IP Convergence TV Update

Wanted to share with you the latest updates to the IP Convergence TV portal, for which I serve as Editor. This will be the last update for 2008, and there's a good mix of new content you won't find anywhere else.

We've got 4 new video interviews. They're all fairly short - under 5 minutes - and each has a distinct view on various opportunities that convergence technologies are presenting to service providers.

- Mitual Mehta of tekplus

- Andrew Haworth of FMCA

- Frederic Morris of Connect World

- Carine Ziol of Comverse

For Guest Opinions, we've got a new contributor from a company many of you are familiar with - Jajah. He's got an interesting take on why voice-based applications are so important for carriers.

- Frederik Hermann, Director of Marketing

Finally, my latest Convergence Blog post focus on strategies service providers are pursuing to manage in today's difficult economic climate.

I hope you come visit the portal soon, as there's lots of other good content from a wide variety of contributors, many of whom you'll know. And if you like what's there, I'd love to hear about it!


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Cisco C-Scape 2008 - Day 2

Well, Day 2 is done, and so is C-Scape 2008. I really enjoyed attending, and feel lucky to be part of the scaled down group that was there in person. The overall content was quite good, and Cisco really seems to be trying hard to stay close to the analysts and listen to our thoughts on their direction.

As mentioned yesterday, a lot of the focus was on how Cisco is transforming itself into a "next generation" company (am still not sure what that term means any more) rather than how they're going to change the world around them. That said, their new tag line makes it pretty clear that's the end game - "Cisco - Best in the world. Best for the world." Got that? A bit of a throwback to GM in the 1950's, but you get the idea. If all this technology carries the day, it will be Cisco's world, and we'll just be living in it. Hey, they've got $27 billion in the bank and a lot of desperate companies at their feet, so anything is possible, right?

Am being a bit facetious here, and Cisco is being every bit as careful and pragamatic as the rest of us. I found many of the sessions down to earth, and Cisco seems very conscious of getting their house in order and focused on helping their customers leverage IT to get themselves through both good times and bad. Day 2 continued the mix of sunny keynotes and hands-on breakouts about their various business lines.

What strikes me overall is the breadth of their market coverage. Having recently been at Avaya's analyst event, it was interesting to see them talk about scaling down their business focus from some 27 lines of business to 3. Cisco was talking about managing 26 priorities - i.e. growth opportunities - so they're certainly not putting all their eggs in one basket. I highly doubt many analysts in the room - if any - can possibly be up to speed on all 26 priorities, which makes Cisco a difficult company to fully understand. Maybe it's that way by design, but listening to their top execs, you come away thinking there really is a grand plan here, and it's all under control. Sure hope so.





I'll leave you with a few photos from today...

Rob Lloyd talking about Cisco 3.0 and what this means for how they will transform the relationships they have with their customers. Pretty forward-thinking ideas here, and if executed well, will serve as best practices for others to follow.

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Art Hair, CTO of Disney - very interesting presentation about the realities of making movies in the digital age and how important networks are to the process. Never thought about film-making this way, and Disney really is a great showcase for Cisco in the sense that film is the most collaborative of all art forms, and collaboration is Cisco's driving mantra now.

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Charles Stucki updating us during the Telepresence breakout. Did you know that Cisco is doing over 4,000 meetings a week using Telepresence? That's got to be adding up to some serious savings in travel costs.

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The best for last - final session was an open-ended Q&A/fireside chat with John Chambers. I think he enjoyed this as much as we did.

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Vidtel Launches Today!

Been trying to get this post out all day. Scott Wharton is one of the few people I know in this space going back to 2001 when I started at Frost & Sullivan. He had a great run at BroadSoft, and it was surprising to hear him make the jump to his own startup this summer. Not only doing a startup for the first time, but moving from the East coast to the West coast to do it. That takes commitment, and he's done it on a shoestring.

His company is called Vidtel - gee, can you guess what the business is? - and today was the official launch. It's a bit like having a baby, so first off, congratulations Scott! You've got a good team behind you, about 100 trials going, the technology is ready now, the service is economical now, and maybe most importantly, video is hot. We're way beyond worrying about how we look on video now, and this isn't the 1964 World's Fair.

Sure, most people are camera-shy, but in the world of iPhone, Flckr, YouTube, Facebook, etc., it's not such a big deal any more. There's no shortage of people ready, willing and able to get onscreen at the drop of a hat. More importantly, Vidtel is about making an everyday experience - talking on the phone - a better experience. There's no shortage of friends and family-based situations where adding video to the mix would be welcome. Vidtel understands this, and the website does a nice job of explaining many of these scenarios and how they would appeal to different segments of the market.

To be clear, Vidtel is a consumer offering. It's not the videophone service that Packet8 was marketing to SMBs. This is a mass market concept, much like Vonage was in 2005. However, prices have come down, and video service like Vidtel is very affordable. The big BUT, of course, is how are you going to get customers? Scott's too savvy to fall into the Vonage trap of spending recklessly to acquire subscribers - especially in today's economy.

He'll start slow and virally, and will establish a loyal customer base and demonstrate proof of concept. That's what I'd be doing. It's not an expensive service to launch, and I'm sure the business can carry itself early on with a modest base of customers. After that, it's all about branding and scale - both of which can be addressed with capital and some sound management decisions.

I'm a fan - I have been ever since he told me about it. I'll soon be a beta user as well, and I'll be reviewing it once I've had some time to use it. Aside from spending time on Vidtel's website, I should add that Scott has a nice blog of his own, so if you want his personal take on how Vidtel came to be, you should read his post about it.

Again, congrats to you and your team, Scott, and it's great to see a startup like this come to life.

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Videoconferencing News - GIPS and SightSpeed

Two companies I have some history with in the videoconferencing space had some news yesterday - GIPS and SightSpeed. I was set to post this yesterday, but we had a power outage at an inopportune time. After that, one thing led to another, and it just didn't happen as intended. Defeated by technology, again...

I'll start with GIPS - Global IP Solutions - since I have more history there. They've just published a white paper along with a video to demonstrate how far desktop videoconferencing solutions have come. I won't say any more than that since I'm the author of the white paper, and I'm not in the PR business. However, I am pleased to see how much attention this has been getting, so if you haven't come across this yet, you can find it in a few places - Fierce VoIP, Conferencing News, and an in-depth review/analysis from Jim Courtney on Skype Journal.

For more detail, you can read the press release here, and download the paper as well as view the demo video here.

SightSpeed had some very exciting news of their own on the same day, so there must be a trend happening. In short, they were acquired by Logitech for $30 million.

Aside from being a great exit for Peter Csathy's company (his third), I see this as nice validation for the good work GIPS is doing. I've got some nice history with SightSpeed as well - and have been a happy user - so it's personally satisfying to see a company I've been following for a while get a buyout like this, especially in such a difficult economy.

Finally, to tie things up nicely, colleague Alec Saunders featured both companies on yesterday's Squawk Box podcast. Guess I'm not the only one seeing a trend here!

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The Ericsson Experience Center Comes to Town

It's not quite the circus coming to town, but the Ericsson Experience Center isn't too far off when it comes to a very cool road show that only analysts and the media could love.

I was one of those analysts invited to attend the Toronto stop on their travelling roadshow today, and as vendor experiences go, this one was right up there. I've seen these types of roadshows before, and you really have to see it to appreciate how sophisticated the inside of a trailer can get.

It's a great way to showcase all the cool things Ericsson is doing with both wireless and wireline technologies. We started first with wireless, and got a look at some of the equipment they're using to support HSPA and LTE, both for in-home and backhaul. I'm not an expert in wireless infrastructure, but this has long been a strong suit for Ericsson. They made it clear that these technologies have utility in both emerging markets with little existing telecom infrastructure as well as urban markets that need higher speeds than what their wireline broadband connections can deliver.

On the wireline side, we saw some really neat demos of IPTV, some of which is in the market today, and some just in the lab. They did a nice job showing how well integrated video and wireless services can be. One example was demonstrating how live streaming video from a cell phone can be uploaded to television to report a robbery in progress. Citizen jouralism 2.0 at its best. Other examples included a more interactive experience for watching sports, and using all the multimedia tools while watching TV - voice, chat, email, ordering concert tickets, etc. If the IMS vision ever truly comes to fruition, it sure looks like we'll never, ever have to get up from the couch except to replace the batteries in the converter.

All told, it was a great way to get an up-close look at what Ericsson is doing. Since most of this happens under the hood, I can't think of a better way to understand and experience all the technology they bring to enable these cool services. Am sure glad they came to town, and even gladder they invited me.

Ericsson Canada CEO/President Mark Henderson

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Amit Kaminer of Seaboard Group - thanks for modelling this to scale! He was at Avaya this week too, so we've seen a lot of each other the past few days.

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New Video Interviews on TMCnet

During TMC's IT Expo a couple of weeks back, I conducted a handful of video interviews. As with the Spring IT Expo earlier this year, these were done while wearing my Editor's hat for the IP Convergence TV portal.

These interviews are a co-production between TMC and IP Convergence TV, and they will be available for viewing on both websites. Updates for IPCTV have been a bit slow lately, but TMC's Alan Urkawich has done a great job getting these produced, and they're now running on TMC's video page. Ideally, they would run on IPCTV the same time, and I could cover these in one post, but since they're up on TMC now, I'm posting today while it's fresh.

I did 5 video interviews during the show, with each guest talking about various aspects of convergence technologies and their impact on service providers. We've kept them short this time around, and each runs about 5 minutes. So, in no particular order, here are the links...

Rich Tehrani, President, TMC - talking about some of the more interesting solutions he's seeing on the showfloor, esp mobile VoIP and immersive telepresence.

Dan York - Dir. Emerging Comm. Technologies, Voxeo - good insights from Dan about how voice-enabled communications is becoming integrated with Web services, and what this means for both service providers and enterprises.

Bob Emmerson - freelance telecom writer - Bob brings his deep industry experience to bear in talking about the importance of QoE for video, and how poorly understood it is in North America. He also shares his views on Unified Communications and the trend towards integrating VoIP with business processes.

Eric Burger - Chairman, SIP Forum - Eric updates us on the SIP Forum, especially the SIP Connect initiative, which is enabling plug-and-play solutions across multiple vendors. He also explains why service providers of all stripes - wireline, wireless and cable - are now actively involved with the SIP Forum, and helping drive its recent growth spurt.

David Yedwab - Partner, Marketing Strategy Analytics - always one of my favorite interviews. David knows the SMB space well, and has great insights about the issues/trends/challenges around their adoption of converged communications services. He cites the Microsoft Response Point solution as a good example, whose launch we both saw at the show.

That should give you a good fix of video content for now. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and let me know which one you liked the best!

To close out, I should also mention that video is a big part of TMC's thinking these days, and these interviews have been posted to a TMC microsite dedicated to video. I think it's a great idea, and it's especially helpful for anyone who couldn't get to the IT Expo last month.

There's loads of video content there, starting with a daily news update from Alan Urkawich - not a bad way to get a daily digest on what's new. Search the tabs, and you'll find video from recent events TMC has been involved with. For the IT Expo, in addition to my interviews, most of the keynotes are there, as well as many TMC interviews conducted with various exhibitors. There's similar content there for Astricon 2008 and NXTcomm.


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IP Convergence TV Update

I haven't blogged much about the IP Convergence TV portal lately, but it's time. Our latest update has just gone live, and as usual, there's lots of new and interesting content.

As portal Editor, my role is to keep the content honest and of a high caliber. I'd like to think I'm doing my part as we continue to get great feedback about the portal and traffic continues to be healthy.

So, I'd just like to draw your attention to the new content in our latest update.

We have two Guest Opinion pieces, and I think you'll really enjoy their personal views on convergence technologies. They're from new voices who may be familiar to you, and if not, I hope they will be soon - Garrett Smith and Brady Gilchrist.

On the video front, we have 3 interviews, conducted at recent industy events in Europe. Two focus on the state of IMS - Joe McGarvey of Current Analysis, and Peter Galyas of Tilgin. We also have Intel's John Woodget talking about what's driving WiMax now and how it compares to competing wireless technologies like 4G and LTE.

Finally, we have a really great primer article from Dickel Sooriah of Comverse on femtocells. It's a very timely resource for a technology that's becoming pretty central for FMC, especially SIP-based services.

I should also add that the Convergence Blog serves as my own voice for IPCTV. Sometimes I write exclusive content there, and sometimes I re-post relevant content from this blog. If there's something you'd like to see me blog about there, I'd love to hear from you.


I hope you enjoy the latest content, and to stay up to date with us, it's real easy to sign up for an RSS feed. Just look for it on the ride side of the home page.



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Espial Acquires Kasenna

Here's a noteworthy item that came out on Canada Day. In short, one IPTV middleware company has acquired another IPTV middleware company. It's not a huge story or a huge deal, but still of interest to anyone following this space.

The players involved are Ottawa-based Espial Group and California-based Kassena. It's a very small deal dollar-wise - not even $10 million - but there are a few aspects worth commenting on.

First, it's a Canadian story. I've followed Espial for quite some time, and they went public up here on the TSX a little over a year ago.

Second, you don't often see Canadian companies acquiring U.S. companies in the IP world. Mitel's acquisition of Inter-Tel last year was another example, but on a much larger scale. Aside from not often seeing these kinds of deals, you may well not have heard about it either. In addition to this being a really small deal, the timing is a bit odd. Falling on Canada Day, it didn't really get picked up until today. And coming into the July 4 break, it may not register much in the U.S. this week either. Is it possible the timing was intentional so as not to attract much attention? I'm not close enough to either company to speculate, but I welcome your thoughts.

More importantly, the story is worth noting as a sign of low-level consolidation in the IPTV market, which is taking longer to hit its stride than most of us have expected. This is a natural stage for any emerging sector, and together these companies should be stronger. It's always tough to gauge synergies among like companies, especially when they are of comparable size.

The real problem here is that the IPTV space - especially middleware - remains fragmented, with no dominant player. Well, they're all competing against Microsoft - that's a given - but otherwise, they're all pretty small. As a result, the longer the market takes to mature, the harder it is for the indies to hang in for the payoff. At this stage of the game, revenues are hard to come by, and options for toughing it out another quarter or two are limited. That would explain why the size of this deal is so small. Better to take a small buy-out now than risk getting nothing later on.

I've always liked Espial, and hope this deal takes them to another level. If it does, I'm sure we'll see other roll-ups as the other middleware vendors look for ways to keep pace. I doubt this will be a game-changer for Microsoft, but it sure gives Espial more runway now to ramp up and try to emerge as a leader among the indies.

All I can do here is draw some home-grown attention to the news and hope they can make this work. Go Canada!


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Skype 4.0 - is Bigger Better?

Today, Skype officially announced the test version of
its latest upgrade, Skype 4.0. Quite a few media types and bloggers picked up on this yesterday, but I wasn't one of them. So, if you know where to go, this may not be news, and otherwise, I'm happy to pass on the highlights.

I participated in the call and briefing today, and it was made clear from the top this is a Beta version with a long test period. Skype wants to be sure they get this right and are really looking for our input to help.

In short, the story is video - that's the gist of 4.0
- bigger, better, faster, easier. Translation - Skype becomes much more fun and much more social. Leading off the call, Don Albert
explained they were "placing some bets" on where communications is going, and for Skype's money, it's on video.

Just to clarify this is not a desperation move or a shift away from
voice, Don spelled out some basic metrics to show that Skype is doing just fine as a business. They did $126 million in Q1 2008, and are on track for $500 million overall this year. Last year they did $400 million, and have now had 5 consecutive quarters of being profitable.

VoIP is a volume business, and even though most Skype users spend little or nothing to make their calls, those $3/month subscriptions sure add up. Let's not forget that unlike the Vonages of the world, their "customer acquisition" costs are very low, so this can be a profitable business once you reach critical mass and get past the growing pains of managing your customers. That's another topic, so let's just stick to the news.

So, why video? They told us that 28% of current Skype calls include
video, and this usage level is rising. This means that a healthy share of Skype sessions are now multimedia, with voice, chat and video. Figure that about 12 million Skype users are active at any give time, then roughly 3 million will be using video.

That's a lot of video calls, and it's a great way to make communications more social, which seems to be the name of the game these days. For now, it's just for the desktop, so it's behind the curve for the mobile video trend, but Skype did tell us they are testing smaller form factors, so it's definitely in their plans.

Following Don Albert's comments, Skype Product Management Director,
Michael Barlett took us through a live demo. It was a bit choppy, but we got a pretty good idea of what the new interface looks like as well as the experience. The key idea here is that Skype 4.0 makes it easier for the mass market to do video calling. It's easier to set up with Skype-certified hardware, it's easier to import your contacts from other directories, it's easier to find other Skype users to call, it's easier to troubleshoot, and it's easier to discover and use new features.

Ease of use has long been a hallmark of Skype's success with voice,
and it looks like they're replicating this now with video
. It was
also good to hear them explain how and why earlier iterations of Skype
video were not as market-ready, so I'd have to hope there has been some learning there. Anyhow, for a more technical and visual sense of Skype 4.0, please have a look at Michael Barlett's post today on the Share Skype Blog. And if you want to try it for yourself, there's a link near the end of his post to download it.

On a more technical level, I'll steer you to Jim Courtney's post on Skype Journal. He got an advance look at this, and provides some good reasons why you should not use this as a full replacement for earlier versions of Skype, especially if you're a regular user. Basically, 4.0 does not have all the voice/chat features of 3.8, so you'll likely lose a few capabilities. Furthermore, the full screen interface will take some getting used to, and may not be a great user experience if you're just texting and/or making calls. Good points.

So, is bigger better? I ask this because the big
change is how Skype 4.0 takes over your full screen rather than the side panel we're used to seeing. They're figuring that video makes a better impression when it's big, plus they've done lots of work on compression codecs to ensure a consistent experience, even if you don't have enough bandwidth. After all, big screen video only looks great if it is great. Poor resolution or jumpy streaming becomes that much more noticeable and can really work against you.

I should also add that the experience was enhanced by hosting the concall using Hi Definition audio, courtesy of their partnerhip with
Vapps. They're not the first company to combine HD audio with high end video, but for the general market, it's a nice selling point. On the whole, though, this Beta is definitely on the right side of the trend towards video, and in time will be a key driver in expanding Skype's user base. Perhaps more importantly - as I concur with Andy Abramson's take on his post - Skype 4.0 creates much better opportunities to support advertising and ecommerce.

Doing this would be a radical departure from Niklas Zennstrom's initial vision of keeping Skype pure and commercial free, but they have a business to run, folks. And video is a far more engaging medium for this than text or voice. The possibilities are pretty boggling, especially if advertising is context-aware, and can be shared with multiple parties. For now, unlike voice and text-based Skype, version 4.0 is single party - it's just one-to-one. When they evolve to multiparty video, I think that's where the potential for advertising and ecommerce - PayPal - don't forget about that! - really becomes real. So, is bigger better? For end users, it probably is, but the full screen thing will take some getting used to. For Skype, bigger will no doubt be better, especially if it opens up new revenue streams and finally creates some real synergies for eBay.

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My Interview with Ariel Barlaro, TV Telco Latam

I recently conducted a Q&A interview with Ariel Barlaro, the Editor of TV Telco Latam about the state of video and IPTV in Latin America.



If you're interested in how this part of the world is adopting video and IPTV, you'll find this wortwhile. Ariel has just published a study on this market, and can speak with authority, especially about regional trends, which are quite varied.



I conducted this interview wearing my Editor hat for IP Convergence TV, and it was posted there last week. We're just coming out of a long weekend here in Canada, and I wanted to draw attention to the fact that TMCnet was nice enough to publish the interview as a Feature Article on Friday on their Triple Play Channel. So, in case you missed it on IPCTV, you can now find it on TMC's site. That said, I sure hope you come to our portal, as the quality of content is very high and the range of thought leadership is quite diverse.



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Scott Wharton's New Venture

I've been wanting to post about this for a bit, and it's a good time now to do this.



Scott Wharton was the VP of Marketing at BroadSoft pretty much as long as I've been in this space, and he recently made a move to do his own thing. He's long been instrumental in BroadSoft's growth, and am sure they're sad to see him go. BroadSoft has evolved nicely into a strong company that I've been close to going back to my time at Frost & Sullivan. I think I even wrote my first white paper for them.



I've long considered Scott one of my go-to guys who I would always make a point of seeing at conferences. He's one of a handful of people I met when first starting out in this space who until a few weeks ago was with the same company. Not many of those around, and that counts for a lot in my books.



I'm not privy to the details, but Scott has been keen on the video telephony market for some time, and now he's taking the plunge. His new company is called Vidtel, and he's gone coastal, moving house and home from Maryland to Silicon Valley. That's quite a commitment, and he's convinced the time is right for a pureplay focused on consumer video calling. He's not alone in this space, so he must be seeing something most of us are not.



There's no doubt the market is more ready for this than ever before. Many flavors of video calling are gaining traction in the enterprise market, and I know of at least one BroadSoft customer who is doing very well with it in the consumer market. The technology is ready, the handsets are cheap enough, broadband is mainstream now, and mobile video calling is starting to happen. So, why not in the home? If anything, video calling can make landlines sexy again, and you can't tell me that's a message the telcos don't want to hear.



So, here's my shoutout to share the news about Scott's move and of course, to wish him all the success in the world. I haven't seen much about this on the blogs, and if you're looking for Scott, you need to know where to find him. For now, the Vidtel website is just a landing page, so that won't get you very far.



If you don't have his personal contact info, you can find him on LinkedIn. You can also find him in the blogosphere. He's been writing sporadically for some time, and it's all good, so you should try following him there. I'm glad I waited until today to post, actually, because Scott actually posted today. Lucky me - my post now has some up to the minute content! It's his first post since early February, but that's understandable given that he's probably been in stealth mode for a while.



Anyhow, he's not in stealth any more, so if video calling is on your radar, you should follow Scott's blog, and more importantly what he plans to do with Vidtel. I'll be watching.





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Posted by jonarnold at April 28, 2008 09:02 PM




Comments




Jon,



Can you please fix the link "Scott actually posted today" since it it's empty and does not work.



Thanks,

Pieter



Posted by: Pieter at April 29, 2008 08:05 AM



Hi John,



Thanks for the write up! If anyone wants to learn more about my new venture, please drop me a line at scott(at)vidtel.com.



Scott



Posted by: Scott Wharton at April 29, 2008 02:13 PM



Hi Pieter - thanks for the comment. Not sure what happened there with the link. Just fixed it - seems to be working now.



Posted by: Jon Arnold at April 30, 2008 02:52 PM

IP Convergence TV Updates Posted

One of the recent hats I've been wearing is the Portal Editor for IP Convergence TV. We've been doing quite a lot of work recently to get the next major update done, and things went live today. We're steadily building a following, and the content is getting better all the time.

There's quite a bit of new content there, some we've had ready for a while, and some that's fresh from last week's IT Expo. If you're interested in what we cover - IPTV, VoIP, FMC and IMS - then I think you'll find our updates very worthwhile.

Here's a short-form list of the new content that's there now:

- 2 video interviews I conducted at the show last week - Greg Galitzine of TMC, and Matt Lukens of Comverse. I did 10 interviews at the show, and the others will be posted in due time.

- 4 new Guest Opinion pieces, all from strong voices in their spaces - Ike Elliott, Markus Goebel, Bob Emmerson and David Hattey. Our roster of contributors continues to expand, and there are more new voices coming soon.

- 2 new feature articles - 1 from BEA and 1 from Comverse

- a few recent posts from me on the Convergence Blog, including my review of the IPTV roundtable I hosted last Friday

As always, I'd love to hear your feedback on the portal, as well as suggestions for new content any time.










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Is Video the next Killer App?

How's that for a teaser? I'm not going to get to the bottom of this right now, but maybe I can get some dialog going around this. It's late, it's Friday, we're all tired, but I'm determined to get this post out today and pass on some link love to colleague Peter Csathy.

Peter is the CEO of SightSpeed, a company I've blogged about quite a bit, and is getting a lot of well-deserved attention from many of the bloggers I follow and cite here.

CES was this week, and while not an event I've ever attended, it's hard to ignore all the noise around it. Peter was there, and having seen John Chambers's vision for video and all the noise around that, he's got a vested interest in having an opinion about this. Based on Peter's post - and other accounts I've seen about CES - Cisco's mantra about video being the next killer app was a highlight of the show, and has gotten a lot of attention.

Well, at face value, it's a strong statement, and even though I wasn't there, I'm definitely nodding my head. I heard the same story a few weeks ago at Cisco's C-Scape analyst conference, and video was certainly the biggest takeaway for me. Having seen a few things over those few days, I certainly saw a new side of Cisco and where they're going - and I think they have a pretty good story here.

The sub-story here is SightSpeed, and if video is the next killer app, then Peter's company will be there in spades. Peter's post makes the case for how SightSpeed is shaping up to be the Skype of video - but without the messy baggage around having a corporate parent. Desktop video is not really the focus of Cisco's grand plan, but that's what SightSpeed is all about. If Telepresence is the killer app for the Fortune 500 set, then SightSpeed will be the same for everyone else. Desktop video may not be as sexy, but it has a WAY bigger user base, and with a best-in-class offering, you have to like what SightSpeed is doing. I sure do!


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IP Convergence TV Updates Posted

Wearing my Community Advocate and Portal Editor hat for the IP Convergence TV portal, it's my duty - and pleasure - to let you know the latest update is running live now.

Not only is there new content, but the look and feel of the website has been updated. It's more user-friendly, but still a work in progress. I can tell you that traffic has been building nicely, and we're getting some great feedback from both vendors and carriers.

Two things in particular to draw to your attention....

1. My feature has been been converted from a podcast to a blog. So, my existing podcasts have been transcribed, and can be found in a new section called the Convergence Blog. My latest posting is an extended review of some recent research from Deloitte that I posted about here on my own blog a couple of weeks back.

The Convergence Blog is very early stage, though, and the look/feel will definitely be evolving - please bear with us. For those of you who were following my podcasts on the portal, I should add that all the posts on this blog can still be heard. Just like I do on this blog, the Convergence Blog posts are audio-enabled courtesy of Odiogo. I think this is a great application, and recommend it for any blogger.

2. In terms of new content, there's a new white paper from AudioCodes, 3 new video interviews conducted by Erik Larsson, and 3 new Guest Opinion pieces from some very good writers/industry players... Thomas Howe, Dean Bubley and Bob Emmerson.

I hope you read 'em all, and sign up at the site to get alerts on our updates. Got a lot in the pipeline already for the next update, so if you're following convergence technologies - IPTV, FMC, IPTV, IMS - you should find this a useful resource.


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Cisco C-Scape 2007 � Parting Thoughts

I mentioned in passing in my earlier post that compared to last year, Cisco has certainly come a long way in its focus on video and network-centric solutions. Lots of talk last year about unified communications and SMB � not so much now. Telepresence is front and center, which is not a bad thing. And why not? I don�t know how much traction Halo or Tandberg or Polycom are getting, but Cisco wasn�t shy telling you how many deployments they have in less than a year�s time. If the numbers are to be believed, it�s pretty hard not to conclude that Cisco has bet right with Telepresence.

There really are 2 major story lines related to TP. The first is telepresence itself and the second is how this fits into the broader constellation of video-based solutions that Cisco seems to be betting its future on. Many presentations and sessions ended with the reassuring messaging that Cisco is �uniquely positioned� to deliver video and bring customers into the Web 2.0 world. Well, if you say so, then it must be true. There was a lot of Kool Aid served at C-Scape, but on this count they just may be right. To the extent you believe that - it�s too early for me to tell - Cisco is poised to become a force in the video a lot faster than you might think.

So, first to TP � Telepresence. The big message there is that if you just think of this as high end videoconferencing, then you have very 1.0 view of things. Absolutely, that�s what it does, but from day 1 Cisco has not called this videoconferencing, and has staked out higher ground trying to get the world to see this as an entirely new category. The Cisco view is that this a tool for business transformation, that changes the way people communicate, and more importantly, the way we do business. They provided pretty good examples of this, particularly in health care, and we�re not just talking about cutting down on travel. It�s about enabling new processes and accelerating workflow. I�m just an indie, so I can�t really envisage this in my world, but can definitely see where this really can happen.

If you want to see the wow factor of where they�re coming from, check out this much-watched video off of YouTube. It runs about 4 minutes, and was mentioned often at the event, and gives the term virtual reality new meaning. In this session, John Chambers is speaking live in Bangalore, and Marthin De Beer appears hologram-like on the same stage as if he was right there with him. This isn�t from a Hollywood special effects magician � it can happen at your next board meeting. An interesting example they provided was how an Arab Emirates country wants to use this as a way to virtually bring Western celebrities into their local events. Well, that makes sense � a lot of rich and famous people will not � or cannot � travel to this part of the world, so TP is the next best thing. I get that.

Also, if you want to see a more extensive video from which this demo was done, there's an official version running on Cisco's website. It runs about 11 minutes, and has John Chambers telling the TP story in more detail.

I should also add that as good as the TP story is, there was no mention made of some interesting news from late last week. Cisco announced they�ll be opening up TP to interoperate with other standards-based videoconferencing systems. I�m all for that, and it positions Telepresence as more of a 2.0 solution, making it even more interesting. Not sure why they didn�t play this angle up at C-Scape.

Lots more to talk about here, but you get the idea. Anyhow, the second idea is the bigger picture of video. This is Dan Scheinman�s world, and Cisco demonstrated on a few levels how committed they are to video. They see it as the killer app of the Internet, and they just might be right. And of course, to do video right, you must have the right network, and who knows networks better than Cisco, right? Networks are not my forte, so I really can�t challenge on this front. What I do know is that 2008 will see the launch of EOS � their Entertainment Operating System � which puts all the pieces to together, including search capabilities that are a big part of their secret sauce.

I agree with Dan�s premise that there�s simply too much content out there, and people generally don�t know what they�re looking for most of the time, and when they do, they really don�t know how to find it. So, a big part of what will make video a big deal is having search tools that don�t just help you find things, but that help you discover things. It�s a subtle difference, but a big one in my books, and again, I get that. If EOS lives up to its promise, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo will have some catching up to do.

Missed opportunities? One comes to mind for me. One of the quiet stories that I think is cool is their focus on digital signage. I see lots of interesting applications, and once Cisco Field is built you can bet it will be a living test lab and showcase for this. Anyhow, given the size of the main hall for the big presentations, there were large video screens flanking the stage so everyone could see what was going on. At the back and the edges of center stage, however, were several smaller display screens draped in semi-random fashion to give the feeling of a more intimate, home-theater type setting. I�d guess they were each approximately the size of a flat screen TV you might have in your home.

Ok � I get it � video is the big message, so sure, the more video displays the better. Unfortunately, for the most part, these display screens only had static images - usually the conference logo. Ugh - not very exciting and, to me, a missed opportunity. Not only could those screens have been used to enhance the overall video message with streaming media, but even more so, they could have been a great vehicle to demonstrate their digital signage technology. It�s pretty neat stuff, and like TP, you really need to see it to get the idea.

Of course, you could argue that having too many screens showing streaming video/media � using both big and small screens - would be too distracting from what�s going on center stage. That may be true, but hey, we�re all smart, media savvy analysts. I�d say a little Hollywood razzle dazzle � even at just a few choice break points throughout the day � would have made a great impression to show off not just the power of both video and digital signage, but also to make a statement about how much of media company Cisco is becoming.

I can�t help but mention at this point that doing something like that � and it couldn�t have been that hard to do � would have been far more effective than the morally ambiguous Telepresence commercial they ran to close out the morning session. If you saw this, you�d know what I mean, and after a morning full of interesting and engaging presentations, it�s hard to see what they were thinking here. On a brain-dead level, the commercial was very sentimental and touchy-feely about an everyday American family keeping in touch with their son who is in some far-away place. That�s an easy message to send about the power of Telepresence. But it sure was hard to tell whether their son � who was holed up in some form of a tented base camp in the middle of nowhere � was doing noble Peace Corps type of work � or was in the military doing other types of work.

Maybe it�s just me, but I found this commercial confusing and a bit suspicious rather than uplifting and singing the praises of TP. I didn�t hear anyone else reading it this way, so I guess it�s just me. So either it was just way too subtle for everyone, or I spend too much time reading meaning into things where there�s nothing really there. The latter is probably closer to the truth, although I spent a lot of time thinking and writing about this stuff as a Psychology undergrad enroute to my Marketing MBA. Or maybe I should switch fields and go into advertising....

Much more to talk about, but that�s about all that will make it to my blog. To sum up, instead of hearing talk about VoIP, IP telephony, unified communications, SMB, the language this time around was about collaboration, Web 2.0, blogging, social networks, innovation, content, community, personalization and the experience. If it was just words like these, you�d be right to be sceptical. But they sure seem to be walking the talk, and even though their Web 2.0 Kool Aid was pretty strong - if you were there you�d know what I�m referring to � I do share their vision and can see how the pieces fit.

John Chambers loves to talk about never losing a battle where they�ve had a head start and how they�ve had a good track record capitalizing on market transitions. It�s also pretty clear that innovation is a major mantra at Cisco, and they�re living it as an organization, signs of which became increasingly apparent the more time I spent talking with them during the event.

Well, video sure is one of these �market transitions�, and they seem to be right on target for what�s coming in 2008. In short, his vision is to transform Cisco from a plumbing play to a platform play, and if they do, their branding message �welcome to the human network� will ring true, and give them the one thing they don�t have � cachet in the consumer market. Apple has it, Microsoft has it, and Cisco�s dying to have it. If I�m a betting man, I say they�ll get it in 2008.


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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....

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Cisco C-Scape 2007 - Day 1

Just wanted to post some quick photo highlights from Cisco's C-Scape analyst conference, which kicked off today in San Jose. I attended last year, and it sure is interesting to see how far along the video/media road Cisco has come in a year's time. Not a lot of talk about routers and switches, hardly any talk about IP telephony, and ZERO mention of VoIP. If I'm tracking video, media, social networking, Web 2.0, it's pretty hard not to bump up against Cisco now. Pretty impressive the way they've put a lot of the pieces together, and I have no doubt that in 2008 they will be one of the big stories in this space.

Got lots more to say, but not now - hopefully tomorrow....


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John Chambers opened things with a roundtable Telepresence session, with live feeds from 4 different cities - 3 on stage as you see here, plus a Cisco contingent based in New York. This was neat to watch, as John Chambers led a round robin discussion with 3 speakers about Telepresence, especially in terms of how these technologies can improve and accelerate productivity. I couldn't help but note, though that the interaction was a bit static, as John went from one speaker to another in serial fashion. So, there wasn't much to look at while the other speakers just sat there silently. Would have been more effective if there was some real time interactive discussion among everyone - maybe next time. Was also interesting with this being a session-within-a-session, as we got to watch John Chambers conduct his session, mostly with his back to the audience. Pretty tricky stuff to stage, as he needs to engage all of us out there watching him face these screens to engage the speakers, since they were talking him, not us.

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Charlie Giancarlo, hosting the Cisco Development Council, with John Chambers looking on in front of me. Tough audience to please, but they did a great job.

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Dan Scheinman, Media Solutions Group - definitely the media guru at Cisco, and I really enjoyed his vision for where all this is going. Key takeaway - Me plus We = Community. Totally.

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Cisco is big on Second Life - here's the Cisco Sandbox...

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Sneak preview - I'm going to be on video during tomorrow's 8am session. I was the first analyst to do submit a question on videotape for tomorrow's CIO Fireside Chat session. Let's see how they answer it tomorrow - I'll let you know next post.

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Blogging Has Some Side Benefits - Being on TV!

This is a fun post, really. Just sharing with you one of the payoffs that can come from blogging. I sure don't do it for the money - don't know anybody who does. The only monetization scheme of note that I participate in is with Newstex, who has been tracking me for almost 2 years. If you scroll down the right margin of my blog page, you'll see a blue Newstex box. Just click on that, and you can learn more about it.

Anyhow, I recently got my current royalty report, and I've earned a whopping $28.42. As you can tell, my blog doesn't carry ads, and I don't really take advantage of the web tools you need to build online traffic, so I have no expectations of turning my blog into a money machine. If that was my business, I'd be doing things very differently, that's for sure.

That aside, I'm happy to say that my blog does generate regular inquiries from people/companies wanting to know about my services and the things I do to make a living as Principal of J Arnold & Associates. And a good portion of those have turned into paying clients, including two this week already. So, if you're wondering if blogging is worth it, that's a hands-down yes, at least for me.

I'm posting now to tell you about a nice side benefit that's come from blogging. I get to be on national TV, but not to tell the world about VoIP. Get this - our national broadcaster - the venerable CBC - has been airing a show since March of this year called Test the Nation. It's an IQ-type quiz show that originated in Holland back in 2001, and the format has been used in some 40 countries, although I don't think it's in the U.S. yet.

The show works on a team concept and 2 teams face off against each other. So, guess what - one of the teams for the upcoming series is.... bloggers. I've been back and forth with CBC on this for a bit now, but I'm on the team. The new series airs on January 20, 2008, and the overall theme is 21st Century knowledge. I'm pretty solid aside from up to the minute stuff, so I'll be leaning on my kids to make sure I'm schooled in all the latest cyberknowledge.

This sure should be fun, and for a change, blogging leads to something totally unexpected, and something I wouldn't be doing otherwise. It's one thing to be on business TV talking about telecom, but an IQ quiz show? Why not, right? So, if you have aspirations of getting on national TV, blogging might be your ticket. I've got no idea what kind of questions they'll be asking, but I sure hope they have something about VoIP - I'll be ready for that! :-)

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Deloitte's "State of the Media Democracy" Highlights

Earlier this week, Deloitte hosted a really engaging webinar titled "State of the Media Democracy", and I listened through the whole thing. The webinar featured extensive highlights from primary research conducted for Deloitte earlier this year. I'm not exactly sure when the research was done, as I've seen highlights of this study published as far back as August. However, it's reasonably current, and with a base of 2,200 U.S. consumers, it's a pretty solid sample.

As far as I can tell the webinar was done for the Canadian market, and given that the research findings were very U.S.-centric, I'm sure Deloitte has done similar webinars in the States for their American clientele.

Anyhow, this webinar was hosted by Gary Gluckman, the leader of Deloitte Canada's Media and Entertainment Practice. I've cited Gary on some of my posts, and have done several others around other Deloitte initiatives that touch on IP communications.

Sorry for the long preamble, but I think it's pretty likely that I'm sharing new information for my readers, and that you probably weren't on this call. So, if you have even a faint interest in how consumers are engaging with the media and technology these days, you'll want to read on.

I'm just going to share some high level takeaways, as I'd be here all day doing justice to the research. I'm privy to the full slide set from the webinar, and since Deloitte spent a lot of time and money to get this great research done, I'm not exactly going to give it away here. Same for me - I don't make a living blogging, although a lot people seem to think so. Anyhow, even a taste is worthwhile, so here we go....

- Big idea #1 - yup, we've finally crossed the line. Overall, consumers are spending more time on the Internet than watching TV - 16.6 hours per week vs. 15.2. We knew this day would come - and it's probably the biggest shift in media consumption habits since TV supplanted radio. Aside - the research sample is segmented into four user groups - Millennials, Xers, Boomers, Matures - and I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions about how each one consumes media.

- User generated content is very popular. For every two hours people spend on regular Web browsing, they're spending one hour engaged with user-generated content. It's not clear to me how much of that hour is spent creating their own content vs. watching YouTube-type videos, but it's still significant. Not surprisingly, the mix was 50/50 among Millennials. They spend as much time with user generated content as they do with everything else on the Web.

- Reading books still rocks (hoorayyyyyy!). I'm so old school, and damned proud of it. When asked what 5 things people expect to spend more time doing next year, reading a book rated the highest aside from socializing with friends and family. Even more interesting - and encouraging - is how this finding held up pretty steadily across all age groups - not just with Matures. Actually, I think this may be the tip of the iceberg for a backlash that's coming against multitasking and media/technology saturation. I can definitely see that happening, with people getting zoned out on virtual living, and just wanting to do simple, singular things like read a book, go bowling, baking bread. Remember those days?

- Big idea #2 - TV is just background noise for doing other things. Only 10% of the sample just watch TV when watching TV (I'm in that camp). Everybody else is doing other stuff while "watching" TV - Web browsing, snacking, homework, email, talking on the phone. Talk about a medium that isn't very engaging. This is why going to the movies is such a powerful experience - you can't do all this other *hit - you actually have to pay attention and watch the movie. And - we're happy to pay for the privilege of doing so. What a great business model. I can see a whole bunch of other businesses that could be started based on the same premise. Gee, I can think of SOO many things to talk about here - I see a book coming. Don't get me started, unless you come running with a publishing contract or a cable TV show.....

- Big idea #3 - the advertising-driven model to support Internet content doesn't work for everyone. No surprise there, and the data shows that more than 1 in 4 (28%) would be willing to pay for online content that was free of advertising. Hey, that's good news for my blog, which is so Stone Age on this front - it's no wonder nobody can find me. I'd rather have a handful of engaged, loyal readers than thousands of strangers any day.

- People prefer to read print materials than online. Overall, the sample spends more than twice as much time reading printed newspapers and magazines than online versions of these - 4.3 vs. 1.8 hours a week. And, practically nobody reads online magazines - just 1/2 hour a week on average. Advertisers beware.



That's all I can tell you for now. There is a 3 page summary doc that Deloitte has made available, so by all means, get a copy here if you want any more detail. Beyond that, you should call me, and I'll be happy to get you in touch with Gary.


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IP Convergence TV Portal - Latest Podcast/Coverage

Just wanted to share with you my latest podcast for IP Convergence TV, which has now been posted to the portal.

My podcast was about Fall VON, which just took place 2 weeks ago in Boston. The pod runs about 6 minutes, and I talk about my key takeaways from the event in terms of would be most interesting for the IPCTV audience. Would love to hear your thoughts if you have a chance to give it a listen.

While I've got you, I wanted to cite a couple of pieces of recent media coverage following the portal's launch on October 25.

First is a nice writeup from Fierce VoIP that ran earlier this week.

Second is a citing in PR Vibes, an industry newsletter produced by Atlanta-based Calysto Communications. Unfortunately, I don't have a link to point you to at this time, but here's an excerpt from their coverage:

Ipconvergencetv.com� A non-profit website focused on IP convergence has been launched by a group of industry partners, including AudioCodes, BEA Systems, BitBand, Blueslice Networks, Cicero Networks, Comverse, Intel, Tilgin and Verimatrix. The partners contribute information free of charge within their areas of expertise. Jon Arnold, principal of analyst firm J Arnold & Associates, is editor of the site and reviews all content before publication. The purpose of ipconvergencetv.com is to create a portal for longer feature material for decision makers and industry in the area of IP communications, fixed mobile convergence and IPTV.

That's it for now, and I'll keep posting to my blog when we have updates to report as well as when my next podcast is ready.



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