GetVoIP's Top UC Experts - Me and 49 Others!

GetVoIP.com is a pretty handy resource for decision-makers looking for solutions in our space. They serve as an independent information clearinghouse of sorts, where buyers can find the right offerings and determine the best ways to compare what's out there. They rely on analysts like me for industry-based perspectives on core communications needs that all businesses need to stay current with - UC, hosted VoIP, SIP trunking, contact centers, etc.

I've written for them occasionally, and one way they support the buyers is to profile the top thought leaders. Everyone has an opinion on the Web - but in most cases, nobody is asking for it (which doesn't seem to deter most people) - with the result being an impossible ocean of viewpoints that decision makers could draw upon for guidance. To make that a bit more manageable, GetVoIP puts out their top lists from time to time, with the most recent being for UC.

In case you haven't come across this yet on social media, I'm blogging about it here. I'm happy to report that I'm in their "Top 50" list, and if you had the time to peruse the whole group, you'll probably end up making some really good decisions. And if you play your cards right, it won't cost you a penny.

Of course, analysts like me are always available for hire if you need more strategic expertise, and I'm just an email or phone call away from taking your business to the next level. For now, though, my one piece of free advice is to check out the list, and keep regular tabs on GetVoIP.

UCStrategies Podcast - State of SBCs with UC

Alphabet soup comes with the territory in our space, and the most recent UCStrategies podcast focused on SBCs - session border controllers - and their impact on UC. I've followed SBCs since this category emerged in 2004, and not being a technical analyst, I focus on the business-level issues. However, even among the analysts steeped in IT, SBCs have always been difficult to understand. On some levels, you can ignore them with UC, but as many deployments are calling for SIP trunking, SBCs become unavoidable. I've learned that SBCs are fairly new and somewhat foreign to the UC space, so this podcast was a long time coming.

Stephen Leaden did a great job moderating, and I was happy to say my piece along with the other UCS Experts on the call. Since Acme Packet scored close to $2 billion being acquired by Oracle, everyone is wondering what all the fuss is about. Well, our podcast has been posted now, so to find out, you'd better head over to the portal now, where you'll find both the download and the transcript.

Know Your Alternatives 2012 - Program Announced

Newsflash - a Canadian telecom event! This is a rarity up here, and I'm glad to say I'll be part of it, so stay tuned for details.

The event is called Know Your Alternatives, and runs here in Toronto on February 9, 2012. Sure, it's a small event and just one day, but I'll take it. There are just so few events in this space in Canada, and hats off to Emily Nielsen and her team at Nielsen Consulting for putting this together.

She's lined up a solid roster of sponsors - Bell, Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya, Mitel, ShoreTel, NEC, Dialogic - and the program is very strong. At this point, I'll be speaking on the SIP Trunking session, which is familiar ground for me, so this should be a fun panel.

Have a look at the website for details, and there's a bonus draw if you register before December 16. There's a newsletter you can sign up for as well, and I'll update you here and on Twitter as updates come along.

Mitel SIP Trunking White Paper Published

Exactly a month ago, I presented my take on SIP Trunking for a Discovery Series webinar sponsored by Mitel. Anyone following this space knows how popular SIP Trunking has become, and with over 1,000 registrations, this webinar confirmed it.

If you missed the webinar, there's an archived version available for 90 days on Mitel's website - you just need to register and you'll have access to the replay. You can get all the details on my last blog post about the webinar.

The news I have to share today is about a White Paper that I wrote as a companion piece to the webinar. It's now been published, and as with the webinar replay, you can download the paper by registering for it at Mitel's site.

SIP Trunking Podcast/Interview on BTQ

I've been a contributor to Business Trends Quarterly for some time, and also serve on their Editorial Advisory Board.

June was a busy month for content generation, and some of that is coming to market now. One of these was an engagement with BTQ to help organize and moderate a roundtable discussion about SIP Trunking. I've been pretty connected to this topic recently, and it was a great opportunity to aggregate viewpoints from across the ecosystem.

Joining me on this roundup was Steve Johnson from Ingate, Alan Percy from AudioCodes, Alan Klein from Avaya, and Michael Timar from Panasonic. Two outputs were produced from our session - a podcast along with a full transcript that is running in the current print edition of BTQ. As I've mentioned before, it's a solid publication, and the subscription is free.

If you don't have the magazine, you can access the transcript in PDF form. To access the PDF or listen to the podcast, you can find the links on the Work Samples section of my website.

June Media Roundup

This is the first month in a very long time I wasn't cited in any articles. I spoke with the media a few times, but these ended up being for longer features which won't run until July or later. On the other hand, I was busier than ever producing original content in June, and on the whole I feel it was a pretty productive month in terms of keeping my profile out there and contributing my ideas to the industry.

I'll start with the most visible activity - my SIP Trunking webinar with Mitel. That took place on Tuesday, and just over 1,000 people registered. If you missed it, the archived version will be ready any day now, and will be accessible for 90 days. All registrants will receive a copy of the slides from Mitel, along with a companion white paper that I'm wrapping up just now.

- SIP Trunking - More Than Just Cost Savings


Next - TechTarget. I'm a regular contributor to their Ask The Expert feature, and they recently engaged me for some more extensive work. The outputs were published in late June, consisting of a white paper and a podcast. To access these you need to register on their site, but this just takes a minute.

- eGuide/white paper: Connecting and Leveraging VoIP Islands

- podcast: The Benefits of VoIP Islands


My regular bi-monthly Service Provider Views columns ran on TMCnet:

- Q&A with Telanetix - Why Hosted Services are Gaining Adoption

- What Service Providers and Auto Makers Can Learn From Each Other

June also marked my debut column on The Mark - Canada's answer to the Huffington Post:

- On the Future of the Automobile (and Telecom, Too)

Finally, I was cited in a press release about an Advisory role I've taken on with a U.K. consultancy, MeDe8 Group Ltd. You'll be hearing and seeing more about this over the next few months.

Last call for SIP Today's SIP Trunking Webinar - 1pm EST

One last reminder for today's SIP Trunking webinar that I'm doing with Mitel. It's not too late to register, and if you can't make it, there will be an archive available a day or so from now, and will remain on their site for 90 days. The archive link is the same as the one you'd use to register, so it's real easy to do. Either way, the link is here, and I hope you can join us - 1pm EST.

Reminder - SIP Trunking Webinar w/Mitel on June 30

Just a reminder that my SIP Trunking webinar with Mitel is next Tuesday at 1pm, EST. This is part of Mitel's Discovery Series, and registrations so far have been very, very strong. There's obviously a lot of interest in SIP Trunking, and we're looking forward to a very engaging session.

You can read more about the topic here, as well as register for the webinar. Hope you can join us.

Next Stop - Las Vegas and Mitel

I'm not traveling much these days, but tomorrow I'm off to Las Vegas for Mitel's analyst conference.

I always enjoy their event, and am looking forward to getting updated across the board. For me this means hearing from and meeting with their executive team, getting some first hand product demos, learning more about their strategic partners, and getting updated on how their integration with Inter-Tel is going.

I'll be posting as time allows, along with preparing my presentation for the SIP Trunking webinar I'm doing for them on June 30. If you haven't done so, sign up today!

SIP Trunking Webinar with Mitel - June 30

Just a shout-out to let you know I'll be doing a webinar on SIP Trunking that's sponsored by Mitel on June 30. I've done a few things around this space recently, and there's a lot of opportunity for both enterprises/SMBs and carriers. I'll be exploring these facets and others on the webinar and I hope you can join the call.

The webinar is part of Mitel's Discovery Series and they sent their first email notice about it this morning. You can get all the details here, including a link for registration (and yes, it's free).

You can also get the details in the Discovery Series section of their website. Either way you're just a couple of clicks away, and by all means, spread the word to anyone who wants an update on SIP Trunking - thanks, if you can.

Podcast - 5 Things You Need To Know About SIP

I'm a regular contributor to the TechTarget family of portals, and they recently had me do a podcast about SIP. It's part of their Reality Check series, so these are short podcasts focused on key issues/trends about various IT topics.

They asked me to talk about 5 things you need to know today about SIP, and that's what we did on the podcast. The segment runs about 8 minutes, and I made sure to touch on key things driving SIP, such as SIP Trunking, the SIP Forum and mobile SIP. You can access the podcast here, on their Search Unified Communications portal, and while you're at it, feel free to check out the other content. I've got more things coming on TechTarget, and I'll be posting about those once they're running.

Vidtel Pushes into SMB with Polycom

Been trying hard to get this post up before the day is out. It's been an intense week on a few fronts, and it's been a good week for Vidtel. This is Scott Wharton's startup, and he's put together a solid team and a great offering since launching in early December.

You can read up the background in that post, but the story today is a nice progression. Vidtel came to market with a Grandstream video phone, selling a video telephony service to consumers. It's a huge opportunity, but you have to win business one household at a time, and that will take a while for an unknown startup. No matter. Scott has a plan, and with a solid offering, I'm confident he will make this work.

The SMB market is another frontier altogether, and to tackle that, they need an upgraded handset and partners with an installed base of customers and/or channels. Well, they have that now with Polycom, and together, this should be a winner.

Earlier this week, Polycom announced the launch of their VVX 1500 media phone, which features HD voice, video telephony, and open APIs to support third party and SIP applications. It's another step along the path of how telephones and PCs are morphing into appliances that support IP and Web-based applications.

Vidtel enters the picture with a follow-on announcement about how they are now the world's first provider of an SMB services offering built around the VVX 1500.

Now we're getting somewhere, folks. To me, this is big news - it's probably the coolest, sexiest SMB offering out there, and once people wake up to what's on offer, they should be running to get this service. Speaking with Scott today - on Vidtel of course - I can see how excited he is about the news. It's truly an industry first, and Vidtel has come a long way in a very short time.

Actually, Scott noted that my call with him was probably the world's first real-world session using the VVX 1500 over Vidtel's network. Well, that makes two of us who were excited to be talking about this today - cool! So, for what it's worth, maybe I have the scoop for a change, and I can tell you that the call quality was great. The video image was crisp, the colors were bright, and the session ran pretty much in real-time. No noticeable jitter or image degradation - it was a solid experience. That may be the most important takeaway from this post - it works, folks - and I'm sure the market will love it once they try it out.

When I presented about SIP Trunking last month at the IT Expo, this is exactly the type of offering everyone is looking for to leverage the power of end-to-end IP. HD voice is a big part of the story, and you'll know what I mean if you've experienced it. Combine this with high quality video, and the VVX 1500 becomes a powerful communications hub, and will be a great driver for videoconferencing, something I've been bullish on for a while. For more background on HD voice, I'll steer you to an interview I did recently with Polycom's Jeff Rodman, who is regarded as the "father of HD voice".

To sum up, it's been a big week for Vidtel, and a good one for both Polycom and BroadSoft. Scott had a long tenure at BroadSoft prior to Vidtel, and their BroadWorks platform is a key component to enable and support the applications that make the VVX 1500 such a powerful communications device. Lots of familiarity here, and in this case, I think that's a big reason why all these pieces fit together so nicely.

Service Provider Views - SIP Trunking, Part 2

My latest Service Provider Views column is now running on TMCnet.

This article focuses on the "6C's of Communications Evolution" that I talked about at Ingate's SIP Trunking session during the IT Expo earlier this month. It's also a follow up to my last column that explored the benefits of SIP Trunking for service providers.

You can read the article here, and as always, I welcome your thoughts or comments.

Service Provider Views - the case for SIP Trunking

My latest Service Provider Views column is running now on TMCnet. The focus is on the benefits of SIP Trunking for service providers, and builds on the presentations I gave at TMC's IT Expo during Ingate's SIP Trunking sessions. Given how well the sessions were attended, I thought a follow-on article would be of interest to those who weren't there. I could probably produce a few more articles on these themes, and I'll leave that for you to decide.

You can start by reading today's article. If you like what you see, and want me to explore some other SIP Trunking themes from my presentations, please let me know, and I can do that in future columns.

TMC IT Expo Momentum Building

I'll be plenty busy at TMC's IT Expo in about 10 days time, and have been posting fairly regularly about what I'll be up to. This is a short post to update on some recent coverage on TMCnet, some of which will tell you more about what you can expect to see from me at the Expo.

- Yesterday, Rich Tehrani ran a spotlight feature about my views on the IP comms space as well as some predictions for 2009. Thanks Rich!

- Yesterday, Rich also published a list of thought leaders for his readers to come meet at the Expo, and it was nice see him include me there. I'm really glad he's doing this, as there will be lots of smart people at the conference from all ends of the market - analysts, vendors, service providers, PR, etc. - and we all know that the best part of these events is the time we spend talking to each other and learning from each other. I know I'll be seeking out a few of those people on his list.

- Also yesterday, TMC's Erik Linask wrote a piece about 4G. It was nice to see him cite my latest TMCnet column there, but more importantly, he's drawing attention - as I am doing here - to the 4G Wireless Evolution conference, which is co-located at the IT Expo. This event warrants its own attention, and not just because 4G is a big deal for the entire mobile sector. It also marks the debut of Carl Ford and Scott Kargman in the conference space following the demise of VON. I'm not alone in being very happy to see this happen, and am looking forward to dropping in on their sessions as time allows.

- To round this post out, last week, TMC's Greg Galitzine ran a Q&A piece with me about the SIP Trunking sessions that take place during the Expo. That will be one of my main involvements there, and if you're interested in SIP Trunking, this should be high up on your list at the show.

Ingate SIP Trunking Sessions at IT Expo

Wanted to draw some attention to one of the activities that will be keeping me busy at the IT Expo in about 2 weeks time. With each day, there's more and more stuff going on, and everyone involved is trying to lock down their sessions, meetings, presentations, etc.

On Monday and Wednesday of the Expo, I'll be doing things with Ingate and their SIP Trunking Sessions. I posted some details the other day, and you can see the full agenda here.

To support the event, Ingate has issued a press release, and TMC's Greg Galitzine did a Q&A with me the other day. You can read the interview here, and you can register for the sessions here.