|
|||||
|
IntelePeer has announced it has been blessed as a SIP trunking provider for Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2. The qualification allows IntelePeer to provide a turnkey OCS solution, so Microsoft channel partners can provide on-prem solutions or offer hosting solutions to business solutions. But I guess you might have already figured that out if you follow dougonipcomm on Twitter… Currently in briefings at ADTRAN about new products. Can’t Twitter because the web filter on the public network doens’t permit. Also not 100% clear on what is/isn’t embargo material in presentations ANNND I’ve also had to fight some connectivity issues… I’ve had better mornings… I’m in Huntsville watching a demo of NetVanta Unified Communication. Around me are about 27 press and analysts, including a number of UC foodies, er UC consultants. The demo is strangely familiar, highlighting how a real estate agent can use unified communications to integrate the web, voice, fax, email, but presentation makes it look a lot easier than the first time. We’ve seen four videos all ending with “Unified” morphs into “Younified” ; they all e highlights unified messaging with “Find Me, follow me,” the ability to manage from multiple mobile devices, click-to-dial and so forth. Next up is/are carrier announcements. December 2nd, 2009 | Tags: ADTRAN, NetVanta, NetVanta UC, unified communications | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment |
Next week, I’ll be traveling to Huntsville for ADTRAN’s press event. The company’s been hinting at new announcements on the SMB/VoIP side of the house. Will have to break out the Flip Video camera for the tour of the manufacturing line. Racking up its latest win, Verizon Business has announced AMF Bowling Centers as its latest IT win. It’s part of a bigger march that must be giving heartburn to system integrators such as IBM, HP, and EDS. VB will run an integrated IP network solution for AMF that includes over 300 bowling centers in 38 states, including VoIP, point of sale and credit card transactions, web hosting, video streaming, an on-demand hosted solution for music (think one big jukebox for customers). Later on, a video surveillance system and a centralized energy management system will be deployed. New IT wins Verizon has announced over the last three months include JetBlue, Nissan North America, and Virgin Blue Group. The company is also making a big push into the the health care IT arena, so it’ll start racking up a bunch of wins in that sector down the road. November 18th, 2009 | Tags: IT, system integration, Verizon Business | Category: Carrier services | Leave a comment |
Last week, Google officially ‘fessed up to buying Gizmo5 for an “undisclosed amount.” Now everyone is falling all over themselves to spin this as the Greatest Thing since sliced bread. Excuse me, did everyone forget that it took Google a YEAR before it got its act together with Google Voice? Don’t expect this to be an earth-shattering kaboom for carriers for a bunch of reasons. First, Gizmo5 has taken over $20 million in funding and reportedly was sold for a paltry $30 million. Gizmo5 has been shopping itself around for a while so it hasn’t made a ton of money. A lot of interesting SIP-based stuff sure, but not a ton of money. Can Gizmo5 scale? Probably. How long will it take? Probably not something that will happen overnight by any stretch of the imagination. Secondly, Google will have to figure out how to integrate Google Voice and Gizmo5. Given all the time they spent futzing around with Google Voice, it’ll take them a couple of months to make a plan, and a bunch more months to integrate. By that time, Skype will have cleared out any lingering bad tastes over the extortion, er, IP property issues between it and its co-founders/current-owners and assuming there’s no other drama along that line… (Hmm, worth watching for). Finally, free phone calls and ad-supported conference calls haven’t proved to be a successful (i.e. making money) business model to date, other than phone minute arbitrage which is going to end up going away sometime in the next three years because it drives both IP-based services and large carriers nuts. Against this background, incumbent carriers — traditional phone and cable companies — aren’t going away. Landline sales have been declining for years and are at the point where they should start bottoming out. And a GV/Gizmo5 deal doesn’t really do a lot to bite into carriers making coin from “traditional” voice minutes and flat-rate data services. November 17th, 2009 | Tags: consumer VoIP, Gizmo, Gizmo5, Google Voice, VoIP | Category: Carrier services, Financial | Leave a comment |
On Twitter, @danyork is crowing about Voxeo securing $9 million in venture funding. The trend is representative of the wider loosening of cash in the telecommunications sector and the investment community for both M&A and investment. On a meta scale, the recession “winter” of 2008-2009 is over, but we should be careful of being complacent. Orlando, Florida-based Voxeo got “a minority investment” (didn’t have to give up 51 percent of the company) from North Atlantic Capital and the Florida Growth Fund. North Atlantic Capital is a VC firm that invests in “late stage” (i.e. we’re looking at an exit real soon) SaaS and other technology business services; it also intro’d Voxeo and the Florida Growth fund. Florida Growth Fund is a $250 million partnership between the State Board of Administration of Florida and private equity asset manager Hamilton Lane; the Florida Growth Fund is a state fund created in 2009 and designed to invest in technology and growth-based companies in… yes, the state of Florida. Hamilton Lane is a leading private equality asset management firm with over $88 billion under management and supervision. Employee-0wned Voxeo has grown revenues 1,361 percent over the last five years and has a bunch of cool products for IVR and self-service voice platforms, a voice objects application server, microVoIP platforms, and “IMifed” technology that no doubt shows up in all the Twitter-ing @DanYork does. Combine with the onslaught of M&A activity this week (HP buying 3Com, Google buying Gizmo5 and some other web shop this week), we should expect to see more M&A and VC deals to take place over the next three to six months. Money is flowing, but be clear as to why — Low-interest rates mean dollars are chasing better returns in M&A activity and the private investment world. Assuming Wall Street keeps its happy face, we should see at least a couple of IP communications companies (see “late stage” above) dip their toe into the IPO market if the weather continues to be good. However, the macro-economist wonks have sounded a cautionary note that money may be *too* cheap given current interest rates — seriously, with the bank down the street offering interest of 1.83 percent on a two year CD, putting cash into buying up a company or putting it into a VC fund makes a whole lotta sense. If too much capital goes into “risky” investments rather than more conservative ones, well, it would be a Bad Thing for continued growth. (LMADotD – “Let’s make a deal” of the day) HP coughed up pocket change – $2.7 billion — to buy 3Com. Expect lots layoffs at 3Com in the future. Analysts are trying to spin this as HP takes on Cisco since 3Com has Ethernet switches and some routers. The deal also gives HP a bigger footprint in the Chinese market; 3Com has a 30 percent share there — not bad for a market expected to continue to grow. HP will get some voice/VoIP technology to add to the portfolio, but seriously, if HP wanted to boost its telephony portfolio, they should have bought Polycom. Back in 2007, 3Com tried to sell itself to Bain Capital and Huawei for $2.2 billion, but the detail got shot down in March 2008 by the U.S. government due to security interests. Brocade is currently feeling bummed out because HP was in talks to buy it, so they’ll take a stock hit. Analysts say the purchase of 3Com’s deal gives HP the number two position in terms of network gear, but there’s a long road to travel before Cisco starts to break a sweat. Cisco has 70 percent of market share in terms of revenue, while a combined HP and 3Com have a 10 percent share of revenue. As for units shipped, Cisco shipped 54 percent and HP/3Com have a 40 percent share…. Being an IP bigot at heart, the router is at the core of the network and you can’t really say that 3Com is a household name for routers, especially at the high-end. If HP is really serious about networking gear, it will buy/merge with Juniper Networks. November 12th, 2009 | Tags: 3Com, HP, Juniper Cisco, network gear | Category: IP Core | 2 comments |
Logitech, best known for its PC add-ons such as keyboards, mice, and *ding*ding* video cameras, has gone upscale, purchasing videoconferencing hardware firm LifeSize for $405 million. Does it make sense? Time will tell. LifeSize has been targeting its high-end HD video telepresence and videoconferencing solutions squarely into the enterprise space, undercutting the likes of Cisco, Polycom and TANDBERG. In addition, it has a range of personal office/teleworker and SMB solutions for HD 720p video to complement its higher-end gear. With the onset of the recession, Austin-based LifeSize has faced stiffer competition in the telepresence arena in the likes of HP, Siemens, and IBM. The combination of Logitech (deeper pockets, bigger marketing) and LifeSize will be interesting to watch. Last year, Logitech bought SightSpeed, a multi-party videoconferencing/video chat services company with some long-distance VoIP services thrown in, so the company’s expansion into the higher-end video solutions and the enterprise space shouldn’t be a total surprise. Be interesting to see if there are synergies to leverage between the SIP-based SightSpeed division and LifeSize in terms of offering a one-stop shop of services and high-end hardware. Regardless of the success/failure of the purchase, the further consolidation of the high-end videoconferencing world is likely to stimulate further twittering on the future of Polycom… something I’m going to have to ponder over at HD Voice News later today. November 11th, 2009 | Tags: Cisco, LifeSize, Logitech, Polycom, videoconferencing | Category: videoconferencing | Leave a comment |
|
  |
||||
|
Copyright © 2009 Doug on IP Comm - All Rights Reserved |
|||||
