August Media Roundup

August was a bit slower than July, but my focus was also shifted to Smart Grid as well as vacation time. All told, though, I managed a handful of citings for both IP comms and Smart Grid along with a few other things.

First, some Smart Grid citings. There were others, plus my own Smart Grid portal contributions, all of which you can peruse on the portal.

- "Smart Grid Consortium Ramps Up in New York"

- "Smart Grid Summit at ITEXPO to Address Telecom's Role in Expanding Smart Grid Space"

Then, some citings for IP comms:

- "Trouble Ahead for Microsoft Reponse Point?"

- "Three reasons you should consider the Twitter bandwagon. And one note of caution."

On TMCnet, I had my regular bi-monthly Service Provider Views columns:

- "4G Wireless Evolution - Fall 2009 4GWE Preview - Q&A with Carl Ford"

- "Smart Grid - What it Means for Service Providers"

For TechTarget, I did three Ask the Expert segments related to Unified Communications and VoIP (registration required - just takes a minute)

- "What is more cost efficient -- VoIP or an IP telephony system?"

- "What are some good ways to measure VoIP ROI?"

- "What are some best ways to save money on a VoIP deployment without losing too much quality?"

On the podcast front, I managed to participate in two segments run by UC Strategies:

- "UC Experts Discuss Google Voice"

- "UC Experts Discuss Cloud Computing and UC"

Finally, I did a White Paper for Tekelec on Telecom 2.0 that was published in August. It's available for download on their site, but if you can't get it, I have a soft copy.

- "Telecom 2.0: Guidelines for Service Provider Success"

iPod Touch - Bringing SIP to the Masses

Andy Abramson had a notable post yesterday about the new iPod Touch.

I don't post much about consumer gadgets since I don't use them, but I do see how my youngest son uses the iTouch, and it's not hard to see how things can unfold once you become totally dependent on one. As Andy notes, the "rumored" new iTouch will have everything you need to make it a poor man's iPhone - built-in mic, lots of memory and WiFi support. That's great news for mobile WiFi, and validates the touch-screen interface big time. With a touch-screen, pretty much any broadband-enabled/WiFi supported device can become a phone, whether it's mobile, bolted on to a wall, or projected from a really smart gadget on to your kitchen floor.

Scary, huh? I had similar thoughts earlier in the year, when posting about the first wave of VoIP apps on the iTouch from Truphone, and wondered how much this will cannibalize iPhone sales. I agree with Andy, though. For most teens/pre-teens, the iPhone is not affordable, mobile contracts are expensive, and adding voice to their iTouch will tide them over just fine.

I also wanted to echo Andy's thoughts on the bigger picture. Aside from this being good news for mobile VoIP - along with the booming opportunties around mobile video - it's really about bring SIP to the masses, something many people have long been waiting for. With mass-market products like the iTouch and super-cool brands like Apple, we now have the pieces in place to support consumer-friendly, SIP-based multimedia apps and mashups that will make the iTouch even more sticky. When that happens, I'm starting to think this could make the iTouch a bit like a scaled-down Microsoft Surface. When you start thinking of the iTouch like that, then the possibilities with SIP get pretty exciting. Has there ever been a better time for innovation?
By the way, if you don't know about Surface, you should - and you've come to the right place. This is a bit of a sidebar to the iTouch story, but I think it fits. My oldest son and I got one of the very first private demos of Surface in North America about 2 years ago, and it's pretty cool. You're going to hear a lot more about Surface going into 2010, and I think Microsoft knows they have more competition on their hands now that Apple has made the touch-screen mainstream. I'm going to let that thought hang out there a bit, and maybe follow up with another post. It's got me thinking...

Time Magazine's Top 10 Tech Failures - Vonage?

Here's an item that's bound to get a few people going. Top 10 lists are everywhere, and we all know their real purpose is to start a conversation since people rarely agree on these things. On that count, Time Magazine has succeeded. They just came out with a new list - "10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade". How can that NOT get your attention, right?

I don't normally read Time, but two paths led me here. First was Andy Abramson's post from today. He and I basically agree, and I'll amplify his thought a bit in a moment. The second is my son Max, who for some reason has recently started reading Time. Great to see him following the news of the world, since - like most teenagers - he doesn't read the local paper and hardly watches TV. Your guess is as good as mine as to why he'll pick one form of mainstream media over another, but at least he's reading. That's definitely another topic --- but not now.

Anyhow, their top 10 list is an attention-grabber, and includes some expected flops like Vista, Iridium, satellite radio, and yes, YouTube. Hard to argue with these, but seeing Vonage on that list certainly caught my eye.

I totally agree with Andy that Vonage was a disaster as an investment story, but we would both strongly disagree it was a tech failure. This is how these top 10 lists suck you in - we can't resist when winners and losers are identified in the media. Tech has been a dirty word on Wall Street lately, so we love reading about "failures". Reading over the criteria that define's Time's list, there's a disconnect to me between a company or a product failing and the technology itself failing.

Would Vista be considered a failure? As a product, probably - but Microsoft is doing just fine as a company(arguably), and no one would dispute how successful their desktop OS has been. Sirius XM - no argument there. The company is not a success and satellite radio has not taken over the world. The underlying technology isn't really the story here - it's really about a new business model to monetize radio. On and on we go - it would fun analyzing each one of these, but that's not why I'm doing this.

Let's just move on to Vonage. Has the company been a failure? I'd have to say yes, and you don't have to look far for supporting evidence on a financial basis. Sure, they're still operating, and they just shifted their marketing strategy to voice quality instead of price. It's probably too little too late, but at least they're trying. Has the product been a failure? I would say no. Today, Vonage is a solid, mainstream residential VoIP service. It's not the best, it's not the cheapest, and it's not the most cutting-edge.

However, it's got great brand recognition, a track record, a critical mass of customers, and for consumers, it works pretty well. That's not a failure in my books. As far as pure-play VoIP offerings go, they're pretty much the last one standing in the U.S. While they've probably peaked in terms of subscribers, they wouldn't still have 2.6 million customers - in spite of all the nasty litigation and value-priced Triple Play bundles out there - if the product was not fundamentally sound.

This brings me to the third aspect that defines "failure" - technology. Here's where I would object the loudest and longest. I've followed Vonage longer than almost anybody (and am on record as one of their staunchest supporters). This is where I think Time has got it wrong. When Vonage went public, they owned the residential VoIP market, and had over 50% share for a long while. There is absolutely no doubt they did more than anyone to build the foundation for VoIP in the U.S. I've long called Vonage the Kleenex of VoIP - the two words are synonymous. Without Vonage, we wouldn't have a consumer VoIP market, and guess what, they've outlasted CallVantage.

When Vonage started making noise in 2004, the RBOCs - as they were called then - got very nervous as the media was trumpeting the likes of Vonage as the successors to dinosaur telcos that would make them obsolete. This led AT&T to engage in an aggressive marketing campaign to compete head-to-head with their CallVantage service. A price war ensued, with the incumbents hoping this would drive Vonage out. It failed, and ultimately, AT&T was acquired by one of its offspring - SBC - for an embarrasingly low amount of money. It's a much different story today, but at the time, it sure looked like Vonage was going to kill the telcos. Fast forward to today, and you could argue that VoIP has failed as a technology because for all its effort, Vonage, barely has 3% of the market.

Sure, that's laughable, but if you don't think VoIP is the future of telephony - not just residential - then you probably think Iridium, Vista, HD DVD, and the rest of Time's top 10 list still have a chance. Vonage may have topped out as a market player, but they've long conceded that the cablecos now own the consumer VoIP space. While most of the growth in consumer telephony is wireless, there are still around 90 million landlines out there in the U.S., and there's no doubt that VoIP is going to become dominant there. And guess what - once we get LTE, WiMax, 4G etc. up and running, VoIP will do to mobility what's it's done to landline. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea. So, thanks Time for getting my attention, and next time, please be more careful - or consistent - in making these choices.

What to do with Skype?

Big question, and lots of interesting solutions. I've been out of the news loop the past couple of days, but this eBay/Skype story was hard to miss - examples here, here, here and here. Without rehashing the mainstream headlines, it's clearly on the table now that eBay has given up trying to create synergies with Skype, so the focus now is on making the best of things as distinct entities.

The preferred route for eBay would be to keep Skype and recoup their investment via an IPO sometime next year. That would certainly bring an end to things with both parties leaving on a high note. Of course this hinges heavily on the state of capital markets, and the optimist would say that by next year we'll be so fed up with the recession, investors will happily jump into anything resembling a good news story. Skype IS a good news story, and no doubt Wall Street would play this up as the IPO that kick starts tech stocks back to life. If so, Skype could ride this wave a while by validating this space for investors and giving us all a reason to believe that tech stocks can make us wealthy again.

And what do I mean by "this space" anyway? To me, this is where things get interesting. Most people associate Skype with VoIP and PC telephony, and we all know how poorly that "space" has done for investors lately. Don't forget Vonage got first mover advantage by going public ahead of Skype, and contrary to great expectations, their IPO set VoIP back a very long way with investors. I like Skype's prospects a lot more than Vonage, so for those looking for a second chance at the VoIP space, a Skype IPO would be ideal.

However, I see Skype being much more than a VoIP play. I won't deny that's important, but to me Skype is really a Web 2.0 story. Their revenues are built almost entirely around VoIP, but there's so much more potential if/when they can monetize their community of over 400 million users - video, mobile apps, social networking, file sharing, business users, etc. Of course that's a big IF, but think about what that would mean for all those Web 2.0 companies out there with huge communities but no real business models - Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. If Skype can show the way, then I could see their IPO being much bigger, not just financially, but providing some validity to invest in all these other stories, which then makes Web 2.0 the next BIG THING.

I'm guessing that's why Niklas and Janus want to buy Skype back. It has to be a good sign when the founders want back in, and they certainly aren't hurting for cash. Joost was their follow up to Skype, and it really hasn't done much - but probably could with Skype back in the picture. Talk about interesting possibilities. Of course, there's another big twist here - Joltid - which appears to be the core technology Skype was built upon. It's a mystery to me why this didn't come with the Skype acquisition - and I'm guessing the Skype folks felt it was too important, and maybe that's turning out to be true now. So, a lot depends on how this plays out, and who will end up with lawful control. I'd have to say all bets are off until this is resolved. If Joltid ends up with eBay, Skype may not be as attractive to the founders, and vice versa should it go the other way.

And then there's the scenario of Skype being acquired by one of the usual suspects - Google, Microsoft, Yahoo. There's a storyline around all these, but for my money, I've long felt Apple would be the best fit, or possibly a Web-savvy company like Adobe. I got to share that view with the BBC yesterday, which was nice, but we'll need a longer conversation to take this further. Back to work...

Flat Planet Brings VoIP to Mobility - and the IT Expo

On Friday, Israeli colleague Moshe Maier post some news on his blog that ties in nicely to TMC's IT Expo, which starts a week today. Can't wait!

Moshe's company - The Flat Planet Phone Company - has been doing its part to bring innovation and disruption to the masses with a VoIP platform that allows anyone - anyone - to become a service provider. You don't like your local telco? Now you have a choice - become your own telco. Why not?

The latest news is a LCR - Least Cost Routing - engine, that FPPC will offer now for mobile VoIP. There are lots of mobile VoIP solutions out there, but you don't see them talking about LCR. And it's great to see a mobile VoIP offering that works on all cellphones - not just smartphones. You can read the details on Moshe's blog post, as well as some follow up from Andy Abramson and Alec Saunders.

The service formally launches at the IT Expo next week, so you can expect to hear more buzz about it then. But as bloggers, we certainly don't mind getting pre-briefed now.

If you want to get more of a first-hand taste, please drop my IT Expo session next Monday at noon. With a bit of clever planning, I've managed to get Moshe added to this panel, so if mobile VoIP is on your radar, you'll want to join us.