Jeff Pulver is Back - VON Evolution, New York City

Jeff Pulver’s VON event has gone through many iterations, and if you really want to know where voice is heading, you might want to mark this on your calendar. Having tracked telephony and voice for 20+ years, I’ve seen a lot, and Jeff has a knack for being on the leading edge for what’s next.

This edition takes place at City Winery - Hudson River Park location - running Oct. 31 - Nov. 2, and all the details are here on the event site. If I’m not reason enough to come - check out the eclectic list of speakers - it’s pretty rich. :-) Would be great to see you there, and no doubt Jeff will feel the same way too.

VON - Final Day/Skype Keynote - Seeking Channel Partners

Yesterday was a transition day here, with VON running til early afternoon, and then the focus shifted to the Channel Partners event. It was a bit strange seeing all the signage, etc. for VON in the morning, then disappearing and being replaced by Channel Partners. Am sure some people came for both events, but it was hard to tell.

I moderated one of the morning sessions - it was on mobile applications for the enterprise. We had Nancy Colwell from Divitas, Thomas Monopoli from MetaSwitch, and Tom Howe from - well you know Tom, right? I thought it was a very balanced panel, and Tom did a great job filling in for Voxeo who was a last minute scratch. The biggest surprise of the session was discovering that most of the people in the audience were Engineers, so it didn't take much for the conversations to get technical, and that was a good thing. It's pretty clear that mobile apps are new to this crowd, but I think we did a good job showing them what is possible, especially with the success stories that Nancy cited.



The highlight of the day, though - and the event in my view - was the Skype keynote to close out the event - which was very well attended. Christopher Dean is Skype's CSO - Chief Strategy Officer - and the fact that someone from Skype actually has a title like this says a lot about how much the company has matured.

Most of Christopher's presentation reviewed major trends in communications and as they align, how well things line up for Skype. He did a nice job citing data points to show the rapid growth of things like smartphones, 4G, mobile VoIP, broadband adoption, UC, cloud computing, FMC, etc. Nothing new there, but he then outlined how Skype is addressing these opportunities, especially for the business market.

Most of us know this is a top priority for Skype, and the most newsworthy item from the keynote was their new focus on channels, which of course ties in nicely with both events here - VON and Channel Partners. The main idea here is that Skype will be launching a service provider VAR program later this year. Christopher provided a URL about the program for reference, but as you'll see, there's not much there yet.

So, in the course of a few minutes, the audience heard about how Skype is looking to cross the chasm and partner with service providers. That creates all kinds of interesting scenarios, and Christopher pointed out how this is part of their bigger vision to be more open and partner-friendly in the post-eBay world. On that note, he didn't have much to say about the Extras program other than they understand how important it is, and are overhauling it now. So, it's not quite dead yet....

Lots more to talk about, and I'm saving that for my next Service Provider Views article, which should be out early next week. I hope you give that a read.



Virgo's Richard Martin introducing the keynote. Kudos to Rick, btw, for pulling this event together and giving VON a second life, so to speak...





VON's over - time to wander a bit. A few shots here from Lincoln Road. Going back to Toronto today, and this was pretty much my last shot at enjoying the weather - wouldn't you have done the same?

Tuesday Afternoon in Miami

Had a full morning at VON yesterday, and saw a bit of the Latin America Summit. That's probably the most distinctive twist for the show - it may not be for everybody, but if you have an eye on this market, this looked like a good reality check. I didn't see enough to draw strong conclusions, but it's a huge market opportunity, which anyone here in South Florida knows all too well. I'll steer you to a wrapup post off the VON Daily by Tara Seals for more detail.

The rest of my day was spent in onsite and offsite meetings. Can't complain about the latter, and it's not everyday you get a view like this - what's not to like?

VON - So Far

Well, I got to see a handful of sessions yesterday, and have walked the floor a few times. Otherwise, I've been living in the Press Room, and doing my share of briefings and biz dev meetings.

So far, I'd say VON is turning out pretty much as expected. Not too big and not too small. It's a different VON, that's for sure. No Hawaiian shirts (but it sure is hot and humid here), no purple minutes, no rock and roll blowout parties, etc. But, the caliber of speakers and sessions has been very good so far. I really liked what I saw, and the sessions were well attended. The Latin America Summit is running today, and tomorrow, the venue transitions from VON to the Channel Partners show. This really makes VON and a 2+ day show, and it's probably the right amount of time.

Not sure how much of the LatAm summit I'll see, but I have my own session to moderate tomorrow on mobile enterprise apps. Tom Howe is a last minute stand-in for Voxeo - am sure things will turn out just fine. I'm quite looking forward to seeing Skype's Christopher Dean close things out tomorrow. It sure has been a busy week for Skype, and I talked to the press a couple of times yesterday about the latest developments, which could potentially derail the deal altogether. Let's leave it at that and see what comes tomorrow.



Different VON, but many familiar faces - which is not a bad thing!

VON - Last Call

Just a final shout-out for next week's VON event in Miami. I'll be there through Wednesday and let me know if you're coming - I won't be hard to find.

I gave kudos to Rick Martin the other day, and wanted to share his thinking on why VON is going to be a strong event. He posted a piece today to the VON eDaily titled "5 Reasons VON Will Be Successful". I like 'em all, esp #5 - the Dolphins hosting the Colts Monday night. Haven't thought about going - am more focused on the Patriots/Jets matchup on Sunday - but a lot can happen between now and then. :-)

Next Stop - Miami and the New VON

The VON conference returns next week in Miami, and presumably you know it's under new management, so to speak. We know it will be new, but whether it's improved remains to be seen. Virgo Publishing has taken over the event and led by Richard Martin, they've been working hard to re-brand VON and keep it relevant for today's market.

There's always a lot of anticipation around new events, and based on the lineup so far, it should be a strong conference. I'm particularly keen to see Christopher Dean speak at the close of the show - he's the Chief Strategy Officer for Skype - especially to hear his thoughts on why the Extras developer program was dropped, and of course, where things are going post-eBay.

Another interesting feature of VON is the LatAm Summit, which starts on Tuesday. Miami is a natural hub for anyone serving this market, and there's a lot of opportunity in this part of the world for IP comms companies of all stripes. Too bad I don't speak Spanish!

For myself, I'll be there Monday through Wednesday, and am moderating a panel at 11am on Wednesday. Our session is about mobile apps for the enterprise, and features speakers from MetaSwitch, Voxeo and Divitas.

If you're going, I hope to see you there - and if not, I'll be posting here as time allows.

Clarification - VON is not gone

I just came across a FierceVoIP item from a couple of weeks ago that I feel needs to be clarified. This may be old news in terms of its publishing date, but given the content, there's enough relevance for what I'm up to right now and for anyone following the state of telecom/tech conferences.

In between the end of TMC's IT Expo earlier this month, and next week's eComm 2009, media colleague Doug Mohney wrote a piece titled: From VON to the trinity/quad-play of events.

The timing was appropriate, as many of us have been trying to figure out where the VON community would migrate to. Doug provides his thoughts on the various events where he sees different types of people gravitating to in 2009. The usual suspects are in there - IT Expo, eComm, VoiceCon and even SuperComm - and I don't take issue with any of that.

What really surprised me though, is his outright passing over of VON. The VON as we knew it is gone - no question there. And of course, that's the driving premise of his story - where are all those people going now? At the end of the article, he flatly states "VON gone".

Well, hold on a minute. That VON may be gone, but for the record, the VON franchise still exists, and will debut under new management - so to speak - this September. As you probably know, Virgo Publishing took on the remnants of VON a few months back, and are in the process of re-branding it under their roof. No doubt they have their work cut out, but they are giving it a go, so it's not fair to say that VON is totally gone.

Since Virgo competes with Fierce, I can see why it's not in Doug's interest to draw attention to them. Business is business, but the indie in me says we also have to keep the facts straight. The new VON may only have a faint pulse, and it may never recapture this community, but it's not totally gone. Time will tell, but let's see what unfolds.

VON's Reincarnation

Well, it was just a matter of time, but VON is coming around again. I got wind of the news that Virgo had acquired the remnants of VON during the IT Expo last September, and they've just announced their new show. The name has been updated to keep up with the times and to position the VON brand as part of Virgo, and that's not a simple matter. So, VON no longer means Voice on the Net - the new VON means "the Voice of Network Convergence". Also, Jeff's beloved purple color scheme is gone, replaced with a more staid Navy blue. Nothing really distinctive about the look, but it's definitely not like the VON we've known for so long.

The new VON event takes place Sept. 21-23 in Miami, and is co-located with the Channel Partners conference. Interesting combination there, as this date is close to when the IT Expo is usually held, although next fall, TMC's dates are late October, so there's no clash there. September is hurricane season in Florida - not the ideal time to go there, but I'm sure synching up with the Channels show was the real driver here! To learn more, the VON conference website is now running.

To keep the VON vibe humming, they've also just launched a VON e-newsletter, along with portal-type website, which uses the old VON URL. This just came out yesterday, so it's pretty newsworthy.

No doubt, Virgo has a challenge ahead of itself in making a go of VON again, especially in such a tough economy. Of course it's always good to see a new show on the horizon, and September is a long time away, so lots can happen along the way. I'm not alone is saying the original VON community was pretty special, and any effort to re-capture that will be welcome.

I don't have any direct connection to the new VON, so I can't offer any special insight as to how successful they'll be. However, while I do have your attention, you'll probably enjoy Carl Ford's take on the new VON. If Jeff was the soul of VON, Carl was the heart, and his post is a good read.