The iPad has Entered the Building

By on April 19, 2012 in Telecom

Last week, I got an iPad. It was a very nice and appreciated gift from the gang over at UCStrategies. This is my first Apple product for several years – my last being a video iPod. By no stretch of the imagination could be I labeled an Apple Fan Boy, but I’m not really much of a fan of anything. Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, Apple, Digium, ShoreTel, Mitel, NEC – all great companies that have a lot of things they need to fix.

But back to this new device. I have to say I was quite curious. No single product has made such an impact to computing, mobility, and communications – particularly in such a short span. I love to say ‘I told you so,’ and I am allowed to because I also say it when I was dead wrong. I remember the day Jobs announced the iPad and I thought it was doomed to fail.

The iPad filled a hole – evidently a gaping hole. It brought together so much value, that it’s simplistic proprietary approach was initially overlooked and eventually turned into a feature. The iPad nailed it, it addressed the following pains that are associated with desktop computers: Continue Reading →

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SIP Myths

By on April 18, 2012 in Telecom

Being in the temple of telecom all day every day, I’m sometimes dumbfounded to learn that people are still confused about SIP. I’ve provided six useful myth busters below.

1) SIP is Poor Quality.

SIP is a protocol that actually supports and enables higher quality communications than the traditional PSTN. However, like all tools, it can be used for evil instead of good. The poor quality issue is typically associated with running SIP over the public Internet. This is very common, but is subject to quality issues such as Jitter and latency which could reduce the quality of the conversation. SIP is often run on private or managed networks, many CLECs offer converged pipes that prioritize SIP traffic. There are lots of solutions, and SIP can be the means to improved HD quality conversations.

2) My old telephone system doesn’t support SIP, so I don’t need it.

SIP is a protocol. If you choose to connect this protocol to a device that does not support SIP then a gateway is required. Gateways are falling in price. Digium just announced new gateways starting at $1195. There are no shortage of SIP to PSTN gateway providers – AudioCodes, Sangoma, NET, InGate, and many more. Some of these devices have some security, increasingly the Session Border Controller (SBC) and SIP gateway are converging into a single device. For SBCs, consider Adtran, Sonus, Acme packet, and many more. Most of the big UC vendors offer integrated SBC and SIP support now including Avaya, Cisco, and Mitel. This stuff does not need to be expensive, and the savings associated with SIP (long distance, disaster recovery planning, and converged networking) will likely more than offset the initial costs of the equipment.

3) SIP is just for voice, and our network priorities are elsewhere.  Continue Reading →

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Twitter Fragmentation

By on April 17, 2012 in Telecom

It used to be so simple – RT for ReTweet.

If you RT a tweet, it means you agree or “here here.” It is a form of social propagation: I tell two friends, you tell two friends, and so on and so on.

RT became so popular that Twitter eventually added an RT function. Manual RT has the benefit of allowing a comment, but a long RT (160 characters) can’t be fully RT’d manually, because the RTer’s name will take up space thus making the tweet too long. This forces people to edit the tweet before RTing, but that isn’t exactly fair in journalistic terms – a quote is quote even without quotation marks. I have been the victim of such abuse – where an edited RT changed the spirit of what I was really saying.

Fear not, the crowd sourced a new solution: MT.

MT, I thought it was a typo (but the M and R aren’t exactly near each other on the keyboard) stands for Modified Tweet. Or, more precisely a paraphrased RT.

Then there is also HT for Hat Tip or Heard Through. Use HT when it’s basically a new tweet, but the thread, subject, or site in question was discovered via someone else – thus the tip of the hat.

It is nice to see Twitter morphing into a more sophisticated too, but it is also a problem. In this post, GIACSF12, I analyzed an event’s tweets, and trying to figure out what counts as an RT was pretty darn hard. Some started with RT, some inserted the RT in the middle, some used MT, etc. There was no easy way to sort these tweets to count them.

This is an example of The Law of Simple Things. This is one of my famous laws of human nature, a book I am working on that I intend to publish in the afterlife. The Law of Simple things states that many new things attempt to be a simple thing, but if they are successful will evolve into complexity – a law of nature that cannot be controlled or altered. Twitter was as simple as it gets, but it is getting rapidly becoming very complex. It is showing up in the clients and applications, the social protocols, the ridiculous follower count rules, related services such as Klout, and verified user procedures.

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Podio, Citrix, Collab, and UC

By on April 15, 2012 in Telecom

Last week, Citrix announced it struck an arrangement to acquire Podio. I thinks this is interesting, and here’s why. 

The UC space is moving toward “Collaboration” – you can see it in all the vendor literature and websites. The conferencing space is also moving toward Collaboration as a means to convey more than just audio or even video. The social enterprise space is also moving toward Collaboration – social networking is often associated with time wasting gossip, so putting a collaboration spin on it makes it more suitable for  business.

So what does this mean? Well, that depends a lot on where you sit. As a end user, it’s great – it means lots of vendors, in seemingly different industries, are aligning in clever ways to help improve productivity. If you are a vendor or channel partner, it means (like all other things in UC), that the competitive landscape is rapidly changing, and that companies that were partners or complimentary are rapidly becoming competitors. Either way, it means the ‘horizon of interesting things’ is expanding.  Continue Reading →

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The Joy of Community Management

By on April 12, 2012 in Telecom

Daddy, What’s a Community Manager?

Sounds like a great question from my kid to me, but actually, they have a better idea than I do. I wonder how I would explain it to my father. The site launched and we are off – the CIO Collaboration Network (say that three times fast) is a new community about collaboration solutions and technologies. My blog (you are here) evolved over time. Other sites where I contribute were already built-up before me. It is fascinating watching IDG accelerate this new site into maturity.

Aspects of this role I accurately expected:

  • Lots of posts. I’m posting here and other sites – and a lot over a the CIOCollaborationNetwork. Continue Reading →
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Barriers to Enterprise Video Keep Falling

By on April 11, 2012 in Telecom

I’ve written a few times about Lifesize, a subsidiary of Logitech.

Logitech and Lifesize Booth Enterprise Connect 2012

Logitech, LifeSize, and Slim Devices Oh My

Logitech and Jabra

Smile, It’s for You

What I find so interesting is that Logitech continues to de-enterprise LifeSize. Logitech is mostly known for its keyboards, mice, and webcams (though I like the Squeezebox best). LifeSize was known for its enterprise class video systems. At the time of acquisiton, there didn’t seem to be much overlap. But video isn’t just for the rich and famous any more.  It positions the company nicely as consumerization continues to encroach into the enterprise space.

At Enterprise Connect – the Lifesize/Logitech combined booth had a lot of product. They have since announced a new BCC950 ConferenceCam, a peripheral USB device webcam/speakerphone for small team collaboration. It was branded under the Logitech brand, but suitable for LifeSize’s Connections cloud service.

Yesterday, LifeSize announced new video solution bundles sold like a webcam via its distributor VoIPSupply.com. VoIPSupply offers a lot of services, but they are primarily associated with drop ship Internet sales of VoIP related hardware. VoIPSupply is now bundling Lifesize, Logitech and Jabra components into turnkey bundles designed to work with LifeSize’s Connections service.

There are four initial bundles.  Continue Reading →

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Dial Oops for Area Codes

By on April 9, 2012 in Telecom

Area Codes are a nightmare. We have all lived through an Area Code “split” where an Area Code is broken up into two or more so that we can have more phone numbers. It means updating all of our address books, printing new business cards, and having to remember a new phone number. What a mess!

The history of Area Codes is an interesting insight into how even the brightest minds can struggle to see the future clearly. You see, the entire mess of Area Code Splits could have been completely avoided had somebody seen clearly enough. Continue Reading →

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Hospitality v Hostility

By on April 7, 2012 in Telecom

As one who spends a lot of time in hotels each year, I have always wondered why the Internet is so poor. It’s frustrating to have a room in an expensive hotel and to not be able to do basic things, like check email, because of the slow speeds.

I have actually blamed the uninspired hotel rating companies for this problem, more than the hotels. After all, if the ratings companies measured the Internet speeds like they have metrics for other things then consumers would be able to make an informed decision. Hotels would then see a direct impact of poor and good speeds. Why the ratings companies like Trip Advisor have never thought to evaluate Internet speeds is a mystery.

This reminds me of Steve Jobs. He said that you cannot tell what customers want by asking them. I bet that if you asked 100 users of Trip Advisor what feature they would like added, few would think of Internet speed ratings. And, I bet that if that featu were added, most consumers would say it was one of the most important ways to evaluate a hotel by. Harvard would teach its students to survey customers. Steve Jobs would just have a temper tantrum, and then he would realize that many others have the same need. I guess there are no similarly passionate managers at Trip Advisor. Status quo is the way to go. Continue Reading →

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Three Twitter Feeds (follow me)

By on April 6, 2012 in Telecom

I maintain three separate Twitter feeds for news you can use.  There is very little duplication between the accounts.

@DaveMichels is my personal feed. I used to include lots of telecom stuff too, but since I created @TalkingPointz, my feed tends to be less focused on telecom news and more general telecom and high-tech thoughts, links, and opinions.  This account is me, so its more likely to get personal responses. I scan and read a lot of news and to share articles of interest.

@TalkingPointz is my uber tele-newsbot feed. It scans all the major telecom news sites and tweets on news and events from across the industry – NoJitter, UCStrategies, Fierce, Business Insider, Telecom Reseller, Tech Target, and more. I also insert interesting telecom news oriented pieces from other sites including GigaOm, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and wherever else I see them. If you have suggestions on sources I should include on this feed, just let me know. I try to keep the feed very telecom/enterprise communications focused  preventing some sites from automated inclusion. I often manually include relevant posts when I see them.  (Related: Facebook).

@CIOCollab. As the community manager of the new CIOCollaborationNetwork, I keep an out for industry news and conversations specifically related to collaboration. My Unified Communications (@TalkingPointz) and Collaboration (@CIOCollab) have conceptual overlaps, but @TalkingPointz tends to be more industry oriented and @CIOCollab tends to be more end user oriented. For example, if you want to know which vendors announced what this week, it will be on @TalkingPointz, while @CIOCollab is more likely to cover organizational policies and adoption angles. (Related: Facebook and LinkedIn)

There is some overlap as appropriate, but for the most part the feeds are different.

 

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Cellular Musings

By on April 5, 2012 in Telecom

Imagine Simple Cellular

Imagine a world when cellular service was simple. You walked into a store, bought a SIM card, and started to have phone service.

You paid for the minutes you talked. The rates were reasonable. And, you could switch at any time.

Actually, we have such service in the United States: It’s called prepaid. You buy a phone for $40 and you buy a block of minutes for about 10-cents each. Continue Reading →

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