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.

Podcast - Socialcast - Social Media in the Enterprise

I'm an occasional contributor to Business Trends Quarterly, and they recently invited me to do a podcast on social media in the enterprise. My guest was Tim Young, the Founder and CEO of Socialcast, an interesting company in this emerging space.

We had a pretty long chat, and covered things like what Enterprise 2.0 is starting to look like, and the role that tools like social media are playing. Tim is somewhat of a pioneer in the space and talks about what companies like Socialcast are doing to help enterprises harness the potential of social media and actually get their money's worth along the way.

The podcast is quite long - about 42 minutes - so you might want to download it to your iPod and listen to it on the go. I've got two ways for you to access the file. One way is to pick up the link from my website. Just look for the Socialcast podcast on the Media Citings section of the site.

Another way is to download it directly from the BTQ website, but you have to register first to get it. If you like podcasts from a wide range of thought leaders, it's worthwhile since there's so much good content there. To find my podcast, you need to go the Web Events section of the BTQ site, then scroll down - quite a ways down actually - to Web 2.0 podcasts. It's the last topic listed there, and once you're at Web 2.0, it won't be hard to find the link, along with my photo.

Either way, I hope you give it a listen, and would love to hear your feedback.


Technorati tags: Business Trends Quarterly, Jon Arnold, Socialcast, social media, Enterprise 2.0

Unified Communications - is it Happening? Sheryl and Ken Have the Answer Tonight

This is one of those one-thing-leads-to-another posts.

I'll start at the beginning, then work up the action item, and why you should tune in to Sheryl and Ken's Stardust Radio program - tonight at 9pm EST - to dispel the "myths" of Unified Communications.

Here we go...

On July 9, fellow industry watcher Carl Weinschenk had a thought-provoking post on his IT-Finance Connection portal about "the case against VoIP". That should get your attention, right?

Carl made some good points, but it wasn't totally convincing in my books. I followed up with a post to add my take - a bit more pro-VoIP - as well as to draw some additional attention to his post.

I also couched the topic in the broader context of Unified Communications, which in my mind is a bigger story. That, in turn, caught Ken Camp's attention. On Thursday, he had a lengthy, informative post on his blog about the whole UC topic, including a reference to my post. So, now Ken and Carl have two degrees of separation via the blogosphere.

Included in Ken's post is an invite to join him and his partner Sheryl on their radio program tonight at 9pm EST. I have a dinner tonight and may not be back in time, but I urge you to listen in, as I'm sure they'll have some very engaging dialog about UC. And if you can't, there will be a replay available, and no doubt Ken will be sharing that on his blog soon enough.

CODA - if you're interested in more of the dialog around this, Mitel's Simon Gwatkin left a notable comment on my blog post Thursday. Basically he says that lots of SMBs are showing serious interest in UC, but there's also a very real "wait and see" attitude out there for UC to become more proven.


Technorati tags: Ken Camp, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications, VoIP

Jazinga Squawk Box Podcast

The other day, I posted about the Squawk Box I was hosting this week in Alec's absence.

My guest was Shidan Gouran, CTO and co-founder of Toronto-based Jazinga. They're a promising startup with an easy-to-use, premises based SMB IP telephony solution. For small businesses looking for PBX-caliber telephony, and an alternative to a hosted offering, Jazinga is what they should be looking at.

We had a strong turnout for yesterday's segment - 22 participants - and lots of good questions and discussion about Jazinga and what they're bringing to market.

Iotum has been running these segments for some time as a Facebook application, and along the way, they've learned enough about doing these to develop their own branded conferencing solution. It's called Calliflower, and was just launched with great fanfare on Tuesday. Our Squawk Box segment yesterday was the second one done using Calliflower, and we had a few glitches, but everything worked out fine in the end. One of these prevented me - as the moderator - from being able to record the session. Carl Ford, who was on the call, came to the rescue and recorded things from his end - so a big thank you to Mr. Ford for saving the day.

So, with a bit of editing, our concall is now ready for listening. Alec got it posted to his blog late last night, and you can get the link here. It runs about 40 minutes, and even if you're just mildly interested in SMB VoIP, it's time well spent.


Technorati tags: Jazinga, Jon Arnold, Iotum, Alec Saunders, Calliflower, SMB VoIP

Iotum 2.0/Jazinga Squawk Box Update

In yesterday's post, I talked about Thursday's Squawk Box segment that I'm hosting about Jazinga. I also hinted at some changes coming with Iotum, at it's pretty neat.

So, Iotum's new conferencing application is called Calliflower. Love the name. It's really a 2.0 approach to conferencing, and if this is something you do a lot, am sure you'll like it right away. I've just been too busy to get caught up in all the launch buzz, so I'll steer you two items that will fill in the blanks nicely. First, is a writeup by colleague Jim Courtney on Skype Journal. His post yesterday provides a nice summary of what it's all about. Second is yesterday's Squawk Box segment about Calliflower. In this case, Alec and Howard were the guests, being interviewed about Calliflower and how it came into being.

I mentioned Bill Shatner yesterday for good reason. Well, he's going to be the first guest on their public showcase of Calliflower. It takes place this Thursday evening, and you can sign up to participate here. Upcoming speakers include Alan Alda and Peter Senge, so these won't be your average everyday conference calls!

Finally, regarding tomorrow's Squawk Box with Jazinga, you can sign up for Calliflower and register for the call here. We'll be on at 11am EST tomorrow - hope you can make it.

Technorati tags: Jazinga, Jon Arnold, Iotum, Alec Saunders, Calliflower

Podcast on IP Telephony with Carl Weinschenk

Colleague Carl Weinschenk launched his portal, IT-Finance Connection about a month ago, and it's a great resource for anyone wanting to better understand the dynamics between the CIO/CTO and CFO/COO worlds.

Increasingly, they need to work together, and Carl has picked an important area to focus on here. Carl is basically the Publisher, and in addition to his blog posts and podcasts, there's a newsletter you can sign up for. Better yet, if you're an advertiser wanting to address this space, I'm sure Carl would love to hear from you!

Earlier this week, I was Carl's first podcast guest, and we talked about issues around how IT departments need to position VoIP and IP telephony to their finance people. My key message was that these technologies need to viewed beyond just saving money on phone calls, and that the ROI model is different from the capital intensive PBX model they've been using for so long. And of course there are the productivity benefits that begin with VoIP as a building block. Finally, on a practical level, IT needs to explain that if it's done right, VoIP should be pretty seamless to adopt, and end user behaviors won't need to change for their everyday communications.

The podcast was posted last night, and I hope you give it a listen. Carl conducts a nice interview, and I love the intro music. If you like what you hear, please leave a comment on the portal - I know Carl will appreciate it.

Technorati tags: IT Finance Connection, Jon Arnold, Carl Weinschenk

Squawk Box - Telecom Conference Roundup/IP Comm Insights Launch

Marc Robins and I were guests on today's Squawk Box call, hosted by Alec Saunders. This was my first time on as a guest, and it sure was fun. The turnout was great, and the discussion lively - and quite earnest, especially regarding the state of the VON conference.

We went on almost an hour, first talking about our new venture, IP Communications Insights, and then about the recent conferences we've been attending - eComm, VON and Voicecon.

Many in the audience had been to these events as well, so if you want a good roundup of how a mini-sample of the market is feeling about them, the podcast is time well spent. Alec has posted the link to his blog, and I sure hope you give it a listen.

CODA: given the circles many of the people on today's call travel in, today's conference roundup was eerily timely given what a number of well-informed sources tell me is unfolding as I write with one of them --- and by the time you read this post, this won't seem so cryptic.

Technorati tags: Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, Marc Robins, Squawk Box

Interviewing on Squawk Box - Listen Up!

Just a short note, and I probably should have done this earlier in the day.

I'll be a guest on tomorrow's Squawk Box, which is hosted daily by Alec Saunders. We're on at 11am EST, and we'll be covering two things....

1. Colleague/partner Marc Robins and I will be doing a roundup review of the conferences we've attended over the last 2 weeks - eComm2008, Spring VON.x and Voicecon. Alec, of course will have his take, so it should be a lively discussion.

2. Marc and I will talk about the recent launch of IP Communications Insights, which is our long-gestating consulting venture. We're focused on creating a stronger voice for the independent analyst perspective, and if you join us on the call, we'll tell you why we think this is needed in the marketplace.

Alec's got a great thing going with these podcasts, and of course is a great way to showcase Iotum's free conference calling application for Facebook. Hope you can make the call, and if not, I'll post about it once the archived link is ready.

Technorati tags: Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, Marc Robins, Squawk Box

Russell Shaw - Podcast Tribute

Alec Saunders hosted a thoughtful, heartfelt Squawk Box segment yesterday dedicated to Russell Shaw. I had PC problems that prevented me from joining the call, but he got a really nice turnout.

The podcast runs about 30 minutes, and has several remembrances from Alec, Jim Courtney, Andy Abramson, Jeff Pulver and others. If you ever met Russell or just read any of his well-regarded blogs and journals, you'll come away from this with a warm feeling and sense of community that runs deeper than our everyday interactions. You can download the podcast from Alec's blog, and my thoughts were posted yesterday.

Technorati tags: Russell Shaw, Jon Arnold, Alec Saunders

Podcast with Jim Burton - Zeacom and Unified Communications

The TMC ITExpo took place earlier this month, and while the show is no longer newsworthy, I did a podcast there that has just been published.

Colleague Jim Burton runs the UC Strategies portal, to which I regularly contribute and often cite. During the ITExpo, Jim and I sat down to do a podcast, and we ended up talking about the overall state of unified communications, with a particular focus on an exhibitor that caught our eye - Zeacom. They've been making some noise about having had a UC solution for years, and based on the demos we saw, they do have a pretty interesting offering.

The podcast was posted to the UC Strategies portal earlier this week, and if these topics appeal to you, I think you'll find our chat worth a listen. Having been in Ottawa most of the week, this has been my first chance to post it, but I don't think you're missing anything picking it up now.


Technorati tags: Jim Burton, Jon Arnold, UC Strategies, Zeacom

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Brief Hiatus

I've been doing my weekly podcasts on the Canadian market for almost 2 years, and there's no shortage of interesting people to talk to.

No podcast this week, though, nor next week, as I'll be at the TMC ITExpo.

Am also on a mini-hiatus with these, as there are some internal admin issues being sorted out right now at Pulvermedia, so I don't have a production partner for the time being. This should be taken care of shortly, though, and hopefully I'll be able to resume my pods there in a week or so. Until then, you'll have to make do with my written posts, but if the spoken word is what you really want, then click on the Odiogo widget on my blog page!


Technorati tags: podcasts, Jon Arnold, Canada

VoiceCon - Podcasts with Key Speakers

I didn't attend VoiceCon last week, but I heard a lot of good things about it. As you may know, I contribute when I can to the UCS portal - Unified Communications Strategies, which is a great resource for anyone following UC.

They were definitely busy at VoiceCon, especially Blair Pleasant and Jim Burton. Jim was telling me they had put together a number of podcasts done with key speakers, and they're now posted on the portal. Lots of good content there about trends in UC, including podcasts with Microsoft, Avaya, Intervoice, IBM and others.

I especially liked the IBM podcast with Mike Rhodin. In addition to elaborating on IBM's plans to build on their Lotus Sametime installed base for UC, Mike talks about why they just acquired WebDialogs. It's always great to see small companies with great technology being acquired by the likes of IBM, and it's a nice payoff for Lou Guercia who has taken WebDialogs to the promised land - hopefully. I've gotten to know Lou a bit through Andy Abramson, who does their PR, and WebDialogs is actually the second client on his roster to become acquired recently (the other is GrandCentral). Good news all around, and I'm hoping we'll all see other at the TMC Expo in two weeks time.



Technorati tags: Voicecon, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications Strategies

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Elliot Katz - Microsoft Vista

This week, my guest was Elliot Katz from Microsoft Canada. Elliot is the Senior Product Manager, Windows Client, and I invited him to come speak about Vista and Office 2007. With Microsoft being so ubiquitous, I don't mind devoting a podcast to a company's product offering, since almost everyone uses it.

Elliot provided a rich perspective on the "four pillars" behind Vista, and we focused mainly on two - security and mobility. There certainly was a lot to talk about, and being a user of both products, I found this particularly interesting. Definitely a lot of security challenges when you're such a big, tempting target for all the bad guys out there, and Elliot also talked about some of the Vista features that protect corporate data on notebooks that get lost or stolen.

We also touched briefly on the Canadian experience in adopting Vista, which not surprisingly lags the U.S. Elliot also talked about the roles and contributions Microsoft Canada provides in developing Vista.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Elliot.


Technorati tags: Elliot Katz, Jon Arnold, Microsoft Canada, Windows Vista

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mark Farmer and Mobile Email for the Masses

For some reason, I seem to do podcasts with a lot of wireless companies, many of which are in Toronto, which otherwise is not really a VoIP hotbed. Tons of new media and video for sure, but it's a little lonely here otherwise. So, I always enjoy doing podcasts with someone in my own area code.

This week's guest was Mark Farmer, making his second appearance with me. He was previously with another wireless company, and has stayed in that space, but with a different focus. Recently, he went over to OceanLake Commerce, who has just launched meemo, a new offering of mobile email service to consumers using their existing handsets. It's not exactly the BlackBerry experience, but it's a very economical alternative that makes mobile email much more accessible without changing your handset or provider.

Mark and I talked about the broader market opportunity for consumer-based mobile email, which is still pretty much untapped. Solutions like meemo open up some interesting new markets and we explored what the end user experience is like as well as some possible business models that may emerge.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Mark.


Technorati tags: Mark Farmer, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Meemo

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mike Fox and High Tech Recruiting

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Mike Fox, who runs a local recruiting firm here in Toronto, Brightlights Inc. I really try to mix things up on my podcasts, and I think recruiters are a pretty important part of the tech sector ecosystem. After all, we can't all be startups and indies, and when you least expect it, a call from a recruiter can be the best thing that's ever happened for your career.

Mike knows the local tech recruiting market pretty well, and he shared some pretty interesting insights on what companies are looking for, and the realities faced by startups in landing senior level people. He also had some good words of advice for people starting out and looking at tech as a career option.

I should also add that Mike's a pretty good marketer, and I recommend his monthly e-newsletter, especially if you want to stay current on the Toronto scene.

You can listen to the podcast here, as well as read more about Mike and his company.


Technorati tags: Mike Fox, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Brightlights, tech recruiting

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Dave Dobbin and Toronto Hydro Telecom

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Dave Dobbin, President of Toronto Hydro Telecom. I've been wanting to do this for a while, as THT has a pretty interesting WiFi offering in Toronto's downtown core. Downtown Toronto has plenty of broadband as it is, but not so much on the WiFi front, and Dave provided some very interesting perspectives on how this is going for them. He shared some of the realities of providing service as well as the usage patterns of the service among different types of subscribers. Dave also made a point of mentioning that THT provides some of the fastest bi-directional WiFi broadband speeds in North America.

More broadly, Dave provided an overview of the events that led up to THT coming into existence, and the rationale behind Toronto Hydro's fiber optic buildout that runs over their power line infrastructure. We also made the distinction between their fiber based capabilities for voice and data service, and broadband over powerline, which instead relies on the power grid for transmission. Dave explained that regulatory issues, more than anything keep them out of the BPL market, and for now, WiFi is their technology of choice for offering broadband services.

You can download the podcast here as well as read more about Dave.


Technorati tags: Toronto Hydro Telecom, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Dave Dobbin, municipal WiFi

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Espial and the IPTV Middleware Market

My guest this week was Brian Mahony, VP of Marketing at Ottawa-based Espial Group. Espial is one of the leading indie IPTV middleware vendors, and are very much connnected to the market and technology issues around IPTV. Brian provided a great perspective on the IPTV market and some of the better-known deployments.

Espial also just had a successful IPO, and Brian touched on some of the realities of being a public company, as well as what makes Ottawa such a viable market for tech startups.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Brian.

NOTE - no podcast next week - family vacation...

Technorati tags: Espial, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, IPTV

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Iain Klugman - Waterloo Tech Community

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Iain Klugman, CEO of Communitech. This is an interesting entity that serves as a hub for supporting Waterloo-based tech startups. Iain has a deep perspective about what makes Waterloo such a great spot for tech companies, and explained more about the role Communitech plays, as well as how it compares to similar initiatives in other tech centers in Canada and the U.S.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Iain.


Technorati tags: Communitech, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Iain Klugman, Waterloo technology

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Rod Piukkala and Emergency Communications

This week's podcast focused on emergency communications and the role that Web-based solutions can play for first line responders. My guest was Rod Piukkala, Director for Telus Business Solutions, Ontario Public Sector.

Rod has an extensive history in public service, and knows what emergency communications are all about, both from the front lines as well as what carriers like Telus are offering to the market. We talked about the various challenges around emergency communications, and he provided a good example of this in the health care sector.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Rod.

If you're interested in learning more about emergency communications, Rod let me know that Telus has a white paper on this. It's quite good, and if you've like to get a copy, please drop me a line.


Technorati tags: Telus Business Solutions, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, emergency communications

Telepresence Podcast with Teliris and BT Quarterly

I recently posted about a podcast I did with Teliris on telepresence for Business Trends Quarterly. I've become a contributor to this publication, and I urge you to subscribe if you're interested in reading what analysts are thinking about various technology trends.

In my previous post about this, I cited the transcription of my written Q&A with Mark Trachtenberg, the CEO of Teliris, which ran in their Q2 issue. We also did a feature-length podcast, which has been produced and is posted now on the BTQ website. You need to be a member to download this, but that just takes a minute, and it's free. You can find the link on this page, and from there, it won't take long to access it. If you're following telepresence, I think you'll find Mark's perspective very interesting. I hope you give it a listen, and I'd love to know what you think.


Technorati tags: Teliris, Jon Arnold, Business Trends Quarterly, Telepresence, J Arnold & Associates

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Rob Moffat and Mobile Business Continuity

On this week's podcast, my guest was Rob Moffat. Rob is the President and co-founder of Toronto-based Wallace Wireless. His company focuses on mobile applications to support business continuity, a space that's starting to get more attention.

Rob talked further about what's behind this trend and why it's important to provide a mobile solution. We also talked about how being in Toronto has been a real plus for their largest customer, RIM, as well as some of the factors that make Canada a good market to support companies focused on the wireless space.

You can download the podcast and read more about Rob here.




Technorati tags: Wallace Wireless, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, business continuity

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Don Albert - Skype - Canada Update

With a handful of exceptions, I've been maintaining a weekly podcast schedule for almost two years. Last week I was away at Mitel's conference, and being Canada Day weekend, one thing has led to another, and I'm simply way behind on blog posts. I even planned ahead and did last week's podcast before leaving, but have not been able to post it until now. Best of intentions....

So, without further ado - I spoke with Don Albert about Skype and the state of the nation here in Canada. During a recent press tour, Don was in Toronto, and I had a thorough update with him at eBay Canada's office, which is close by to me. I decided it would be a good idea to follow this up with a podcast and share a more detailed discussion about how Skype is doing in Canada, and that's just what we did a week or so ago.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Don.



Technorati tags: Skype, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Don Albert

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - New Media, with MyThum Interactive and Deloitte

On this week's podcast, the focus was Canada's New Media community. I've never had 3 guests on together before, but somehow, we made it work. This podcast was a follow up to my coverage of the Canadian New Media Awards held last month in Toronto, and I wanted to do something with the Company of the Year winner. So, one of my guests was Michael Carter, President and CEO of MyThum Interactive, and we talked about what winning this award has meant for the company.

Joining us was Gary Gluckman and Richard Lee, both from the Toronto office of Deloitte, where they are key leaders of their Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice. Deloitte has been on previous podcasts of mine, talking about their Fast 50 and Fast 500 programs, but this was the first time we talked about their involvement in the new media space. Deloitte is a major sponsor of the CNMA, and Gary and Richard shared their views on the new media space in Canada, along with the winning qualities they saw in MyThum.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Gary, Richard and Michael.


Technorati tags: MyThum Interactive, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Deloitte,
Canadian New Media Awards

Waterloo Mini Tour - 3 Podcasts

Last week I had a mini-tour of the Waterloo region as a means of getting closer to their tech community. I posted a brief entry about my visit a few days back, and I'm following that with some podcasts that were created from interviews I conducted during my visit.

I've got 3 podcasts to share with you here:

Podcast #1 is with John Tennant, CEO of Canada's Technology Triangle Inc. You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about John, CTT, and what we talked about.

Podcast #2 is with Linda Fegan and Mark Whaley. Linda is the Director of Marketing and Communications for CTT, and Mark is a Councillor for the City of Waterloo. You can download this podcast here, as well as read more about Linda and Mark, and what we talked about. Apologies - the photo shown with the podcast does not include Linda - it's John Tennant, myself and Mark Whaley. Somehow I missed getting a photo of Linda during my trip, which I intend to fix on my next visit, hopefully in July.

Podcast #3 is with Dave Bullock, President of LiveHive Systems. This is a very cool company that's doing great stuff in the area of interactive entertainment. You can download this podcast here, as well as read more about Dave, and what we talked about.


Finally, here are a few more photos from my visit courtesy of my Nokia N93. The first two podcasts were done in the Seagram Museum, which was an old whisky barrelhouse, but has been beautifully restored, and is home to Canada's Technology Triangle Inc., among others. It's got a great heritage feel, and made for some neat photos.

The House of Seagram - nice historical touch here...



I don't know about you, but it's hard for a guy like me not to think about all these barrels as large packets rolling along in a network...











My visit to LiveHive, home of NanoGaming....





A photo taken during a presentation that Dave gave about NanoGaming during a College baseball game. It's not that illustrative, and you should go to their site to see it for real - they have a demo there.








Technorati tags: Waterloo, Jon Arnold, Canada's Technology Triangle

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mike Barry - Vecima Networks and WiMax

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Mike Barry about the current state of WiMax, and what his company is doing to move it forward. Mike is the CFO of Saskatchewan-based Vecima Networks, one of the few publicly-traded Canadian IP communications vendors. It was nice to talk about a TSX-listed company now, given how Espial just went public there last week. I'm working on them for an upcoming podcast, so stay tuned.

Mike and I talked about where fixed WiMax is today, including issues around standards, in-building coverage, what's driving adoption and what types of operators are embracing it. Mike also commented about emerging trends and applications, especially around video. He also touched on elements that make Saskatchewan a good place for their company to be based.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Mike Barry.


Technorati tags: Vecima Networks, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, WiMax

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Chris Lyman - Fonality and Open Source Telephony

On this week's Canadian IP Thought Leaders podcast, I spoke with Chris Lyman, CEO of Fonality. The topic was open source telephony, a space that Fonality has become a leading player in. We talked about the state of open source telephony, and how using Asterisk, Fonality has been driving adoption not just in the business market, but in the home as well.

Looking ahead, Chris also talked about how new features will be the key to growth, and how over time, open source will become increasingly stable, which itself will set the stage for broader adoption. On the Canadian front, Fonality has a local footprint, and Chris talked about the market opportunity he sees there, as well as how Canada differs from the U.S.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Chris.


Technorati tags: Fonality, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Chris Lyman

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Jim Glover and BDC Venture Capital

On this week's podcast, my guest was Jim Glover. He's the Investment Director for BDC Venture Capital, the venture arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada. Their focus is to support the small business sector, and venture capital is one way of doing this.

Jim and I spoke about the state of the market for venture funding among Canadian telecom and tech companies. He addressed the challenges facing VCs in finding good opportunities, and the types of companies and technologies that are getting funding now. Jim also shared his thoughts on what he looks for in companies seeking funding.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Jim Glover.



Technorati tags: BDC Venture Capital, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts

Telepresence Podcast with Teliris and BT Quarterly

I recently was asked to be a contributor to Business Trends Quarterly, which is a great read on the current thinking from the industry analyst community. For their Q1 issue, I contributed an article, and for the upcoming Q2 issue, we did a feature on telepresence.

This was a two-part feature, consisting of a written Q&A between me and Marc Trachtenberg, CEO and Co-founder of Teliris. It will be published in the Q2 edition, but you can read it here now.

In addition, we did a pretty lengthy podcast about the telepresence market today, and I'll post it once it's ready for release. If you're following the telepresence space, I think you'll find this worth listening to. And until then, I hope you enjoy the written version, and if you like what you see, I'd urge you to subscribe to BTQ.


Technorati tags: Business Trends Quarterly, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, Teliris, Telepresence

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Stephane Marceau - Mobivox and Mobile Skype

This week, my guest was Stephane Marceau, who was returning for a second time on my podcast series. Stephane is the CEO of Montreal-based Mobivox - formally known as Voxlib. Mobivox is a pretty interesting company that enables Skype on any mobile phone - so, no downloads are needed. They also have a strong voice recognition component, so you can use Mobivox hands-free to see who's available on Skype, and then to initiate a call to any endpoint that's in your Skype directory.

That's enough about Mobivox. Aside from this, Stephane and I talked about the bigger picture market around mobile VoIP, and why Skype is such an attractive audience for applications such theirs. Stephane talked further about how mobile phones are the preferred mode now for how many people communicate, and all the ways that VoIP and presence can make for a better user experience. In particular, he cited the convenience of continuing a mobile conversation on a landline connection without having to drop the call and dial back in. Another example was initiating a group call with multiple parties while on a mobile call - something you can't do with regular wireless service.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Stephane.








Technorati tags: Mobivox, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Stephane Marceau, mobile Skype

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Stefan Dubowski on Open Source and Web 2.0

My guest this week was Stefan Dubowski, returning for his second podcast with me. Stefan is the Editor of Telemanagement Magazine, one of Canada's leading telecom pubs.

We both attended the IT360 conference here in Toronto recently, and shared our thoughts on the event, including Don Tapscott's keynote. From there, we talked about Open Source and Web 2.0, both of which were prominent at the conference. Stefan has been covering telecom for quite some time, and he shared his views on why large enterprises aren't quite ready yet for Open Source.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Stefan.


Technorati tags: IT360 Conference, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Stefan Dubowski, Telemanagement, Open Source

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Oz Communications and Mobile Messaging

My guest this week was Hilmar Gunnarsson, the EVP of Sales and Marketing for Oz Communications. Oz is a Montreal-based company doing a lot of good things in the mobile messaging space, and I've been wanting to do a podcast with them for some time. They got some healthy funding a few months back, and continue to announce deals with major wireless carriers. Late last month, they made an interesting acquisition of Thumbspeed, which helps push them beyond SMS and into the realm of mobile social networking.

Hilmar provided some background on the popularity of mobile messaging in Europe, and some thoughts as to why it's been slower to gain acceptance here in North America. From there, we discussed the value proposition around mobile messaging for both subscribers and carriers, and then broadened the discussion to how mobile messaging is evolving towards being a social networking platform. Oz is certainly a company to watch in this space, so if you're following mobile messaging, I think you'll enjoy our conversation.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Hilmar.



Technorati tags: Oz Communications, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, mobile messaging

Good Week for Sangoma and Open Source

I've been a fan of Sangoma for a while, and so is fellow blogger/industry watcher Ken Camp. Earlier this week I did a podcast with their CEO, David Mandelstam - our second one - and just today, Ken has posted up his podcast with David.

So, if you can't get enough of Sangoma from me, tune in to Ken's interview.

Stepping back, I should also say it's been a good week for Open Source, at least in my circles. I presented at the IT360 conference on Tuesday, and as you can see from my post, there was a lot of Open Source there, including a roadmap update from Sangoma's chief competitor, Digium.


Technorati tags: Sangoma, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Ken Camp

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - David Mandelstam and Open Source Telephony

On this week's podcast, my guest was David Mandelstam. He's the President/CEO of Sangoma Technologies, one of the leading hardware vendors supporting Open Source telephony. Sangoma is based in Toronto, and I did a podcast with David a little over a year ago, and it was time to re-visit things.

Open Source telephony continues to gain momentum, and David provided a good update on what's moving things forward. Of particular interest was Sangoma's recent news to partner with Montreal-based Octasic for their echo cancellation software. Octasic was also a podcast guest here last year, and they have a good story of their own that I plan to re-visit soon. Echo cancellation is a key feature for anyone providing business class VoIP, and David talked about what this means in terms of how Open Source telephony is evolving.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about David.


Technorati tags: Sangoma, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Open Source Telephony

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mario Belanger - Avaya Canada and IP Telephony

On this week's podcast, my guest was Mario Belanger, President of Avaya Canada. I try to have a mix of large and small companies on my podcasts, and it was nice to hear how an incumbent vendor sees the market. Mario and I spoke about the state of IP telephony from Avaya's position, and the issues around getting enterprises to see the vision and value of IP as business transformation tool.

That's an ambitious agenda, but it's certainly one Avaya is banking on - as are other vendors. It's not easy migrating from PBX to IP PBX to business transformation - for both the vendors and the customers, but that's where IP is heading. There's a good story here, and I urge you to hear it for yourself.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Mario. Enjoy.


Technorati tags: Avaya Canada, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, IP Telephony

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Craig Betts and Intelligent Content Routing

On this week's podcast, my guest was Craig Betts. He's the Founder/CEO/President of Solace Systems, which is based in Ottawa, one of Canada's major tech hubs. Actually, they're based in Kanata, but for most people, Ottawa will suffice.

Craig's company focuses on intelligent content routing, which is something I haven't had much exposure to, so this was a good learning experience. Basically, Craig explained how solutions like his help service providers and enterprises better manage the flow of content over IP networks. This means a lot of things, such as speed, scale, reliability, security, and intelligent routing. Better for Craig to explain this, which he does quite well during the podcast. We also touched on where he sees the market going, especially in terms of shifting from real-time data to multimedia, which is far more complex.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Craig and Solace Systems.




Technorati tags: Craig Betts, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Solace Systems

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Kate Morgan - Business Uses for Podcasts

For my current podcast, we talked about... podcasting. Never done one like this before, but why not. My guest was Kate Morgan. She's a Toronto-based entrepreneur, and her company, Podwise Social Media, is all about helping companies use new media tools like podcasts and blogs to build their businesses.

Kate and I talked about various facets of blogging - what works, what doesn't work, how best to use them, etc. She also provided good examples of how she's using them with her clients, especially in helping personalize their business for their customers. If you want to learn more about this and how Kate is building a business around this, you'll find this podcast of interest.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Kate.


Technorati tags: Kate Morgan, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, social media

Unified Communications Podcast - MetaSwitch

I've had a number of posts recently regarding the Unified Communications Strategies portal, and some of the content I've contributed there. Most recently was a podcast done by Blair Pleasant, interviewing me about Unified Communications.

Since then, I did a podcast of my own with Andy Randall of MetaSwitch, where we talked about their UC9000 conference server, and how applications related to UC figure into their product mix. Pretty interesting stuff, and it was just posted to the UCS portal the other day. I'm still in catch-up from last week's Cisco event, so I'm just getting around to posting about it now. Hope you like it.



Technorati tags: MetaSwitch, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Unified Communications Strategies

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Steve Mast and New Media Marketing

For my latest podcast, I spoke with Steve Mast of Delvinia Interactive. He's their VP and Managing Director, and Delvinia is one of Canada's leading digital marketing shops. They have a lot of experience with new media, and we spoke about how they're using it across a variety of client situations.

We focused in particular on a contest run by the Royal Bank, which is Canada's #1 bank, and if they're ready to embrace new media, you know it's arrived. Delvinia created a program for them called The Next Great Innovator Challenge, where college/university students submit ideas for getting the youth market more in touch with financial services. It's largely a web-based contest, which included a blog that served as a useful resource for the contestants. Steve spoke about how the program was put together and how it's delivering value for their client.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Steve.


Technorati tags: Delvinia Interactive, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Steve Mast

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - David Cork and Hosted IP for SMBs

My guest on this week's podcast was David Cork, someone I've known for quite some time. David is the CEO and co-founder of Natural Convergence. They're based in Ottawa, and are part of the Terry Matthews fold, whose IP communications success stories include Mitel, Convedia and Ubiquity.

Natural Convergence focuses on hosted IP telephony for the small end of the SMB market, and David shared his views on the market opportunity here. I have done other podcasts on this space recently, but none of these have addressed this partcular segment with a hosted offering. David talked about the challenges facing these businesses, not just in terms putting IP technology to work for them, but also in terms of finding the right partners to provide VoIP.

The Canadian market is particularly skewed towards small businesses - typical under 40 lines and using a key system, so David's insights were close to home. To address this market, he spoke about his company's role in the recently announced service that Rogers will be offering here in Canada to SMBs. MSOs like Rogers are ideal partners for Natural Convergence, and if things go well there, you can expect to see other hosted SMB offerings from MSOs elsewhere.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about David's background.


Technorati tags: Natural Convergence, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, hosted VoiP

Unified Communications Podcast

This is one of those better-late-than-never posts, but it's not really time sensitive. So if you're interested in unified communications, it's still relevant.

Back in December, during Cisco's analyst conference, I sat down to do a podcast on Unified Communications with colleague Blair Pleasant, who runs her own consultancy, CommFusion.

Some things take time to come to market, and this podcast is one of them! It was just posted the other day on the Unified Communications Strategies portal, where I'm becoming a bit of a regular contributor. You can access the podcast here, and if you're not registered, it's free and just takes a minute to do. Hope you like it!



Technorati tags: podcast, Jon Arnold, Blair Pleasant, unified communications

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Yves Laliberte/Aastra Telecom and IP Telephony

On this week's podcast, I've gone back to the IP telephony market, and featured a company I've long been a fan of - Toronto-based Aastra Telecom.

Not only are they Canadian - and based in Toronto, where it gets pretty lonely for VoIP or IP vendors - but they're public, and they have a strong international presence. I can count on one hand how many companies there are like this in Canada, and I'm not even thinking about Nortel. Aastra actually took some good Nortel business off their hands a while back, and are doing very nicely with it.

Anyhow, these podcasts are about markets and technologies - not the vendors - so that's enough about Aastra from me. My guest was Yves Laliberte, their EVP, and he knows this space quite well. We've been trying to get a podcast done for a while, and the timing is good. Aastra just launched a line of SIP phones, and to step back, there are other vendors with SIP phones in the market, so this isn't just an Aastra story. However, it was a good time to hear from Yves what SIP phones bring to the market, and how enterprises are adopting IP telephony.

We also covered the SMB market and how IP telephony fits into their thinking. Yves also provided some interesting perspectives on how OEMs are working with Open Source, and it's surprising to hear just how much it is taking hold among the vendors.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Yves.

NOTE - no podcast next week, as the Pulvermedia crew will be at Spring VON, which unfortunately, I won't be attending. I'll be back the following week, though, with another podcast.



Technorati tags: Aastra Telecom, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, SIP phones

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Brian O'Higgins and Network Security

For my latest podcast, the focus was network security. This is a hot area, and has many flavors. In this case, the topic was intrusion detection, and my guest was Brian O?Higgins. He?s the CTO of Ottawa-based Third Brigade, and has a lot of experience in this area. We talked about the network security challenges facing enterprises, and the different ways these threats can impact networks. Brian also spoke to the difficulty of protecting networks today, especially with the numerous way in which the public Internet connects to the enterprise.

On a related note, I also did another podcast recently on this space, but from a different perspective. That was with fellow blogger Dan York, and his affiliation with VOIPSA, the VoIP Security Alliance.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Brian and Third Brigade.


Technorati tags: Third Brigade, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Network Security

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Claude Galipeau - BlogTV Canada

For anyone interested in disruptive broadcasting and social media, I think you'll find this week's podcast worth listening to.

I spoke with Claude Galipeau; he's the SVP of Digital Media for Toronto-based Alliance Atlantis Communications. The company is one of Canada's largest and most progressive media players, and is the driving force behind the introduction of BlogTV to Canada. In January 2007, BlogTV.ca was launched, and Canada was the first market that Israel-based BlogTV has expanded into. I posted about the launch, and am in the process of evaluating the service for them. I'm even planning on producing a regular technology review segment with my son Max for one of their channels. Why not?

Claude and I first talked about BlogTV.ca - what it is, what it is not, and why it came to Canada first - and not the U.S. I also am hung up a bit on the idea of calling it TV when it's web-based. My theory is that people will do anything to get on TV - even it's really just the Internet, and nobody may be watching. That's ok - we're all figuring this out, and blog TV is still just a science experiment, even for the likes of Alliance Atlantis. We touched on the idea of BlogTV being a talent feeder for more traditional media, and I couldn't help but reference the SightSpeed Guy story, which Claude hadn't heard about until now.

All told, we covered a lot of ground, including a few thoughts on the business models around BlogTV - but could have gone on a lot longer. Let's save that for another podcast, and by then, we'll probably do this as part of a video segment right on BlogTV.ca. Stay tuned!

I should also mention that since we're talking about TV and video here, Claude has his own live broadcast on BlogTV.ca, and I was able watch him, fishbowl-style, during our podcast. Pretty strange experience, but kind of fun. I've included a couple of photos here, so you can see what I was seeing while were doing the call.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Claude. Hope you enjoy it, and your comments are welcome!


Photos of Claude on BlogTV.ca, courtesy of my Nokia N93....
























Technorati tags: Claude Galipeau, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, BlogTV Canada, Alliance Atlantis, Social Media, video blogging

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Joe Warnement, Digital Fairway Corp.

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Joe Warnement. He's the CEO of Toronto-based Digital Fairway Corp. This company is new to me, and it's great to find these companies who have a local presence. Digital Fairway is in the OSS space, but my particular interest is their focus on providing solutions to help large enterprises better manage their communications infrastructure and expenses. This is certainly becoming more important as companies struggle with the proliferation of wireless devices, and ways to integrate this with existing wireline communications systems.

It's a big challenge, and it's multi-faceted, and that what Joe spoke to on the podcast. There are many angles to this, and Joe provided an overview of the problems, and the difficulty enterprises have coming to grips with them. A lot of classic network convergence issues here, and Joe has a very good perspective on what it takes to make this work.

I should also add that Digital Fairway is getting some nice market recognition these day. For the past 2 years, I've been posting about the Deloitte Fast 50 and Fast 500, and in 2006, Digital Fairway made on both lists. For the Fast 50, which is Canada-only, they ranked #16. For the broader Fast 500, which includes both the U.S. and Canada, they ranked #95.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Joe's background.



Technorati tags: Joe Warnement, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Digital Fairway

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Don Smith, Mitel and IP Telephony Trends

SMB VoIP has been a hot topic lately, and that's one market - but just one - that Kanata, Ontario-based Mitel is very strong in. I've been wanting to do a podcast with Mitel for some time, and the closest I've come so far is with Mitel's Dan York, but we talked about VoIP security, and not Mitel.

Well today, I've really got Mitel, and my guest this week is their CEO, Don Smith. He's done great work with Mitel, and having been on the leading edge of IP telephony for the business market for ages, I long wanted to get this done.

In particular, I wanted to talk a bit about their news with Rogers and Natural Convergence to offer hosted IP telephony to Canadian SMBs, which is a North American first for a major cableco.

From there, we talked about bigger picture issues, such as what's driving businesses to adopt IP telephony, as well as how things like presence and unified messaging are delivering new types of productivity, especially, as in Don's words, to enhance "in the moment" communications.

To find out what Don means by this, as well as everything else we talked about, you can download the podcast here.

Wearing my Pulvermedia Podcasting Network hat for a moment, I should also add that if you want to hear more from Don, VON Magazine's Bob Emmerson did his own pod with Don last week. It's not posted yet, so please check back at the PPN site shortly.

NOTE - am skipping a week for my pods, as the PPN producer is away next week. I'll be back the following week, and am hoping to have BlogTV Canada as my guest. If you're into social media, you'll want to hear this, as they haven't brought BlogTV to the U.S. yet - only in Canada - you can get a sneak peek about them here.



Technorati tags: Don Smith, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Mitel

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mark Whaley and the City of Waterloo

My podcast this week was with Mark Whaley, who is a Councillor with the City of Waterloo, which is an hour or so west of Toronto. This may seem like an odd choice for a "thought leader", but our paths crossed recently at PTC, and the whole story can be found in my post about that trip.

Basically, Waterloo is a great tech story, and the city was recently recognized by the Intelligent Community Forum as one of the top 7 intelligent communities in the world! For the second year running to boot. Well, that's enough reason for a podcast, and you can listen to the whole story here, as well as read more about Mark, the City of Waterloo, and the ICF.





Technorati tags: Mark Whaley, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Waterloo

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - SMB VoIP With OneConnect

This week's podcast was with Gianni Creta, the CTO of OneConnect. They're Canada's first hosted VoIP provider focused on the SMB market, and are based here in Toronto. I've been following SMB VoIP for some time, and have been looking forward this podcast. Gianni provided his perspective on the SMB market for VoIP in Canada, and we talked about the challenges of providing this service, especially from an operator who does not own the last mile.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Gianni's background.


Technorati tags: Gianni Creta, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, OneConnect

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Jim Harris on CES and Disruptive Technologies

Incredibly, it's been a month since my last podcast. Time sure flies, and between the holidays and 3 last minute cancellations the first week back, I've finally got my first pod of 2007 ready, and I'd like to think the wait will be worth it.

I've known Jim Harris for a few years now, and he's a very interesting guy, based here in Toronto. He wears a few different hats, and for this podcast, I've got him wearing his author/technology futurist hat. Jim is a best-selling author, best known for his most recent book, Blindsided, which is a great read about how the pace of technological change has caught many companies off guard, and in some cases put them out of business.



CES may seem like a long time ago, but I still think Jim's recap is worth listening to. I wasn't there, but when I found out Jim was going just before New Year, I said we should do a pod about it when he got back. Given my travel schedule, this is the quickest we've been able to get this done and posted.

We both love talking about the same things, and didn't actually get around to CES until later in the podcast. Until that point, Jim shared some very interesting insights about various types of disruptive technologies, with some surprising factoids about things like MP3 players and digital cameras.

In time, we got around to CES, and talked about the iPhone, but little about the event itself. Jim's key takeaways were two companies he found particularly disruptive - SanDisk and SpeechGear. Among other items of note at the show, what really stood out for Jim about SanDisk was their 32 Gigabyte solid state hard drive, which has all kinds of implications for laptops. SpeechGear is altogether different but equally interesting. Their focus is real time, bi-directional speech translation software, in 12 different languages. You don't have to think too much about how that could become a very cool app for VoIP.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Jim. He's in a very interesting space right now - clean technology ventures (including a blog), and is a regular columnist for Backbone Magazine up here in Canada. Enjoy!


Technorati tags: Jim Harris, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, SanDisk, SpeechGear

Podcast Updates - From Both Sides of the Mike

Just a quick note about 2 posts about podcasts ? one about one of my recent pods, and one about a podcast where I was the guest for a change.

First, during Cisco?s C-Scape Analyst Conference, I was interviewed by Blair Pleasant of COMMFusion. She and I are both contributors to Jim Burton?s Unified Communications Strategies portal. The topic was current trends in UC, so if that?s of interest, you might find this a good listen. It runs about 18 minutes, and you can access it from the UCS portal. If you?re not a member, it just takes a minute to register, and it?s free.

Second, just before the Xmas break, my most recent podcast was with fellow blogger Dan York, who is a great go-to guy for VoIP security. Dan was nice enough to do his own posting about it to the VOIPSA blog page, called Voice of VOIPSA. Thanks Dan ? what goes around?


Technorati tags: Podcasts, Jon Arnold, Unified Communications, VoIP Security

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Dan York and VoIP Security

On this week's podcast, I spoke with Mitel's Dan York, who is well known in IP and blogging circles. We didn't talk about Ottawa-based Mitel though - we focused on Dan's other claim to fame - VoIP security. He's been quite active in that area for some time, and talked about the current issues and state of the nation for VoIP security, especially in regard to VOIPSA, the VoIP Security Alliance. Through VOIPSA, Dan gets a good insight into how vendors approach VoIP security and how carriers view it. Sometimes they see eye to eye, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

In addition, Dan is active in this space through the Blue Box initiative, and maintains a couple of blogs not yet mentioned in this post - his new blog focused just on VOIP Disruptive Telephony, and the Voice of VOIPSA blog companion to the VOIPSA website.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read up more on Dan and the various websites and blogs he's connected to.

Dan - have I missed anything? You're a busy guy.


NOTE - this will be my last podcast for 2007. It's been a busy year, and I hope you've enjoyed these weekly posts. There are many more good Canadian stories to tell, and I've got a number of podcasts in the pipeline for next year.


NOTE #2 - I see from my Moveable Type home page that this is my 500th blog posting. For me, that's a big number, and I'll note it with a smile. I'm not an uber blogger, and many bloggers have done thousands of posts, but that's not my thing. I intend to keep up what I've been doing in 2007, and hope to post daily through the week as best I can.

For those of you who follow me regularly, I'll just use this small milestone to say THANK YOU. There are millions of voices out there in the blogosphere, and it's practically impossible to manage tracking it all. So I really appreciate each and every one of you who reads me - it means a lot. I still have very little sense of who's out there, so please feel free to drop me a line and tell me about yourself, and what else you'd like to see from me. Thanks!



Technorati tags: Dan York, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, VoIP Security

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - James Wanless and Talkster's Enterprise Mobility Solution

On this week's podcast, I spoke with James Wanless, the President/COO of Toronto-based Talkster. This is a pretty interesting startup that's come up with a very interesting solution for enterprises to better manage both the cost of mobile telephony and the management of all these accounts. Lots of startups are chasing the "cheaper LD calling" market, but that's a commodity game, and doesn't really help the business market.

That's where Talkster is focused, and John gave a good overview of the nature of these problems and how he's trying to address them now. He also provided his perspective on how the Canadian and U.S. wireless markets are different, and why their service makes more sense in Canada.

Turns out our timing was good for this podcast. Today was Talkster's beta launch, so James has been working overtime to get it right, and you can read more about it here. Small world - I just saw James - he and I were on the same flight yesterday to San Francisco, and I'm in San Jose now, waiting for the Cisco analyst conference to start tomorrow. Can you guess what I'll be blogging about next?

Another item of note - fellow blogger Ken Camp included Talkster in his "Magnificent Seven" posting - which has been getting a lot of attention. His post is noted on Talkster's home page, which makes me feel good. This is one company that "gets it" with bloggers.

To download our podcast, click here. At this link you can also read more about James.


Technorati tags: Talkster, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, James Wanless

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Michael Weening/Microsoft Canada and Network Mashups

This week's podcast was with Michael Weening of Microsoft Canada. He's the Director of their Communications Sector here in Toronto, but was physically located in Redmond for our call. We were going to talk about the Canadian market and how enterprises here are working with Microsoft's various IP initiatives. However, we got pre-empted a bit by the announcement made during ITU about Microsoft's Connected Services Sandbox.

The timing was good, since the Sandbox idea covers a lot of the ground we were going to talk about. So, that's where we went, and put as much of a Canadian spin on things as we could. Turns out that wasn't hard to do, since Bell Canada is a founding participant, as are two leading Canadian vendors, Nortel and Ubiquity. We both agreed that Canada is very well represented in this initiative.

The podcast and press release both tell the story pretty well about the sandbox concept, but in short, it's very much a Web 2.0 story. Microsoft is creating a digital sandbox, of sorts, to support "managed network mashups" among software applications and platforms to help service providers create new and exciting offerings for subscribers. In this regard, the sandbox is part of their bigger vision termed "Telco 2.0", which is probably going to be another podcast.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Michael's background.



Technorati tags: Microsoft, Jon Arnold, Connected Services Sandbox, VoIP podcasts, Web 2.0

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - TalkSwitch and VoIP for SMBs

On this week's podcast, my guest was John Cunningham. He's the VP of Business Development with TalkSwitch, an Ottawa-based vendor who has been focused on small business telephony since 1990.

I've been trying to stay close to this market, and was looking forward to hearing John's thoughts on the opportunity he sees there and what PBX replacement solutions like his brings to SMBs. We also talked about the challenges of educating the market as well as why adoption of VoIP in the Canadian business market has lagged the U.S.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about John.

Speaking of TalkSwitch, fellow blogger Garrett Smith just posted about them today, commenting about their just-launched IP PBXs. Good timing, Garrett.



Technorati tags: SMB VoIP, Jon Arnold, TalkSwitch, VoIP podcasts, John Cunningham

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Cisco and Unis Lumin on Unified Communications

This week's podcast was a bit more ambitious than normal, but I think the results were worth it. For the first time, I had two guests, one based here in Toronto, and the other in the U.S.

My guests on the podcast were Glenn Mowat, the CEO and COO of Unis Lumin, and Richard McLeod, who is Cisco's Director of Unified Communications Solutions for Worldwide Channels.

The podcast was a follow up to a recent posting I did about Cisco's new Master Specialization Channel Partners program. The program is their highest level of certification for channel partners, and this particular edition focuses on Cisco's Unified Communications platform.

On the podcast, Glenn provided the systems integrator perspective as well as some Canadian flavor, and Richard added the Cisco view and where they see the opportunity to help enterprises leverage IP solutions and applications into making their businesses more successful. If you're interested in where unified communications is going, and what this means for the vendor-systems intetgrator relationship, I think you'll find this podcast of great interest.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Glenn and Richard.



Technorati tags: Unis Lumin, Jon Arnold, Cisco, VoIP podcasts, Unified Communications

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mark Evans and b5media

This week's podcast featured a familiar face, but wearing a new hat. Mark Evans has done pods with me before, while covering tech for the National Post here in Toronto. He was certainly one of Canada's top tech writers for the big papers, and it won't be easy for the Post to fill his shoes.

Well, Mark very recently made the jump back into startup-land, going to b5media, which is a pretty cool blogging venture, backed by some pretty smart money. It's a great story, and I wanted to do this pod with him to hear it ASAP.

So, Mark talks about his journey on the pod, but we also touched on some of the tech issues around this, such as the impact of the Internet on newspapers (Om Malik is another journalist who recently made a similar move to Mark), what b5media is doing, and how being a tech startup is different this time around from the bubble days, which Mark was a part of.

In addition to his move, Mark still maintains his main blog (plus 2 others), does his TalkingTech weekly podcast with another ex-Post writer - Kevin Restivo - and will be back again next May with the second Mesh conference. Got all that? Never a dull moment, eh!

You can download the podcast here, and read more about Mark and his blogs.


Technorati tags: Mark Evans, Jon Arnold, b5media, VoIP podcasts, Pulvermedia Podcast Network

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Mark Goldberg on Canadian Income Trusts

On this week's Canadian IP Thought Leaders podcast, I spoke with Mark Goldberg about the impact of last week's Income Trust Decision on the Canadian telcos. For those of you outside of Canada, this story got very little attention, but believe me, if this happened to Verizon or AT&T it would be front page news every day, just like it was here. For the basic story and my own take, I'll steer you to my posting about it last Tuesday.

This was Mark's first podcast with me, and he brings a long history of telecom experience to bear on the topic. Like me, Mark is an independent consultant, DBA Mark H Goldberg & Associates, and has a blog, titled Telecom Trends. Mark also co-produces the annual Canadian Telecom Summit, which by most counts is Canada's biggest telecom conference.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Mark's background.


Technorati tags: income trusts, Jon Arnold, Mark Goldberg, VoIP podcasts, Pulvermedia Podcast Network

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - John Ruffolo and the Deloitte Fast 50

In late September, the Deloitte Fast 50 winners were announced, and the list included some IP communications companies that I follow to varying degrees, namely Espial, Aastra and Tira Wireless. They also announced a list of "Companies to Watch", which included other familiar companies such as Objectworld, Oz Communications and Impact Mobile. So, with all this common ground, I wanted to do a podcast about it, and brought back John Ruffolo for his second podcast with me.

On the podcast John talked about the Fast 50 and Companies to Watch, explaining what they look for in companies, and the trends that Deloitte is seeing. They also have a broader Fast 500, which includes US and Canadian companies. Of the 500, 56 are Canadian, as are 5 of the top 10. I think that says a lot about Canada, although none of the top 5 are in the IP space.

John noted another interesting finding about how the two countries differ. He said about 75% of of the US-based Fast 500 companies are venture backed, whereas the opposite is true for Canada - about 75% are NOT venture-backed. John feels this goes a long way to explaining the quality of these Canadian companies, as they've had to really bootstrap themselves, and focus heavily on R&D and product development rather than marketing and promotion.

He feels this will give Canadian companies more staying power, and it also makes them good acquisition candidates for companies looking to enter new markets. I think he's right, and Canadian companies like Convedia come to mind right away. They were recently acquired by US-based Radisys for a very nice valuation, and their hard work to build up a single-focus, R&D intensive company really paid off. This is a textbook example of what John is talking about.

Back to the Fast 50, John noted a growing trend in that the upper half of winners are shifting away from software companies to those focused on the wireless marketplace. That's pretty evident when looking over the list, and certainly validates the growth of wireless in the IP communications sector.

Finally, the podcast touched on the next round of nominations, which will start early next year. For any companies considering applying, you should bookmark Deloitte's site, and check back regularly starting in January.

You can download the podcast here, and read more about John and his practice at Deloitte.

Next week my guest will be telecom consultant Mark Goldberg, and we're going to talk about yesterday's Income Trust decision, which as expected, was bad news for our big incumbents, Bell and Telus, and is really too big of a story to not discuss further.



Technorati tags: Deloitte Fast 50, Jon Arnold, John Ruffolo, VoIP podcasts