IP Communications and Beyond

Jon and I had the pleasure of being guests on yesterday's Squawk Box podcast, a very popular podcast series hosted by Alec Saunders, CEO of iotum.

As partner Jon Arnold notes in his recent blog post, the turnout was really quite good, with about 27 people on the call at one point. We discussed a number of things, including the launch of IP Communications Insights.

The discussion got really lively when we started contrasting and comparing the recent trade shows and conferences we'd all been to over the past few weeks, including eComm, VoiceCon and VON. I hope you give it a listen!

I look forward to participating in future Squawk Box podcasts (heck, I just might become a regular!), and I highly recommend it to those who want to gain valuable leading market trend insights from some of the real visionaries of the IP Communications industry.

Word from a dependable source is that a massive round of layoffs occurred at PulverMedia yesterday, as TICC (the current investor) moved in last week -- while Spring VON was going on -- to take over. I'm not sure who's in or who's out, but I'll certainly provide updates as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: Just received word through the grapevine that PulverMedia will be shutting its doors on Friday. (Please note that this isn't verified and isn't based on any public statement by the company.)

I'm nearing the end of my trade show travels this week, and finally have some time to share my observations about the two shows that occupied most of my time.

First off, hats off to Fred Knight and Eric Krapf and the rest of the VoiceCon crew! The event in Orlando was buzzing, with an exhibit floor that according to reports experienced double-digit growth and was the largest in the event's history. The venue -- the Gaylords hotel and conference center -- was packed with an upbeat crowd and by all appearances at least the enterprise IP communications marketplace is as healthy and robust as ever. I came away extremely impressed by the way the event was executed and disappointed that I didn't budget another day to attend (I only attended the first day, on Monday.)

VON in San Jose, on the other hand, was a different story. I arrived midday-Tuesday, and it appeared the show was definitely showing signs of stress, as the exhibit floor and exhibitor count was noticeably truncated and attendance appeared to be light -- this based on visual observation and polling of various vendors' booth staff. I did hear that an "official" number of 3000 attendees was being circulated, but I'm not sure where that emanated from. The VON Unconference apparently had about 30 attendees.

I must state, however, that from the perspective of an attending analyst, I did have a productive time at VON, and was able to book a good number of informative meetings with vendors from across the IP communications landscape (I will be blogging my insights from some of these meetings shortly). I might have felt very differently, however, if I was manning a booth on the show floor.

The press room was staffed by Ally Forbes and Todd Keefe of FIRPR, and my hats off to them for managing a well-run meeting place (and the press-pool laptop that was Ethernet-cabled to the network saved my neck on several occasions, as the WiFi in the San Jose convention center was spotty and extremely unreliable).

VON and PulverMedia certainly has a few challenges in front of them, and it remains to be seen if they can pull themselves out of the doldrums they find themselves in. It must be said that Jeff Pulver managed to right the VON ship several years ago when a similar challenge presented itself after he sold the company the first time around. He ended up buying it back and making it more successful than ever.

For those of you that don't know, Jeff has recently sold most if not all of his company's shares to publicly traded Technology Investment Capitol Corp (TICC), so perhaps this scenario will play itself out once again...

Over the last couple of days, there's been a flurry of rumors about the health of the upcoming VON show and the overall financial condition of it's parent company, PulverMedia.

They range from lower than expected attendance numbers, to overseas shows that are failing to draw business, to outlandish merger suppositions. I'm not sure who is originating these rumors, but it's worth pointing out that they are unsubstantiated.

Having been in the events business in the past, producing such shows as Internet Telephony EXPO and many others, I can tell you that attendance often spikes during the few days before a show begins, and that local traffic is often underestimated. With VON sitting dead-center in Silicon Valley, it is sure to draw a healthy local contingent.

There is also the macro-economic situation to consider, and which must now be factored into any speculation about the health of any upcoming events. It is now beyond any doubt that a recession is upon us, and although I won't speculate here whether we're looking at a shallow and short, or long and deep retraction, the economy is definitely starting to take a toll on expenditures -- especially T&E for "non-mission critical" reasons.

Rumors aside, there is some substantiated news relating to VON Magazine. Paul Kapustka has returned to PulverMedia to become Editor-in-Chief of the publication, replacing Doug Mohney, who has taken a position at Fierce Markets as Editor-in-Chief, Telecom and Digital Medial Group with overall responsibility for Fierce VoIP, Fierce IPTV, Fierce Telecom and a new online video site. All websites, newsletters, webinars, and events fall under his purview as well.

If you want to read more about Paul Kapustka, Andy Abramson posted a predictably cheerleading entry replete with pom poms on his VoIP Watch blog (which is understandable given that Andy's a long-time friend, and his day job is running an IP communications industry public relations company and certainly doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him. :-)

In any case, I certainly wish Paul, and Doug, well in their new positions.

Whether the event planners planned it or not, Spring VON.x in San Jose and VoiceCon 2008 in Orlando are both scheduled for the same time next week, which makes things especially onerous for people like me who will be attending both events.

I'm not sure what was behind this state of affairs (besides poor planning and one or both parties refusing or unable to budge from their selected dates), but it sure doesn't bode well for either event. I've always believed that there is certainly room in the marketplace for both of them, as VoiceCon has traditionally catered to the enterprise market for VoIP gear while VON is more a gathering spot for service providers and developers.

The unfortunate consequence is that many people were forced to make a choice between one show or the other when otherwise they would have probably attended both, and a smaller number of people will be cutting their attendance short at each one in order to attend them both (which is my situation).

In any case, I am looking forward to a little sunshine in Orlando and sussing out the pulse of VoiceCon, which looks to be picking up quite a bit of momentum this year. VON.x is also shaping up to be a good event, at least for me, as I have quite a large number of appointments scheduled with some interesting companies and individuals.

I'll be blogging from both events, and will try to keep you abreast of the action. If you are planning on attending either event, and would like to try to schedule a meeting, please contact me via the email link here.

Before I start blogging willy nilly, I thought I would lay out a sort of basic "Blog Reader's Bill of Rights" that spells out what you can expect me to do (and by inference not do) in this blog. One of the big reasons I wanted to have my own blog is to be completely independent of the agendas (both open and hidden) of other media companies that cause them to be either excessive cheerleaders or too circumspect in their coverage for fear of offending some customer or prospect.

The following list of rights will probably grow over time, but here are some of the key things I want my readers to know:

1. You have the right to full disclosure. I promise that when I am writing about the product or service of a client -- or any company that I have a relationship with either through my consultancy, the SIP Forum or IP Communications Insights -- that I will try to be as transparent as possible and make a full disclosure in my post about such a relationship.

2. You have the right to no pulled punches. If I write about a product or service that I believe not only has promise but also a variety of issues, I promise to be as forthcoming and direct with my criticism as possible. My goal is to offer up constructive criticism where applicable, and not just sugarcoat or dish dirt just for dirt's sake. And if I have nothing good to say about something, I probably won't be blogging about it -- unless, that is, I feel word should get out about it in order to save someone undo pain and suffering.

3. You have the right to read the highest quality posts possible. There's a time and place (or maybe not) for mediocre pictures of sunsets out of train windows, gossip about celebrities, or meaningless posts made at an airport gate while waiting for a plane to start boarding -- but for certain, that time and place ain't here. In this blog, I promise to write to the best of my ability, and do my utmost to always post information that has some real intrinsic value.

4. You have the right to honesty, even if it creates a bit of controversy. This is sort of related to #2 above, but it still bears stating. I may not be right about everything I will be posting here, but I will be honest about my opinions and not be timid about sharing them with you.

For those of you who have been following the genesis and ongoing development of IP Communications Insights, you know that this new portal has been a relatively long time coming -- one year to be exact. Not that Jon Arnold, my partner in this venture, and I were twiddling our thumbs during this time. Both of us were busy with our thriving consultancies and serving a variety of interests, and to be honest, we didn't want to rush something to the Web just to be able to point to it and say, "Gee, look what we did!"

Rather, we wanted to make sure we got things right in terms of the vision we had for this entity -- and I say "entity" on purpose, since projects like this tend to take on a life of their own. And although IP Communications Insights is still in sort of a launch mode and as such is a work in progress, I think we've got the basic foundation down just the way we envisioned it. I look forward to working with Jon and building it up, adding features and functionality and content, and fully realizing our vision of a truly independent portal for thought leadership in the IP communications space.

I'm also thrilled to be blogging again. For those of you who followed my previous blog, Beyond VoIP, on TMCnet.com, and are now finding me here, thank you for reading me in the past and welcome to my new blog home! A big thank you is due to Rich Tehrani of TMC for not only giving me the opportunity to reach a large audience with my musings (and occasional rants), but also for continuing to host Beyond VoIP although the last post I made to it was last October. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my blogging style, the archive of posts on Beyond VoIP will give you a good idea of what you can expect to find here.

I will continue to write about the wide range of IP communications technologies, products, services, applications and industry professionals that intrigue me, offer up nuggets on green tech and consumer tech bang-for-the-buck bargains, as well as dish out healthy opinion about various high technology issues and rant occasionally about things that tend to seriously frustrate me and that I just HAVE to share with someone (my wife certainly doesn't want to be my sounding board...)

I look forward to hearing from you -- my future loyal readers! Let me know what you think about IP Communications Insights, what topics or content you'd like to see -- or see more of -- and how Jon and I can make this portal more valuable to your informational needs.