A VoIP Veteran Leaves Town.

Knowing Brian McConnell personally, I am sorry to see him leave the industry. Brian has great respect for UI and user experience as a whole, something that - remarkably - still lacks in telecom. Although it’s better than it used to be. Web 2.0 companies - the leaders at least - are proving that user experience can in fact be marketing in itself. Telecom companies could do the same, especially those bringing hosted services to the market, by leveraging the control that hosted provides (over CPE) to create user experiences that constantly improve.

Lastly - in reference to Brian's points on the state of the industry - I would add that while minute stealing is a diminishing return, it does allow some runway time for these companies to figure out how to change their revenue models from one predicated on transport to one predicated on application value. It can be done, and will make for some very profitable new telephony companies.

Good luck with the WWL, Brian.

Babysitter 2.0

As this is the week between Christmas and New Year's and my brain is on a self-imposed break, I bring you a very lite Skype tale to enjoy for the holidays.

My Montreal and tech-savvy friend Phil Telio recently was faced with a major dilemma. At the last minute before leaving for a party down the street, his sitter for the night bailed. As any parent of young children can relate to, the euphoria that sets in as a the sitter's arrival approaches is somewhat unmatched. We all love our children but we all love getting out. Without them. So when your parade is rained on at the very last minute, survivor instincts tend to kick in.

In Phil's case, there was no time to find a back up. And no way he was staying home. Enter Skype, the Internet and video-enabled laptops - and a rescue was in progress. With a Skype call left open between the laptop in his daughter's room and the one he brought to the party (a not so welcome house-warming gift, it seems), Phil had full view of his daughter at all times. What's better is that when she did wake up, Phil comforted her back to sleep as if he was right next to her. Which he was.

With this, I am signing off through the New Year. Thanks to all who were good enough to read my first 6 months of posting. See you in '08.

A Who's Who in New Telephony.

Coverage has been excellent so I am probably not telling you anything you don't know, but the The Top 25 VoIP Innovations of 2007 for VoIP-News is worth a read.

I can't say that I agree with all of them - not sure I would have put MSFT first - but the list is comprehensive. And if nothing else it tells us how much telephony has changed in just 12 months. In the past, changes have come more slowly and typically for the benefit of the enterprise buyer. No longer. This Christmas list comes with something for everyone - the consumer (especially the social one); the small business (more than ever before) and of course, the big company guys. Open access is in and 'closed' is out. Telephony is finally for everyone, which most importantly includes the web development community. Many of them are getting their first taste of telephony, and liking it. And 2.0 has shown us what that community is capable of.

I have to mention number 18 on the list - 'Click-to-be-Called' - because it represents innovation on top of, well, innovation. By this I mean that click-to-call seems so simple to people that it almost feels like it has been around forever. Not so. Products are only as important to businesses as their ability to take advantage of them. Many click-to-call vendors have not met that challenge. Ifbyphone, a long time provider of click-to-call and call routing services for small business, released 'zero-configuration' click-to-call. Write out a URL, add your phone number and like magic you have a click-to-call to put anywhere you like. Web site, email, Word documents. Now this is innovation. Try it.

Phew. Venture funding continues.

If you believe what VC's have to say - more on that later - 2008 will be another good year for raising money. Apart from the easy answers, like that green technology and biotech will have good years, VC's agree that the SaaS business will continue to flourish. Or at least that more ideas (note no reference to good or bad) will be converted into 2.0-looking web sites with a big, flashing BETA sign on it.

While this is good news - especially given all the less than good news we are forced to read every morning - it must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. After all, one of the VC's polled was also polled last year at this time. He was quite sure that IPhone would be a flop. Is 27% ownership of the smart phone market in 6 short months not good enough for any of you? And they predict we will have another 4 years of a Clinton White House. No comment.

From where I sit, there is always VC money available. How good you are at extracting it is not always connected to the state - or future state - of the economy. Either way, lets hope they're right.

The Video Bake-Off.

If people start spending time comparing one product versus another, does it mean that its time has finally come? If so, video at the desktop is here. Among a barrage of published comparisons over the last few weeks, I bring you this one because of the sheer detail and effort that went into it. I sense that all this hype is a result of the Skype/Logitech announcement late last month.

The low-down:

1. Best overall experience: Still SightSpeed.
2. Most Improved: Skype, specifically with the new Logitech camera.
3. Consolation Prize: OoVoo. Built for social purposes (kids). Not for business.

I have tried all three and concur throughout. Next year should only be better for us remote workers who want to see who we're talking to.

Selling to A Seller. A Reseller.

As part of what I do for a living - no I don't live off my blog - I help companies recruit partners to promote the visibility and sale of their products and services. But the thought of selling indirectly always brings with it a paradox - everybody wants to do it; not everyone wants to believe how difficult it is. Thankfully, it is often the bigger challenges in life that bring the greater rewards. Selling through distribution is no different.

This though is not a post about how to sell through partners, it is instead a brief commentary on how to recruit them. It is actually rather simple. The approach is, at least. It's a sales process. Prospective partners are just that - prospective. Not unlike prospective customers are prospects. We all know - to a varying degree - what we need to do to advance a prospect through a sales process. We have to earn trust. We have to help them understand they have a business problem that can be fixed. And we have to show them that we are the ones that can fix it. Better than others. Selling to a partner is really no different.

I would go on but my colleagues over at UCStrategies recently put it better than I could, so I will direct you there instead for the last chapter of this story...Worth a read for anyone looking for new partners to grow their business.

Unified Communications at a cocktail party.

Do you ever have those times when you realize that while certain technologies are common place to you, the other half still knows so very little about them? If not, try talking about Unified Communications on this year's X-Mas cocktail circuit. Better yet, do a poll to find out what the average person actually thinks it is, or means.

We in telephony have been gabbing about UC - well, maybe not at parties - for a very long time. And of course, now that Bill Gates has jumped in the pool, we talk even more. That does not mean though that we all agree on what it stands for, who its for and what its future holds. Just visit Avaya, Nortel or MSFT and you'll find there remains disparate interpretations. Still.

What is now clearer though is that UC should - we hope - do one thing for many of us. We all use way too many communications devices and applications to, well, communicate. What was once the phone, email and a fax is now several phones, multiple email accounts, too many IM passwords and a host 2.0 widgets that clutter the desktop. UC can help with some of this as it makes its way to the general pop.

All this rant came to me from a post I read through BMighty (one of my favorite daily dishes, actually) on Siemen's view on UC. Couple of notes of interest. One, we use on average 4.8 communications applications. At least I am above average on some things. And two, they listed 5 core components of UC:

1. Built-in Presence, showing who is available and accessible. (even better once it gets to cell phones).

2. Drag and Drop Conferencing, letting users create meetings by dragging and dropping contacts into the conference screen. (My all time favorite).

3. Built-in Fax Message Box, which lets you receive and respond to faxes quickly, just like emails. (Won't touch me but can be helpful).

4. Built-in Info Status Pop-Ups, to keep you informed when new calls come in, for example. (Creates an online control panel for calls and IM).

5. Microsoft Outlook Integration means users can handle all their communications in one applications that they already know. (Even better).

Enough UC talk. All ranting aside, there is so much value in UC. But like anything else, the masses need to be able to process its core values before considering investing it. We're getting closer.

The Return of Phone.com.

Another story from the bubble days, but this time with a happy ending. Phone.com - I can't recall whether it had a use other than being an easy to remember URL - was merged with Software.com back when for a gabillion monopoly dollars. The buyers were going to change the world. Well the world changed, but they had little to do with it. In fact, the URL has sat fairly silent since the turn of century.

Now it's back (under new management), preparing to do battle with the host of virtual PBX offerings in the market - GotVMail and RingCentral to name a couple. It may also be revving its engine to take advantage of the market Google is going to create when it relaunches GrandCentral, which I must say I am curiously waiting for.

Phone.com for the moment does more or less what its competitors do, although they have chosen to sell VoIP services to the home market. One other difference worth noting: By bringing along the Phone.com name (which the investors seem to have bought for a steal - they are the same guys that bought and sold beer.com when you could still flip names) they get to go to market with a built in traffic base of 10,000 visitors a day on type-in's alone. Not bad. Let the battle for SOHO customers continue.

What to wear to a video conference?

In my daily quest to convert mere phone users to video callers, I often get the same rookie push-back: Video sounds cool but then I would have get dressed for my conference calls. Not so. Yes, you should wear something but just because someone can see your face, does not mean you need to be in a suit. Besides, video (at the desktop at least) is built for home office folks. And we don't have dress codes, as my clients remind me every time I forget to shave. Maybe a mirror next to screen would not be a bad idea...

SightSpeed - evangelists themselves - recently published a Top Ten of how to prepare for the video world, from the equipment you need through to what you should wear. Yet another push for those of you not yet being seen over the Internet.

As for me, well I converted two new video users in the last month. And they are officially addicts.

CPE more than holding its own.

Anyone who knows me, knows I am big believer in hosted telecom services. Called it what you want - Hosted VoIP, VirtualPBX, Communications-as-a-Service, Voice-as-a-Service - ultimately it speaks to companies providing voice-related services off of a shared infrastructure. In other words, no customer premise equipment except for maybe the phones. Like desktop software (which also is not going away so fast), analysts have been predicted the demise of premise installed telecom solutions for some time. It seems, based on a few articles I read this week, that it is yet another case of 'not so fast'.

It's perhaps another lesson that vendors - and the VC money behind them - and analysts (paid by vendors) are often ahead of what the business consumer can, well, consume. There are endless hosted services now on the market, and by the looks of their messaging, they are growing like mad. What is more likely though is that their number of tire kickers is growing but perhaps not their customer list. At least as compared to the CPE buyers. A summary of a Forrester report from earlier this year tells a tale of slower than hoped for adoption for hosted services, although still with grand predictions for the future.

Bottom line, as I recounted earlier this week to yet another new entrant to the market: The enterprise market and the 'M' in the SMB market is still controlled by the large, legacy phone system vendors. They maintain the largest marketing budgets and can use these to frighten people away from change. And worse than not adopting a hosted service of their own, they invented something called managed services to help their customers feel like they are getting the best of both worlds. Lastly - and perhaps most important - they still control the channel, and will for some time. Moving to recurring revenue, with all its hoopla, is just not easy for the average telecom channel. Change is hard and they have been doing it one way for all too long. And if the channel is not ready, then hosted services can only scale so quickly.

There is always next year for hyper growth in hosted services. Don't give up. I am sure not going to.

SaaS still not so obvious in the channel.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). It's really not so new anymore. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find anyone or any company who is not using SaaS in one fashion or another. And while it's gaining on us everyday - it's just so much easier to start a SaaS-based company that it was to launch one based on a premise offering - we are still a remarkably long way from seeing it succeed in the channel like its predecessor.

In channels that grew up in a SaaS world, all is well. They really don't know any better and frankly don't want anything to do with a product that has to be installed. Imagine that - having to send a technician to a customer site! I think Internet Marketing and its many silos when I refer these folks.

On the other hand, those that built their businesses on drop shipping and installation have a whole other perspective. The past made cash flow and sales commissions very simple issues - in good times, at least. But low monthly costs stretched out over time is not quite as sexy, particularly for the rep. Ironically, they all love the notion of recurring revenue - or 'mailbox money' as some call it - but it takes many clients and time before this becomes meaningful every other Thursday.

This may change, though, for some. Those channels who truly accumulate their revenues through professional services or integration projects have something to look forward to. SaaS companies are now finding that combining efforts with a tangential application can bring great value to the customer and their users - in the case of a customer facing application. Look at Salesforce. Their AppXChange is/was revolutionary and created opportunities for many a SaaS start-up. But the real winners there are the implementation shops and SI's that pull the disparate solutions together - maybe even hosted it all in one place.

The end user wants - or will want - single sign on experiences. They are already online to use their applications, lets not make them go to more than one place for them. More on this later, but suffice to say that this is where the old guard channel can find some business in the not so new world.

And for a few more thoughts on SaaS - or on what you may NOT already know about it, read on...