at the Mitel Forum 2007 in Las Vegas - nothing wrong with that, right? It was a really worthwhile event - for all the reasons cited above - but it's taken til now for me to blog about it. Don't ask why - some things just take a while, especially with Canada Day and July 4 coming right after.

So, this is another better-late-than-never posts, and it's mostly photos anyway. Mitel's event wasn't on the scale of Cisco - and that's a good thing. It was really nice to have a series of updates from Mitel's leadership team in a close, informal setting. They were very accessible, and open to two-way dialog. We were a group of about 25 analysts, and we had our own track of sessions that was separate and different from what the majority of attendees did. This was the broader Mitel community - distributors, technology partners and customers.

The only drawback was that the analysts were sequestered in one session room the whole conference. We hardly saw the light of day, and really only got to mingle with everyone else during the exhibitor showcase at the end of each day. The upside is that Mitel had our undivided attention - which is by design of course - so I think everyone got their money's worth. That said, it never fails - some analysts couldn't help themselves to ask Mitel execs questions about Inter-Tel. C'mon - we all want to know these things, but really, what can you expect Mitel to say with the deal still pending? Not all analysts are created equal....

All told, though, it was time well spent, and kudos to Mitel for putting on a well run event. My only complaint - and I'm not alone - was the lack of WiFi and Internet access. This was a big reason why I didn't blog last week - but the food sure was good.

As usual, photo highlights courtesy of my Nokia N93.

Mitel's favorite people - us analysts...

Exec roundtable - Jim Davies, Simon Gwatkin, Don Smith

Paul Butcher, Dan York

Exhibitor showcase

The fabulous Bellagio lobby ceiling - $13 million worth of glass. That's oversimplifying things, right? Gotta see it to believe it...

Sunset view from my room

Technorati tags: Mitel, Jon Arnold

Posted by jonarnold at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2007

Shoretel IPO Roadblock - Mitel Launches Lawsuit

I just got back from Mitel's customer/analyst conference this morning, and have not been able to blog until now. I've got a backlog of things to post, but this one has to be first. I got wind of this late yesterday - Las Vegas time - but wasn't able to post about it until now. This may well be the first you've heard about this story.

Basically, Mitel is suing Shoretel big time for patent infringement, and the news hit the wires late yesterday.

In the enterprise telephony vendor space, this is a big one. There's not much detail in the press release - no surprise there - but there's been some difficult history between these companies, and it looks like Mitel has strategically timed this release in advance of Shoretel's planned IPO.

Seems very similar to the tacks a number of service provider threw in the road just around Vonage's ill-fated IPO last year. It's another example of how tough it is to go public these days, and it's too early to know if Shoretel was blindsided here, or just felt these patents would never be an issue. More to come, for sure....

Technorati tags: Mitel, Jon Arnold, Shoretel

Posted by jonarnold at 12:59 PM | Comments (8)

June 13, 2007

Microsoft Office RoundTable Demo

It's been a busy week on a few fronts, and I got to attend a cool event last night. Microsoft Canada held a demo event for Office RoundTable, which is part of their unified communications thrust. RoundTable is an IP-based videoconferencing solution - more features and flexibility than traditional systems, but not as high-end as telepresence. It's a pretty neat concept, and the part I like the best is its portability. The unit is quite small - the size of a table lamp - and looks like an inverted Starship Enterprise. So, you don't have to dedicate a room to it, or have specialized furniture and lighting.

Not too many analysts in attendance - I may have been the only one, in fact, so I got a good look at it. The demo shows the 360 experience, as the cameras take in all views of the room, and you get to see them all at once across various windows on your PC screen. We're told it will scale very well, so potentially, you could do a lot of interesting things with a large room full of people - if that's your cup of tea.

Not much else to say, really, other than kudos to High Road Communications, who did a great job pulling this together. I'll let my Nokia 93 take over from here, with a few photos, and a 4 minute video clip of Bryan Rusche leading the demo.

Bryan Rusche, Microsoft Canada

with Sean Seaton (Microsoft Canada) and my "Microsoft Blue" Mojito

And the best for last - with Katie Cook (Microsoft Canada) and Michel Burger (Microsoft CTO) - and the door prize, which I happened to win - whoo hoo!

Take it away, Bryan....

Technorati tags: Microsoft Canada, Jon Arnold, Office RoundTable, videoconferencing

Posted by jonarnold at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2007

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Chris Lyman - Fonality and Open Source Telephony

On this week's Canadian IP Thought Leaders podcast, I spoke with Chris Lyman, CEO of Fonality. The topic was open source telephony, a space that Fonality has become a leading player in. We talked about the state of open source telephony, and how using Asterisk, Fonality has been driving adoption not just in the business market, but in the home as well.

Looking ahead, Chris also talked about how new features will be the key to growth, and how over time, open source will become increasingly stable, which itself will set the stage for broader adoption. On the Canadian front, Fonality has a local footprint, and Chris talked about the market opportunity he sees there, as well as how Canada differs from the U.S.

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

Technorati tags: Fonality, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Chris Lyman

Posted by jonarnold at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2007

Telepresence Podcast with Teliris and BT Quarterly

I recently was asked to be a contributor to Business Trends Quarterly, which is a great read on the current thinking from the industry analyst community. For their Q1 issue, I contributed an article, and for the upcoming Q2 issue, we did a feature on telepresence.

This was a two-part feature, consisting of a written Q&A between me and Marc Trachtenberg, CEO and Co-founder of Teliris. It will be published in the Q2 edition, but you can read it here now.

In addition, we did a pretty lengthy podcast about the telepresence market today, and I'll post it once it's ready for release. If you're following the telepresence space, I think you'll find this worth listening to. And until then, I hope you enjoy the written version, and if you like what you see, I'd urge you to subscribe to BTQ.

Technorati tags: Business Trends Quarterly, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, Teliris, Telepresence

Posted by jonarnold at 05:14 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2007

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Stefan Dubowski on Open Source and Web 2.0

My guest this week was Stefan Dubowski, returning for his second podcast with me. Stefan is the Editor of Telemanagement Magazine, one of Canada's leading telecom pubs.

We both attended the IT360 conference here in Toronto recently, and shared our thoughts on the event, including Don Tapscott's keynote. From there, we talked about Open Source and Web 2.0, both of which were prominent at the conference. Stefan has been covering telecom for quite some time, and he shared his views on why large enterprises aren't quite ready yet for Open Source.

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

Technorati tags: IT360 Conference, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Stefan Dubowski, Telemanagement, Open Source

Posted by jonarnold at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2007

VoIP Supply - the Right Way to Market IP Telephony

I'm not a user of Open Source telephony, but I don't have to be to know a good thing when I see it. I've long been a fan of fellow blogger Garrett Smith, and VoIP Supply, who continue to set the bar high in bringing VoIP to the business market. And it doesn't hurt to be based in Buffalo, the closest American city to Toronto. As we speak, the Sabres just beat Ottawa, so the sun is still shining on Buffalo's hockey season. I digress.

Garrett just gave me a heads up on this tonight, and the press release will be out tomorrow. The basic idea is pretty simple, but I think it's just what the market needs. Basically, VoIP Supply will conduct a network assessment for VoIP readiness for those who can't do it themselves. Their price points are very attractive, with tiered pricing depending on how many lines.

I'm not going to give away the details now, but I think it's a very friendly way for companies to engage the expertise of VoIP Supply, and make their path to IP that much easier. Nothing revolutionary here - lots of people do VoIP network assessments, but not many have the breadth of expertise that VoIP Supply has, especially for Open Source solutions. Of course they provide the full gamut of IP telephony solutions/systems, so they're a pretty good one stop shop for all flavors of VoIP - and for me, that's all the more reason to use them. I'm sure their offering will be well received. I know if I was in the market for this, I'd find this a pretty useful service.

Technorati tags: VoIP Supply, Jon Arnold, Garrett Smith

Posted by jonarnold at 09:53 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2007

Good Week for Sangoma and Open Source

I've been a fan of Sangoma for a while, and so is fellow blogger/industry watcher Ken Camp. Earlier this week I did a podcast with their CEO, David Mandelstam - our second one - and just today, Ken has posted up his podcast with David.

So, if you can't get enough of Sangoma from me, tune in to Ken's interview.

Stepping back, I should also say it's been a good week for Open Source, at least in my circles. I presented at the IT360 conference on Tuesday, and as you can see from my post, there was a lot of Open Source there, including a roadmap update from Sangoma's chief competitor, Digium.

Technorati tags: Sangoma, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Ken Camp

Posted by jonarnold at 02:34 PM | Comments (1)

May 02, 2007

IT360 Conference Highlights

Yesterday, I attended the IT360 Conference here in Toronto, and gave a presentation on Unified Communications. The content at the conference is pretty heavy on Linux and Open Source, and it's a great place to be if you're into Asterisk. Saw quite a few familiar faces, and missed sessions by Open Source mainstays John "mad dog" Hall and Jim Van Meggelen, as their presentations were at the same time as mine.

The star attraction of the show was Don Tapscott, who gave a terrific keynote built around his new book Wikinomics. He's actually authored 11 books, and drew from many of them, giving the audience a lot of food for thought as to how technology is transforming the way we work, live, communicate, collaborate, etc. Very engaging stuff.

Below are some photos as per my Nokia 93, which could be the last you'll see from this device for a while. I just got the Nokia N95, which I'll start evaluating now.

Oh, if you're interested in my presentation, drop me a line, and I'll be happy to send it over.

Here's Don.....

Kevin Fleming with an update on what's new at Asterisk, including their show-within-a-show plans at the upcoming Fall VON.

The show floor - some familiar names - TAUG - Toronto Asterisk Users Group, and Talkswitch, who I recently did a podcast with.

And finally, the little PC that could. Ever seen anything so cute? This is from the OLPC initiative - One Laptop Per Child - and if you believe in better living through technology, this will certainly be part of the dream.

So, why are we talking about this here? This PC was a very effective prop for one of the exhibitors, Squeak. Squeak.org is an open source applications platform, and is being used by OLPC to drive Etoys, a math and science learning tool.

Technorati tags: IT360 Conference and Expo, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, Unified Communications

Posted by jonarnold at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2007

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - David Mandelstam and Open Source Telephony

On this week's podcast, my guest was David Mandelstam. He's the President/CEO of Sangoma Technologies, one of the leading hardware vendors supporting Open Source telephony. Sangoma is based in Toronto, and I did a podcast with David a little over a year ago, and it was time to re-visit things.

Open Source telephony continues to gain momentum, and David provided a good update on what's moving things forward. Of particular interest was Sangoma's recent news to partner with Montreal-based Octasic for their echo cancellation software. Octasic was also a podcast guest here last year, and they have a good story of their own that I plan to re-visit soon. Echo cancellation is a key feature for anyone providing business class VoIP, and David talked about what this means in terms of how Open Source telephony is evolving.

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

Technorati tags: Sangoma, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Open Source Telephony

Posted by jonarnold at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2007

Mitel Acquires Inter-Tel for $723 Million

This story broke late yesterday, and I just wanted to draw attention to it. Not much public detail or blog coverage yet, but I think it's a good story. This is a $723 million deal, so it's not a small thing, and speaks loudly to Mitel's ambitions about becoming a bigger player in a rapidly growing market.

Mitel has long been a leading IP telephony vendor, especially in the small/mid size end of the enterprise market. Inter-Tel has a strong communications platform, and both companies are leading advocates of SIP and standards-based technologies.

It's another industry consolidation play, and will build two mid-tier players into a big, single mid-tier player who can dominate their space as well as better challenge the top tier vendors. Sounds like a good move for both companies, and it will be interesting to see how they combine their portfolios and manage joint customers.

Another angle to watch is how a private company absorbs a public company, especially with Mitel being Canadian and Inter-Tel being American. Also, Mitel has been on-again/off-again about going public, so this may be one way to address the issue, although my understanding is that Mitel will be remaining private.

For reference, I recently did a podcast with Don Smith, Mitel's CEO. He didn't tip his hand then about these plans, of course, but no doubt talks were underway at that time.

Technorati tags: Mitel, Jon Arnold, Inter-Tel

Posted by jonarnold at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2007

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mario Belanger - Avaya Canada and IP Telephony

On this week's podcast, my guest was Mario Belanger, President of Avaya Canada. I try to have a mix of large and small companies on my podcasts, and it was nice to hear how an incumbent vendor sees the market. Mario and I spoke about the state of IP telephony from Avaya's position, and the issues around getting enterprises to see the vision and value of IP as business transformation tool.

That's an ambitious agenda, but it's certainly one Avaya is banking on - as are other vendors. It's not easy migrating from PBX to IP PBX to business transformation - for both the vendors and the customers, but that's where IP is heading. There's a good story here, and I urge you to hear it for yourself.

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

Technorati tags: Avaya Canada, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, IP Telephony

Posted by jonarnold at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2007

Next Stop - IT360 Conference, Toronto

Trying to stay closer to home these days, and for a change, the next conference I'm participating in is here in my back yard.

Next week is the IT360 Conference and Expo here in Toronto. It's put on by IT World Canada, which is an affiliate of giant IDG. The IT focus isn't of much interest to me, but Linux World is part of this, so there's a strong Open Source element.

I'll be giving a presentation on Unified Communications on Tuesday, May 1, at 11am so if you're in the area, I'd love to see you there.

In terms of star power, there are two speakers I'm keen to see. One is author/consultant Don Tapscott, who will draw heavily on his latest book Wikinomics, and explore how technology is creating a more collaborative economy. Later that day, Digium's Kevin Fleming