OhVoice

Text-to-Speech (TTS) on Kindle Fire!

Text-to-speech (TTS) for the Kindle Fire is a long sought after feature. Having TTS on your Kindle Fire enables you to listen to your e-books using text-to-speech without having to buy expensive audiobooks. Some people may be vision impaired and want TTS to supplement or replace their manual reading of the text. Sure TTS isn't perfect, but it works pretty well.Now if only the Kindle Fire supported TTS like other versions of the Kindle, then life would be grand. For whatever reason, Amazon disabled text-to-speech for the Kindle Fire. Sure, you can probably root your Android-based device and find some third-party text-to-speech readers, but not everyone wants to root (jailbreak) their Kindle Fire. Well, good news readers! I've found a way of enabling text-to-speech reading of e-books (including DRM protected eBooks) on the Kindle Fire without rooting it!First, let me show you the TTS in action with this video I uploaded to YouTube:Now here's the How-To Tutorial to get TTS running on the Kindle Fire...Overview of software & steps needed: Calibre e-book management software [Linux, Mac Windows versions available] for converting your eBooks and stripping DRM protection so the Cool Reader app can read the eBook. Note: There is an excellent article on how to remove DRM using calibre in conjunction with some plugins. The article links to the needed plugins (tools_4.8.zip) to allow you to remove DRM from your purchased eBooks. It supports removing encryption for various eBook formats and includes Calibre plugins for Mobipocket (.prc/.mobi), Kindle Mobipocket (.azw), Kindle Topaz (.tpz/.azw1), Kindle Print Replica (.azw4), Adobe ePub (.epub), Adobe PDF (.pdf), B&N ePub (.epub), B&N/Fictionwise eReader (.pdb). Download the DRM removal plugins here (current file is called 'tools_4.8.zip'). I'll explain how to use it later. Cool Reader eBook app for Android for performing the actual TTS. You can get it from the Android Market app store. Unfortunately, the Kindle doesn't have direct access to the Android Market so I manually downloaded the latest Cool Reader app from Sourceforce. Download this Cool Reader .apk Android app directly from your Kindle Fire. [You can view this article on your Kindle and simply click the previous hyperlink to download it] Continue reading Text-to-Speech (TTS) on Kindle Fire!... Tags: .mobi, amazon, android, audiobooks, calibre, e-book, e-books, kindle, kindle fire, reader, reading, speech, text-to-speech, tts Related tags: android market, kindle, speech, android, plugins, reader Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Google to Offer Free Tablets? - Jan 05, 2012 Netflix Brings Revamped Interface to Android Before iPad - Nov 15, 2011 A Million eReaders? Who Would Have Figured? - Jun 09, 2008 Don't Let Wi-Fi Device Onslaught Bring Enterprise Wi-Fi To Its Knees - Sep 30, 2011 Why Amazon Should Buy HBO from Time Warner - Sep 30, 2011 Kindle Fire Silk Browser Proxying Stokes Privacy Concerns - Sep 29, 2011 Amazon Kindle Fire - Hot or Not? - Sep 28, 2011 SpinVox Transcribes Skype Voicemail & VoiceScribe does the same for Asterisk - Mar 03, 2009 Sony Reader PRS-700 -- Great, But for One Thing ... - Nov 12, 2008 New e-Newspaper Reader Heats Up e-Reader Market - Sep 08, 2008 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Text-to-Speech (TTS) on Kindle Fire! Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Metaswitch Brings SBCs to the Cloud

Metaswitch is relatively new to the SBC game but they already have been thinking of ways of taking session border controllers and making them more flexible and scalable. To that end the company has put its Perimeta SBC in the cloud allowing it to run on COTS servers with a variety of hypervisors.According to Steve Gleave, VP of Marketing at Metaswitch, "The arguments for separating signaling and media functions in a session border controller are now well understood. The commercial benefits of running session border control on COTS platforms are also clear. So moving the signaling control function into the cloud, and leveraging the economies of generic server platforms and inherent system redundancy is a logical progression. By detaching SBC licenses from physically deployed platforms, operators can be sure that there are "no SBC licenses left behind" when integrated appliances max out before purchased license limits are reached"The company will be demonstrating their new SBC functionality running on the Amazon EC2 Elastic Compute Cloud at MWC next week in Barcelona. I hope to see it running there. Tags: amazon, cloud communications, cloud computing, ec2, metaswitch, sbc, session border control, session border controller Related tags: session border, cloud, session, running, metaswitch, platforms Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Avaya's Top Communication Trends in 2012 - Dec 16, 2011 Cloud-Based Brute Force Attacks to Test Computer Security - Jan 11, 2011 Cbeyond M&A Happens Two at a Time - Nov 04, 2010 BroadSoft BroadCloud a Smart Move - Oct 25, 2010 Cloud Computing Unleashes Creativity - May 02, 2010 An Amazing Week for Wireless at CTIA - Oct 12, 2009 Aastra Intecom/BroadSoft - Jul 30, 2007 ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Schedule - Jan 25, 2012 How Megaupload Takedown Hurts Cloud Computing - Jan 22, 2012 TMC Covering Cloud, 4G and Open-Source This Week - Oct 24, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Metaswitch Brings SBCs to the Cloud Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Stop the Licensing Insanity, Cable Companies Need a Slingbox App

Would you move because you wanted a better cable company? The answer is probably not – especially if you live in an area of the country where you are served by a major provider. Cablevision is a relatively smaller cable company serving areas in the northeast like Connecticut and New York and even so they have WiFi-enabled much of their footprint allowing free wireless broadband to customers at many restaurants and shopping centers. So cable companies aren’t necessarily competing against each other – they are competing against OTT providers, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube as well as phone companies. So the competition is generally cord cutting and the cablecos have to do everything they can to make their services as sticky as they can be. This is why as TMC’s Peter Bernstein reports today, Tim Warner Cable has rolled out some great new services allowing customers to watch TV on PCs and Macs. This is even better than Cablevision’s Optimum service as it is restricted to iOS and Android. Still, like I said before – and Peter agrees, you aren’t going to move because of your cable provider. One curious bit of information is the service requires Microsoft’s Silverlight 4, a platform which many thought was going away. Hopefully TWC will upgrade this to HTML5 soon. Bernstein makes another interesting comment in his analytical piece and that is that what he really wants from his cable company is Slingbox-like functionality. Point being no matter how fancy and sophisticated the cable companies get with their apps and services, you are still restricted to viewing in your home. What is needed is for the industry to move beyond the licensing insanity so customers can watch their programming from wherever they are. Tags: android, app, cable, cablevision, dvr, flash, html5, peter bernstein, Silverlight, slingbox, time warner cable, tivo Related tags: cable companies, cable company, customers watch, licensing insanity, cable, companies Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Cablevision iPad App Review - Apr 03, 2011 Are Pay-TV Companies Suicidal? - Jan 10, 2011 Mobile YouTube Site Shows Cloud's Potential - Jul 09, 2010 Our WiFi Future - May 02, 2010 Cablevision Shows CTI stands for Computer-TV Integration - Feb 24, 2010 iPhone Flash Support: The Real Apple Tax - Jul 09, 2009 DVR Ruling Good For Web Video and Cable - Aug 04, 2008 TiVo On the Offensive - Apr 13, 2008 The Problem with Triple-Play Providers - Feb 20, 2008 The Bittersweet Pandora HTML5 Update - Sep 21, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Stop the Licensing Insanity, Cable Companies Need a Slingbox App Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

How to set your Continent on Fire, Listen to Europe

Last week I mentioned that it is quite hypocritical for people clad in Chinese clothes and buying most of their products from China to single out Apple for manufacturing in the country. After all, if you are upset Chinese working conditions and jobs being relocated there you could and should equally go after Wal-Mart and virtually every company in the world in conjunction with Cupertino. No sooner had I penned this piece – someone sent me news titled: Deutsche Telekom Union Workers and Member of German Parliament to Visit US, to Call on German Company to Stop Mistreating U.S. Workers. The basic premise is the German workers at Deutsche Telecom are treated better than US workers. A quote from the release is as follows: “As a whole, DT workers in Germany are treated far better than DT employees in the U.S. In Germany, workers sit on the board of DT, they are free to form a union, and have a meaningful voice in the workplace. In the U.S. efforts to organize at T-Mobile USA (a subsidiary of DT) are met with hostility and threats.” Let’s put these comments into perspective. First off, T-Mobile USA is not doing very well – many analysts say it won’t be able to make it on its own. How does it make sense to take a company which is doing poorly and moreover is forced to compete on price as it doesn’t have access to the best devices and make them increase their costs? Quick answer – it doesn’t – unless the goal here is to bankrupt the company forcing the workers with jobs onto government assistance. Let’s continue down this path a little bit. The idea here seems to be to make this hybrid German/American company more like Europe than the US. Sure, AT&T and Verizon have unions but that is in-part because each of these companies once was a monopoly and could easily handle the additional financial burden of becoming unionized. To some degree they still are a very strong duopoly. Basically, over the years, you and me as customers of these carriers have been forced to accept higher prices to pay for union benefits – not having tremendous choice with our home, office and now wireless phone service. In the 1980s in fact, the phone company even charged companies to light the lights on their phones which corresponded to an active telephone line. You dared not protest. But in the US, T-Mobile USA has no monopoly or pricing power whatsoever. So increased prices can’t be passed on which of course leads to insolvency. Speaking of insolvency, has anyone looked lately at Europe and specifically Greece lately? Here we have country which embraces the European philosophy of strong unions and lots of vacations. And guess what? As a result, the country, the continent and much of the world is sinking. Last year, the stock markets around the globe tanked repeatedly because the European business philosophy is unsustainable. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain are all in various stages of trouble relating to running up too much debt due to high labor costs, bloated bureaucracies and doing business the European way – which often includes some of the most generous vacation day policies on the planet. Germany by far is the strongest country in the EU but the reality is the German strength is a house of cards. At least it is to some degree. I love my German car and the country makes awesome products – but the ones made in the US are great as well. Speaking of the US, it spends obscene amounts of money on its military and this money benefits not just US citizens but all of NATO – including Europe and Germany. The Germans don’t have to worry much about defense because the US is here to back them up as needed. Likewise for the rest of Europe. This is hundreds of billions of cost they don’t have. So Germany coming to the US to lecture us about how to treat workers and what benefits and vacations they need is pretty silly. But Germany’s advantages don’t stop there. Remember that Europe has a common currency meaning that a country like Greece can afford to buy very-high priced German goods because its currency isn’t able to depreciate. Since the Greeks no longer use a drachma they don’t have the ability to devalue their currency when they have excess debt or are near default. Default and/or devaluation has been chosen by many countries in the past few decades such as Greece, Mexico and Argentina. Put more simply, a Greek citizen who could afford a Volkswagen can take advantage of continent-wide currency manipulation called the euro to afford a BMW. This is why Germany isn’t really a bunch of suckers for bailing Germany out, this system really benefits their manufacturing and they need an edge to be able to keep all those high-paying union jobs. While we are on the topic, this currency manipulation causes double the pain for the US as it is more difficult for us to export to Europe because France and Germany will always have an advantage when selling to a weaker country. Moreover, the financial shocks which seem to come every few days out of Europe are destroying the ability for companies in the US to plan for the long-term. And now, we have Europe coming to the US to tell us how to run things. It is quite mind-boggling. --- These are the details of today’s activities in case you are interested: Monday, February 20th, 2012 – Washington, D.C. 10:00 AM Roundtable with T-Mobile USA employees Presentation: Organizing at T-Mobile in the U.S./The War at the Workplace CWA Headquarters 501 3rd St, NW Washington D.C. 20001 2:00 PM Leafleting at T-Mobile Store 1850 K St NW Washington, D.C. 20005 --- The CWA was invited to post a counterpoint to this piece and/or provide quotes with their perspective. They declined. If they change their mind, I will be sure to pass along their rebuttal/counterpoint. Tags: at&t, att, carrier, deutsche telecom, drachma, euro, europe, t-mobile, union, verizon Related tags: currency manipulation, germany, europe, workers, german, country Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Why Blocked AT&T, T-Mobile USA Deal is Good for Growth - Aug 31, 2011 Will AT&T, T-Mobile Merger Slow Wireless Innovation? - Jul 25, 2011 What AT&T Purchase of T-Mobile Means - Mar 20, 2011 Supercomm 2009 Update - Oct 20, 2009 ZTE Profit Tops Charts, Targets US and 4G - Aug 23, 2009 Microsoft Stops RIM/iPhone Reimbursements - Jun 18, 2009 Thoughts on Blackberry Storm and Verizon HTC Touch Pro/XV6850 - Dec 02, 2008 Fuel Prices Fuel Technology - Jul 31, 2008 Trends and Surprises Regarding Google's 2011 Advertisers - Jan 25, 2012 Despite Outages, Verizon Has Record Quarter - Jan 24, 2012 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: How to set your Continent on Fire, Listen to Europe Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

3-D Designer Glasses at CES 2012 from Marchon 3D

Did you know you could get designer 3-D glasses which also protect your eyes from UV light? Well you can - I saw and wore them myself at CES 2012 in Las Vegas. What a major step up from the disposable crap you get at a typical movie theater. These are the glasses for the hip entertainment-savvy geek in all of us.Price is $20-$70 with $35 being the sweet spot. Best of all the curved design of these glasses mean a better visual experience. Check it out in the video below - glasses not required. Tags: 3-d, 3d, ces, ces 2012, marchon Related tags: glasses Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Woz, I Agree. Now What if the Samsung Galaxy Note Ran iOS? - Jan 17, 2012 CES 2012 Overview - Jan 13, 2012 CES, Ultrabooks and Lowered Expectations - Jan 08, 2012 Will Microsoft Departure Kill CES? - Dec 22, 2011 Is The Mobile Market Beyond Intel's Reach? - May 18, 2011 Did Skype Just Kill Cisco's UMI Telepresence? - Jan 05, 2011 Microsoft Tablet Expensive but does Flash - Jan 05, 2011 CES 2011 Energy and Video News - Jan 05, 2011 What The Peep (Wireless) is Going On? - Jan 04, 2011 Google Earth 6 Goes 3D - Nov 30, 2010 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: 3-D Designer Glasses at CES 2012 from Marchon 3D Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Does Apple Blacklist Reporters?

You may remember about a year ago I wrote about how the hype around Apple is so great that they are often credited with doing things first – even though they clearly haven’t. For example the iPad 2 was not the first tablet with a dual-core processor but many still reported incorrectly. I further went on to explain how Apple and some other companies dole out favors based upon good press. In other words, write a negative article about a company and you are added to a list which ensures you won’t get early access to products and services or even answers to questions you pose to the company’s PR team. Jason O’Grady at ZDNet goes into detail about how this process works at Apple – basically a blacklist is in place to ensure reporters who cover rumors or write something negative are “punished.” He knows a great deal about the company because he has been sued by Cupertino in the past. Here is an excerpt: Case in point: On February 7 when Arun Thampi posted on his blog that Path was sneakily uploading iPhone user’s address books to its server — without permission — I called and emailed Apple. Apple didn’t reply. Then and I blogged about it. On February 8 when Dustin Curtis blogged that Apple makes a standard practice of approving apps that upload the entire contents of your iOS address book to developer’s servers I again called and emailed Apple. Apple didn’t reply. Then I blogged about it. Later. Rinse. Repeat. Then I got an idea. Since Apple PR never responds to my voicemails or emails, maybe they’d respond to the guys that do have access. So I contacted several prominent Apple pundits (who shall remain nameless) that are known for their access to Apple (some of whom get replies from Apple “every time”) and I asked them to enquire about Apple’s stance on enforcing its policy on address book uploads. And you know what? None of them would do it. (Update: ironically there’s a couple of exclusive stories out today about Mac OS 10.8/Mountain Lion which certain members of the Mac Illuminati had access to a week early.) I reached out to Apple about this alleged practice but haven’t heard back. I think I have been extremely fair to Apple in the past – I have been accused of being both an Apple hater and lover – which tells me I straddling the line fairly well. When I have found room for improvement I generally haven’t sugar coated my thoughts. Now if Apple is indeed using its considerable power to ensure journalists have to write nice things, I would say the behavior is unethical. It is worth mentioning that this exact same behavior takes place with politicians who punish certain news anchors who don’t say nice things about them. Likewise for celebrities who feel they were snubbed by a talk show. The punishment comes in the form of not appearing on the targeted program or a refusal to be interviewed by a specific reporter or host. People have egos and companies are made up of people and subsequently also have egos. But Apple is big enough now that it needs to change the way it looks at the press. Our job is to do what is in the best interest of our readership, not a specific company. It is a shame that writers would have to sacrifice their journalistic ethics to ensure they get early access to information they need to be competitive. In my request to Apple, I also mentioned I am a shareholder – which I am. Will this aid in getting a response on such a potentially sensitive topic? I will let you know. One final point, the general news media and a bunch of protesters are unhappy about the fact that Apple uses Chinese workers to make their products. Think this through. 60-90% of all the products we all buy in the US come from China and for some reason people are upset we get iPhones from there? I believe it is quite hypocritical to criticize just Apple on this point. The people complaining should go after The GAP, every mall in the country, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Dell and empty their own homes and wardrobes of Chinese products before opening their mouths. So yes, I am defending Apple on this issue – they are no worse than Nokia and all the other consumer electronics manufacturers in the world. But when it comes to denying access to reporters who speak their minds or cover rumors about your company – I think this practice is terrible and should cease. I am not optimistic about getting a response from Apple but regardless, my first loyalty will always be to my readers – even if I am a shareholder. On a related note, it is interesting to note that Apple has such good will in the world, short of Tim Cook posting a video of himself shooting an elephant, Apple can do no wrong in the eyes of the world. Tags: apple, godaddy, jason o'grady, press, tim cook, zdnet Related tags: emailed apple, early access, cover rumors, apple apple, called emailed, apple Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Apple iPhone Developer Agreement Made Public - Mar 11, 2010 Apple's Great Products Allow Legal Gouging - Jan 20, 2012 TouchFire Keyboard the Ideal iPad 2 Companion? - Dec 12, 2011 Suggestion: Apple's First Move Without Steve Jobs - Aug 25, 2011 GigaOm Tells You Why HTML5 Will Be Huge - Jul 25, 2011 Tim Cook - Apple a Once in a Lifetime Opportunity - Jan 25, 2011 Skype Shows us Closed Can Win - Dec 03, 2010 Mobile Banking and Payments the Next Frontier - Nov 03, 2010 iPhone Becomes Remote Control - Mar 08, 2010 Reminiscing About Tech's Past - Jul 07, 2009 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Does Apple Blacklist Reporters? Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

LightSquared Gets Square Rooted - 4G LTE Network Killed by FCC

LightSquared was just dealt a death blow by the FCC due to concerns of interference, mainly with regards to GPS products: “LightSquared’s proposal to provide ground-based mobile service offered the potential to unleash new spectrum for mobile broadband and enhance competition. The Commission clearly stated from the outset that harmful interference to GPS would not be permitted. This is why the Conditional Waiver Order issued by the Commission’s International Bureau prohibited LightSquared from beginning commercial operations unless harmful interference issues were resolved. “NTIA, the federal agency that coordinates spectrum uses for the military and other federal government entities, has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time. Consequently, the Commission will not lift the prohibition on LightSquared. The International Bureau of the Commission is proposing to (1) vacate the Conditional Waiver Order, and (2) suspend indefinitely LightSquared’s Ancillary Terrestrial Component authority to an extent consistent with the NTIA letter. A Public Notice seeking comment on NTIA’s conclusions and on these proposals will be released tomorrow. LightSquared responded by calling the testing "seriously flawed" and that they were "committed to finding a resolution with the federal government and the GPS industry." The FCC granted LightSquared a waiver in 2011 to operate a spectrum normally designed for satellite to ground wireless signals to allow them to build a nationwide 4G LTE network that would reach 260 million Americans by the end of 2015.CNet goes into the politics of it all and how LightSquared failed to engage in political battle early on to defend their venture. Over $3 billion was invested in LightSquared for a now dead company walking. But the politics also touch the Obama Administration and not in a good way: The company’s biggest investors, according to the Huffington Post, include [big] Obama donor and current U.S. ambassador to South Africa Donald Gips, Obama friend and investment manager George Haywood… and Barack Obama himself, who was “an early investor and came to the presidency a firm believer in expanding broadband.” Further, the Pentagon expressed serious concerns about LightSquared with a four-star General William Shelton of the U.S. Space Command telling investigators that the White House pressured him to change his testimony given to a House committee that favored the big Democrat donor and LightSquared investor. Yet another multi-billion dollar waste of money that the Obama Administration was tied to. The good news is that LightSquared is privately funded and isn't taxpayer funded like Solyndra, the failed solar power company. Tags: 4g, fcc, lightsquared, lte, obama, solyndra, wireless Related tags: harmful interference, obama administration, federal government, waiver order, international bureau, lightsquared Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries FTC Lets Intel into the Nortel Patent Sweepstakes - Jun 24, 2011 LightSquared Solution to GPS Interference Clears Way for Nationwide 4G Network (Sorta) - Jun 20, 2011 Vonage Attacks Skype with 30% Price Cut and Free App-to-App Calling & Texts - Feb 08, 2012 Verizon MiFi 4510L 4G WiFi Mobile Hotspot Now Available - Apr 18, 2011 Google Offers $900 million for 6,000 Nortel telecom patents - Apr 04, 2011 Former FCC Chief Kevin Martin to Keynote ITEXPO - Jan 20, 2011 Business VoIP Not Slowing Down - Revenue up 8% in 1H10 - Sep 30, 2010 AT&T ~~Grants~~ Denies Us Mobile VoIP Freedom - Oct 12, 2009 Rich Takes xMax Wireless for a Test Drive - Sep 29, 2009 FCC Proposes Applying Net Neutrality to Carriers' Wireless Networks - Sep 21, 2009 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: LightSquared Gets Square Rooted - 4G LTE Network Killed by FCC Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

The Tattered (Wireless) Web

LightSquared my be down for the count. While not a Joe Frazier or Larry Holmes style KO, it's looking more and more that the dream of multi-billionare hedge fund leader Phillip Falcone, may be going the way of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter or or worse, Sonny Liston. Yesterday the FCC said "no way" and now the ripple effects are being felt. But when you weave a tattered web, you also have to worry about who will get caught up in it, and it looks like the possibility of Sprint having to return $65 million in advance money from Falcone's venture is also going to happen. So what may happen? Anyone's guess, but with AT&T still stinging from their loss of the T-Mobile deal, my first bet is that Falcone is calling Randall Stephenson up and saying "I've got spectrum...wanna make a deal?" Oh where is Howard Cossell when we need him...I can see Larry King now just wanting to organize that match up. Related articles Lightsquared Rejection a Blow for Wireless Broadband (business.time.com) LightSquared's Broadband Rejection a Blow for Wireless Competition (business.time.com) Citing GPS Interference, FCC Blocks Falcone's LightSquared (forbes.com)

Boingo Grabs Airports in Portugal

Since I'm heading to Portugal I was happy to read about yet another leading airport group's operations for WiFi being taken over by Boingo, a former client whom we worked with up through their IPO period. While Boingo users previously could roam onto the Portugal Telecom run hotspots, now it standardizes things and means that people with Boingo apps on their mobile phones, tablets and laptops will have an easier time logging on. Sadly, for me, the transition won't happen that quickly, but since I'll be back in Portugal again later in the year, I'm still excited with the news.

Chinese Nortel Hack Unconfirmed by my Sources

Although reports have been swirling regarding Chinese hackers breaking into Nortel's computers for over ten years in order to steal trade secrets, I have been unable to confirm such a breach took place. I have tapped into a few high-level sources and they were unaware of anything like this happening - the internal Nortel employees would almost certainly need to know if such an attack was taking place.After all, reports say that even Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski had a computer which was compromised.One of the reasons Nortel went bankrupt had to do with Chinese competitors Huawei and ZTE undercutting Nortel on price for carrier wireless and other products. So it easy to understand why many would easily believe that Nortel had been hacked.And hacks from China are not unusual - they have happened to numerous US companies and even government agencies.But again, would you not let your company workers know if this was the case?Siobhan Gorman has a story in the Wall Street Journal on what happened at Nortel and it seems there is enough information to make you believe the hack was real. But still, I remain skeptical that the breach if it happened was on such a massive scale. I reached out to Siobhan in order to see if there are any public documents which would enlighten us. I will advise you if I hear of anything - please drop me a line if you know of anything as well. Tags: china, hacker, huawei, nortel, security, trad secret, zte Related tags: nortel, chinese, anything, happened Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries China Telecoms and Incoherent US Foreign Policy - Oct 28, 2011 China Patent Wars: Huawei Sues ZTE - Apr 28, 2011 Can we Learn from the Nortel Fire Sale? - Jun 22, 2009 We're No Shrinking Violet Says Nortel's Carrier Chief - Dec 20, 2008 US Cybersecurity - Dec 12, 2005 Electronic Health Records Only as Strong as Weakest Link - Aug 24, 2011 Will Future Hackers Be Short-Sellers? - Jun 22, 2011 iPad goes to China, Crooks Mine Facebook and ITEXPO Highlights - Sep 13, 2010 Google Gmail VoIP, Cloud Computing and Other News August, 25 2010 - Aug 25, 2010 Apple iTunes App Store Hacked - Jul 04, 2010 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Chinese Nortel Hack Unconfirmed by my Sources Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Cisco Underestimated Skype's Value. Acts against Microsoft Acquisition

Cisco is far from the most open company in tech so it is ironic it is concerned about a monopoly over video conferencing a result of the Microsoft acquisition of Skype. The company’s Martin De Beer said, “For the sake of customers, the industry recognizes the need for ubiquitous unified communications interoperability, particularly between Microsoft/Skype and Cisco products, as well as products from other unified communications innovators.” This statement coincided with Cisco challenging an EU court over the acquisition. One has to wonder however if Cisco underestimated Skype’s value. After all, the company has been sold twice in the last few years and the networking company didn’t close the deal either time. The thesis that Cisco did not realize Skype’s importance is backed up by Cisco’s other actions – launching its consumer video service Umi - a Skype competitor. As you may recall I immediately said this service would fail and backed it up with ten reasons. Here are the first three as a reminder - #1 is the most important for now: 1) Skype. Elaboration would be talking (writing) down to you. 2) Cisco's solution at $599 for the equipment and $24.99 per month is insane for a new consumer technology which has little to no network effect related to Metcalfe's Law. Oh and you need 3.5 Mbps upload speed for 1080p calls - meaning higher broadband bills for some. 3) Facetime: Apple's FaceTime is free and even though at the recent ITEXPO many people commented that using the software on an iPhone 4 is not great because inevitably your hand gets tired and falls to your stomach causing a nose-hair view of yourself to be transmitted - we can expect Apple to Facetime-enable everything they sell. Will Umi interoperate? If not, how will it compete? And yes, the service failed shortly thereafter. What is Cisco’s stance on video openness? In October of last year, the company responded to critics regarding its somewhat closed video ecosystem and decided to become more open. But this was five years into selling their telepresence products. If anything, Cisco has been one of the more closed vendors in the market. Remember what happened when Cisco announced it would buy Tandberg? Well, Stefan Karapetkov, Emerging Technologies Director for Polycom said the following: Cisco announced today that they will acquire Tandberg, and this will have significant impact on the video communications market. It will reduce competition, and limit customers' choices, especially in the telepresence space. It will, hurt Radvision who now fills the gap in Cisco's video infrastructure portfolio. I am however more concerned about the standards-compliance that have been the pillar of the video communication industry for years. Tandberg and Polycom worked together in international standardization bodies such as ITU-T and in industry consortiums such as IMTC to define standard mechanisms for video systems to communicate. Cisco on the other hand is less interested in standards, and considers proprietary extensions as a way to gain competitive advantage. The concern of the video communication industry right now should be that the combined company will be so heavily dominated by Cisco that standards will become last priority, far after integrating Tandberg products with Cisco Call Manager and WebEx. Telling is the fact that both Tandberg and Cisco declined participating in interoperability events over the last few months. But this doesn’t mean Cisco hasn’t done the correct things for its shareholders by being more closed than most other companies. After all, if you are a dominant provider of a solution you aren’t required to open up your product unless a government forces you to. And this is why Cisco has inserted itself into the regulatory approval in Europe of the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft. De Beer continued, “Cisco does not oppose the merger, but believes the European Commission should have placed conditions that would ensure greater standards-based interoperability, to avoid any one company from being able to seek to control the future of video communications.” And this is the challenge Cisco faces. Last week, Microsoft had a Lync Pavilion at ITEXPO in Miami and it was mobbed – lots of attention and buying – and it will expand in ITEXPO in Austin, Texas. And this was before Skype integration. Based on what I saw, enterprise buyers and resellers want UC solutions from Redmond. Cisco will no doubt lose more share to Microsoft in the enterprise – this seems to be a given. But when FaceTime is a fast-growing competitor and is very closed, do we need to force Skype and Microsoft to open? In fact, in five years I predict Cisco having to worry more about Apple in the enterprise than Microsoft and Skype. And good luck getting Apple to open up. It seems Cisco grossly underestimated Skype’s value and importance. The company had been burned by failed consumer product company purchase after purchase and didn’t want another mistake. This makes sense. But by the same token, Microsoft is facing a titanic battle with Apple and needs any advantage it can get. And this doesn’t even take into account the damage done by Google in the mobile and other spaces. In a free market – companies should be able to make the decisions they think make the most sense for themselves and shareholders. I believe it would be an error to force Microsoft/Skype to open up. Moreover, with the pace of IT consumerization is speeding up, Cisco will no doubt be playing a very difficult game of making purchases of pure B2B companies while having to understand which B2C companies are indeed crucial in the B2B world as well. Tags: cisco, consumer, consumerization of it, gadget, itexpo, microsoft, polycom, sip, skype, telepresence, uc, umi, unified communications, video Related tags: microsoft skype, underestimated skype, communication industry, video communication, cisco underestimated, cisco Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries ITEXPO East 2010 Miami Update - Nov 17, 2009 ITEXPO Keynoters Announced - Nov 05, 2009 Book ITEXPO Now to Save Hundreds - Aug 04, 2010 Discounts for Communications and Technology Events at ITEXPO - Dec 31, 2009 Will Avaya's Nortel Acquisition be a Success? - Dec 23, 2009 Cisco to Acquire Tandberg for $3B - Oct 01, 2009 Avaya Purchases Nortel Enterprise Assets - Jul 20, 2009 Why Skype Should be Sold to Google - Apr 16, 2008 Polycom's Software Play and More - Mar 31, 2008 Cisco Lowers Umi Price as Margins Become a Bigger Concern - Mar 10, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Cisco Underestimated Skype's Value. Acts against Microsoft Acquisition Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

FCC Now Requires VoIP Outage Reporting

The Federal Communications Commission today voted and passed a requirement that interconnected VoIP service providers report significant network outages that meet specific criteria and thresholds. The goal is to ensure 911 system reliability and perhaps customer awareness of fly-by-night VoIP operations that are just trying to make a buck. The FCC will use outage reports to "track and analyze information on interconnected VoIP outages affecting 9-1-1 service and determine if action is needed to prevent future outages." In other words you might be looking at fines if you don't have a reliable VoIP network. According to Chairman Julius Genachowski, "With today’s action, the FCC is helping ensure that our communications infrastructure is more resilient. We are helping ensure that consumers will have access to reliable phone service, particularly when calling 9-1-1, whether they are using a traditional telephone or one that operates by interconnected VoIP service."Continue reading FCC Now Requires VoIP Outage Reporting... Tags: 911, america, fcc, outage, reporting, skype, threshold, united states, voip, vonage Related tags: helping ensure, service, outages, interconnected, ensure Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Vonage slams Skype for not following emergency rules - Oct 09, 2008 FCC approves new VoIP taxes - Jun 22, 2006 Vonage reaches 70% E911 compliance - Mar 30, 2006 NENA Interim/Migratory I2 Standard Published - Dec 08, 2005 FCC must like Groundhog's Day - Sep 28, 2005 FCC requires some broadband and VoIP Providers to accommodate wiretaps - Sep 26, 2005 Number Portability Still Sucking After All these Years... - Aug 04, 2011 U.S. House of Representatives Approves Skype for Video Calls - Jun 28, 2011 Top 20 VoIP Innovators of All Time - Jun 13, 2011 Bandwidth.com Acquires Dash - Google Voice, Skype & Others Impacted - Feb 23, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: FCC Now Requires VoIP Outage Reporting Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Grandstream Launches new ATAs at ITEXPO Miami 2012

Recently at ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami, Grandstream announced a new family of ATAs – an addition which shows the company is becoming a more complete player in the IP communications space. It has been a great journey watching Grandstream start with IP phones then evolve to an IP PBX and IP cameras. In fact they announced their new GXV3500 camera at the show. While the company started out making products which were sold based on low price they have gone upmarket to some degree with new offerings. TMC’s Stefanie Mosca Interviews Grandstream’s Jorge Otero above at ITEXPO East Miami 2012. According to Jorge we will see 3-4 new products in the IP surveillance space released this year. Tags: conference, grandstream, ip camera, ip communications, ip security, ip surveillance, itexpo, technology, voip Related tags: grandstream, itexpo, miami Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Need a New Car? Win a Mustang at ITEXPO in Miami Next Week - Jan 27, 2012 22nd ITEXPO in 2 Weeks - Sep 21, 2010 Google Gmail VoIP, Cloud Computing and Other News August, 25 2010 - Aug 25, 2010 Book ITEXPO Now to Save Hundreds - Aug 04, 2010 Cash in a Phone System Clunker For VoIP and SIP - Aug 25, 2009 Terry Matthews to Keynote ITEXPO West 2009 - Aug 14, 2009 Cash For Clunker Phone Systems - Aug 05, 2009 Skype Pre-IPO Report Card - Mar 07, 2011 Austin, Texas Selected For ITEXPO West 2011 - Jan 27, 2011 Broadvox Reaches For the Cloud With Cypress Buy - Jan 17, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Grandstream Launches new ATAs at ITEXPO Miami 2012 Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Logitech Zagg iPad 2 Keyboard: Do You Need a Laptop?

A few months back I was in Boston interviewing a number of companies in the tech space and just before one of my interviews I was reading about the Logitech Keyboard Case by ZAGG for iPad 2 and I was intrigued. I thought having a real keyboard connected to the iPad 2 was a great pain reliever for my fingers which ache when hitting glass repeatedly but I worried the addition would limit my ability to use the tablet while standing. Quite often in my office I find myself using the iPad and I figured a fixed aluminum keyboard would make this practice cease. Owen DeLong of Hurricane Electric is an iPv6 evangelist but I found him equally good at evangelizing why I needed a bluetooth keyboard from Zagg for my iPad 2. At first I wasn’t convinced and instead thought the new TouchFire silicon keyboard would be the best choice for my aching fingers. I even wrote about my decision to buy this keyboard and Owen commented that the beauty of the bluetooth Logitech option was you could view the entire screen while typing. My interview with Owen Delong He is correct and at that point I decided to purchase the Logitech as well. After charging the device via Micro-USB for over an hour you get a few weeks’ worth of battery life with light to moderate use. The case is great because it uses the magnets of the iPad and turns the tablet off when the case is used and wakes up when the tablet is lifted out of its aluminum semi-cocoon. I feel comfortable enough with the case that I feel somewhat OK leaving the iPad in the trunk – something I would never do with the standard Apple case attached. If there is a downside to the keyboard it is battery status information. It would be great to know when the battery was at 20% for example. There is a status light which blinks when power is low but with 2-weeks of use on a single-charge, most users will see no need to turn the keyboard off – except when they charge it. Moreover, the status light is hidden from view when the iPad 2 rests in the case. One final challenge is if you put the iPad 2 in the case with the wrong orientation, the screen does not turn off. You have to remember to line up the hole in the case with the hole on the iPad where the 30-pin dock connector is. Last week at ITEXPO my primary laptop died leaving me with just the iPad and Zagg combo. I certainly wasn’t as efficient as I would be with a laptop – in-part because it is easier to delete large amounts of email on the PC using Remote Desktop connected to an office machine. Moreover, finding old email on an iPad is a slow process for someone who has a very large mailbox. But the iPad was an acceptable replacement for my regular machine – which is pretty scary actually. I say scary because many people may not see the iPad as a proper alternative to a laptop but I have found it to be a worthy replacement for much of what I do. Obviously the ability to run Flash is still an issue but the flipside is not having to worry about battery life throughout a typical day. Moreover, the iPad seems more socially acceptable on the table at lunch, in meetings and other places where a laptop may get you dirty looks. As you can imagine, in exchange for the ability to have a more pleasant typing experience and producing content more quickly, I am no longer able to easily use the iPad while standing and/or walking. It is not impossible - just a bit awkward. The keyboard/case combo will set you back $100 on the Zagg site, about $80 including shipping on Amazon and a refurbished unit will cost you $50 including shipping on Meritline. I have used Meritline quite often in the past and never had a problem but never bought a refurb from them. Quantities are limited according to the company so you may want to act fast. Tags: amazon, apple, case, hurricane electric, ipad, ipad 2, itexpo, keyboard, kickstarter, meritline, owen delong, touchfire, zagg Related tags: status light, while standing, including shipping, quite often, keyboard, laptop Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries TouchFire Keyboard the Ideal iPad 2 Companion? - Dec 12, 2011 Kindle Fire Costs Apple Perhaps a Billion Dollars in December - Jan 03, 2012 Using Amazon to Compare Kindle Fire to iPad - Dec 05, 2011 Big Week for Tor and The Privacy Minded - Nov 16, 2011 Amazon's Subsidized Tablets Borrow from Wireless Carriers - Sep 28, 2011 Cisco Cius and the Need for an Enterprise Tablet - Jun 30, 2011 iPad 2 Hands On Review - Mar 14, 2011 Massive Lines for iPad 2 - Mar 11, 2011 iPad 2 Demand Could Be Much Greater Than Expected - Mar 11, 2011 Microsoft Tablet Expensive but does Flash - Jan 05, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Logitech Zagg iPad 2 Keyboard: Do You Need a Laptop? Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Sponsored by the Call Center Outsourcing Community & the Virtual Contact Center Outsourcing Community

Journey Releases New Video Featuring Michaele Salahi

I was scrolling through my Facebook Newsfeed when I came across a post by Journey saying they had a new music video. It read: Sweet vibrations! Our new video for "Resonate" from our latest album Eclipse, is here as a special Valentine's Day gift to you. Filmed in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the video captures some of our favorite live moments during the Eclipse Tour. Enjoy: Screenshot: This was followed by an embedded YouTube video. I started to watch it and the intro looked like a scene from Baywatch with Neal Schon caressing a beautiful blonde girl in the sand. Wait a minute... Isn't that Michaele Salahi, the infamous White House crasher and supposed kidnapping victim, only to find out she ran off with Neal Schon leaving her husband high and dry? I love ya Schon - I think you're one of the greatest guitar players of all time - but isn't this rubbing salt in the wound to her ex-husband? Actually, this does make a statement to the media after the media trashed Schon and Salahi over their love tryst - "We're a couple now, deal with it!", which I kind of admire. Still, even if this wasn't a married (divorced?) woman I'd say this video is cheesy - it's even cheesier than the Separate Ways music video, which was another great Journey song tainted by a bad music video. Neal, I hope you haven't ruined your reputation with such a bad, in poor taste video. Nevertheless, Resonate is a great song and most of the video is a live performance of the song in concert. That makes this video bearable, but just barely. You can watch the video below. Tags: journey, michaele salahi, music, neal schon, rock, valentines day Related tags: music video, michaele salahi, video, schon, salahi, journey Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries iMainGo XP Portable Stereo Speaker & Case for iPad Review - Nov 29, 2011 Madison Cain, Daughter of Journey's Jonathan Cain, uses Skype for Vocal Teaching - Sep 21, 2011 Number Portability Still Sucking After All these Years... - Aug 04, 2011 AC/DC & Wal-Mart? Go Figure ... - Aug 19, 2008 Trade in your Headphones cash back offer - Jun 26, 2008 Skype 2.7 for Mac Released - Feb 14, 2008 Logitech Squeezebox Duet - Jan 07, 2008 DRM-Free MP3 songs - You're joking, right? - May 16, 2007 RockYou.com cool slideshows with music - Feb 28, 2007 Valentine's Day: Gadget Day? - Feb 14, 2007 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Journey Releases New Video Featuring Michaele Salahi Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

KEMP Load Balancer Certified for Microsoft Lync Server 2010

KEMP Technologies today announced that its LoadMaster hardware-based and virtual appliance load balancers are now approved for Microsoft Lync Server 2010. If you recall, I spoke with Kemp last year about their Exchange 2010 load balancer, so adding Lync load balancing certainly rounds out their Microsoft portfolio. KEMP’s LoadMaster products offer server load balancing, optimized application delivery and built-in SSL acceleration. These features enable the LoadMasters to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft's Lync server pools. By adding load balancing, traffic can be scaled wide across Lync 2010 Front End, Director, and Edge server pools. With Layer 7 health checking, the LoadMaster ensures that should a server become inaccessible, the load balancer will take that server off-line and automatically re-route and reconnect users to other functioning servers keeping application uptime guaranteed. “Having our entire product portfolio approved for Microsoft Lync Server further strengthens the LoadMaster’s ability to deliver highly available, reliable and secure solutions to our business customers utilizing Microsoft applications,” said Peter Melerud, executive vice president of product management at KEMP Technologies. “The Microsoft -approved LoadMaster solutions for Lync Server 2010 continue to reduce the price barrier for any-sized business while ensuring high availability across all applications.” The entire portfolio of LoadMaster products -- hardware-based, Virtual LoadMaster (VLM) for Hyper-V and Virtual LoadMaster (VLM) for VMware is approved for Lync Server 2010. Pricing starts at only $1,490. For more info, go to KEMP Technologies LoadMaster Deployment Guide for Microsoft Lync 2010. Tags: kemp, load balancer, loadmaster, lync, lync server 2010, microsoft Related tags: server pools, approved microsoft, loadmaster products, based virtual, virtual loadmaster, server Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Lync Federation Tool Makes it Easy to Find Lync-enabled Business Partners - Jan 23, 2012 Microsoft Lync 2010, Asterisk & Skype Integration Tutorial - Dec 28, 2011 Data Consumption Comparison: Microsoft Lync vs. Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile - Dec 16, 2011 Sprint Nextel Throws Out 489 PBXs - Switches 100% to Microsoft Lync - Dec 16, 2011 Lync for Android Launches! - Dec 14, 2011 Microsoft Lync Profiles Utility - Dec 12, 2011 Microsoft Lync Mobile available now! - Dec 11, 2011 Microsoft Lync Mobile Client Launches in 3 Days! - Dec 09, 2011 Polycom RealPresence Connects Non-standard TIP TelePresence Systems - Nov 16, 2011 PowerView Offers Powerful Microsoft Lync Reporting - Sep 02, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: KEMP Load Balancer Certified for Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Will Nimble 2.0 take Social CRM Mainstream?

Recently consumer products manufacturer P&G – one of the largest advertising spenders at over $9B announced it will cut its marketing headcount in-part because advertising on Facebook and Google is more efficient. The maker of Gillette and Pantene products is not alone; in-fact the business world is focusing heavily on social media including Google+ and Twitter. But while it is understood by many web-savvy companies that social is important – how many of them are embracing social CRM? My informal analysis shows the numbers are very low meaning there could be huge room for growth. That is of course if you don’t ascribe to the idea that it is important for companies to help shape the dialogue about themselves online. More importantly, you don’t believe that tying social media into CRM systems can boost sales and service levels and perhaps even increase productivity. One person who believes in the power of social CRM is Nimble founder and CEO Jon Ferrara. Around 1991 or so he told me at a dinner that his new company contact management/CRM company Goldmine has lots of potential because, “There is no Lotus in the market.” Ironically, Goldmine did in fact become a major player in the space while Lotus faded from the scene. Last year Nimble rolled out its initial cloud-based social CRM solution and there are now 30,000 users and 3,000 of them spend almost half their day on the platform. The newly released Nimble 2.0 aims to increase the first if not both of these numbers. In Ferrara’s own words, “Nimble is an integration of social listening and engagement platform, internal collaboration with sales and marketing capabilities of traditional CRM and elegance and simplicity of contact manager rolled into one easy to use system.” He contrasts the look of Nimble – which is similar to a Facebook page to Salesforce which he says looks like a mainframe screen. Additionally, he believes that while Hootsuite is useful it’s limited because it doesn’t allow you to drill down on specific contacts. Successful salespeople have always known that information related to a certain prospect could help increase the chance of a sale. In other words, if you know where a potential customer went to college, that information could be helpful in relationship-building which in turn could give you the edge in a competitive sales situation. Although people like to believe they purchase based on objective facts, likeability and/or trust of a salesperson is a major factor in pulling the purchasing trigger. And one of Nimble’s objectives is to boost relationships by enabling companies to get a better overall picture of their prospective customers. Ferrara likens Nimble 2.0 to fishing in the social river where salespeople can find a needle in a haystack. By tying in traditional CRM data, a company can ascertain which people on social networks have also downloaded documents from the corporate website. Moreover, companies can also determine who in the social stream is interested in which products. For a few years now I have swept all my Twitter follow emails into a special folder and I’m frankly amazed at the quality of the follows on this network. Not only do I find numerous related companies I never heard of and are worthy of coverage. Often these follows turn into prospects and sometimes become new customers of TMC. Tying these follows into a CRM system makes infinite sense if for no other reason than to justify the spend companies are making on social media. In other words if you are to put aside the passion that Jon and I share for the future of commerce being closely aligned with social CRM, then at least you should be onboard with using an integrated Social CRM tool to evaluate the ROI of the effort your company is putting into social networks. In using the platform I am happy to report it has proper hooks into a number of social networks including Google+. A number of other social aggregation platforms don’t yet connect to Google+ for some reason. Moreover, although I am a Nimble dabbler, not a frequent user, I find its daily email digest of job changes from my social networks very useful. Jon also feels his company’s integrated solution is better suited to the world of social-CRM than a CRM system with social bolted on. While this is a logical statement, I wouldn’t count out Oracle, Salesforce or any other CRM vendors as social integration should be straightforward. Sure, some will always do it better and Nimble is a pioneer but that doesn’t mean the CRM world won’t be watching like a hawk and emulating like a cheetah. Nimble is free for standalone personal users and business and multi-users can sign up for $15 per user per month. At that price it is certainly worth trying. Tags: crm, goldmine, nimble, oracle, salesforce, siebel, social crm Related tags: social networks, social media, number social, including google, social, nimble Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Nimble Will Rock Your Social CRM World - Apr 12, 2010 Book Review: Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com - Oct 27, 2009 Headed to Cloudforce New York. Can't Wait to Hear from Marc Benioff - Nov 29, 2011 The Ultimate Social CRM Prank - Jan 14, 2011 Nimble SCRM Video Interview with Jon Ferrara - Oct 04, 2010 A Candid Interview With Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow - Nov 13, 2008 Oracle CRM - Apr 13, 2007 Salesforce.com Outage - Dec 22, 2005 SOA, SCA and SDO - Nov 29, 2005 With Rypple Acquisition Salesforce on Track to be Cloud-Based Oracle - Dec 16, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Will Nimble 2.0 take Social CRM Mainstream? Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Watch out for Metallic Objects in IP Phones! You Could Get Hurt!

I've tested, used, and reviewed many Polycom phones over the years, but apparently I never noticed or received this warning letter with these phones. Check out this ridiculousness:WARNING ALL SOUNDPOINT IP PHONESWith respect to section 5.4.3.10 of the Australian Communications Authority as Telecommunications Technical Standard AS/ACIF S004 2004 under the s376 of the Telecommunications Act 1997:You should be aware that, under certain operating conditions, the handset earpiece may retain small metallic objects. If this occurs, these objects should be removed before using the handset.Really? Seriously? You have to warn users that the handset earpiece may contain small metallic objects (metal shavings?) and should be removed before using it?a) The handset is made of smooth plastic, so any metallic shavings or objects should slide right off.b) If loose metallic objects are internal to the handset, then won't they likely stay there?c) Even if loose objects fall out through the ear piece's opening, who the heck grinds the handset into their ear that would cause an injury and merit a warning?d) If you're idiotic enough to pick up something and stick it on your ear without noticing metal objects on the earpiece... well, perhaps you deserve sharp metal pricks to your ear - a little smack to the head too I might add. e) People pay good money to pierce their ears and wear metallic objects on their ears. They should thank Polycom for the free ear decoration! Here's a photo I took of the warning:I thought the United States was over-regulated and overly litigious (McDonald's hot coffee), but Australia just took the prize! Tort reform never looked so good... Tags: australia, handset, ip phone, lawsuit, litigation, litigious, polycom, telecommunications act Related tags: metallic objects, objects should, handset earpiece, removed using, objects, metallic Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Digium Gamechanger! Launches D40, D50, & D70 IP Phones - Feb 01, 2012 Apple iPad - Your Next Desktop Phone? - Sep 22, 2011 Yealink VP-2009 Review - Jan 07, 2011 Polycom VVX 1500 Media Phone Game Changer? - Mar 09, 2009 SmartSIP Launches for OCS 2007 R2 Enabling Any SIP Phone & Any SIP Trunking Service Provider - Mar 04, 2009 Polycom SoundPoint IP 601 phone - Sep 07, 2005 Verizon and BT Announce Cross-Network Video Calling & Telepresence - Feb 08, 2012 Hacked Asterisk PBX Update - Jan 12, 2012 Sprint Nextel Throws Out 489 PBXs - Switches 100% to Microsoft Lync - Dec 16, 2011 Polycom RealPresence Connects Non-standard TIP TelePresence Systems - Nov 16, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Watch out for Metallic Objects in IP Phones! You Could Get Hurt! Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Sunday Morning Post for February 12 2012

Woke up in Paris after a great Saturday doing not much of anything that was really work beyond email and some thinking about the next few weeks ahead. I shared some thought on my Paris Saturday over on WineScene. My morning started with news that rocked my world. One in a great way, the other with a touch of sadness. The great news is that pal Joanna Stern, most recently of The Verge is on her way to ABC as Technology Editor. Huge news. Many will recall how Joanna and I had a voice call on GoGo with her on the plan when they said it couldn't be done. It garnered press coverage from many outlets including USA Today...HA! Then the sad news hit, found from Joanna's Twitter feed. Whitney Houston had died. A few weeks ago it was Etta James, who if you don't know her music, you're missing out on the woman may have been the living version of Janis Joplin-both in lifestyle and soulful, stomach belting R & B. I won't get into the speculation as to why, but over time Whitney was without a doubt a musical talent who came from the Gospel church chiors all the way to the pop mainstream. She was a chanteusse, model, actress, but above all she was a performer who turned heads, made you look up and listen. Her style was souful, and yet she could be a pop diva. The world is losing our idols with too much frequency these day. The lifetyle of the world is of pop rock and sports, brought on by endless pressures to perform, to be better the next time out than the last time and most of all to see the kind of burn out/flame outs we're seeing are not ending here. Michael Jackson, Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison (who is buried just up the hill here in Paris) Janis Joplin and how many others all died too young. Somewhere there's a chior up in heaven. Janis and Etta got a new singing partner yesterday, but for those of us who have either lived in or around the worlds of sports and entertainment, and now technology with gamers and so called "rock star" programmers, we're going to see these "before their time" departures happen in technology too. It doesn't matter that the past few years of Whitney's career were wrought with the downers and troubles. All those people who she was employing should have known better. Lesson to be learned. Look after those who look after you. I'm off to lunch with colleagues and friends here in Paris...a glass of wine is in order. A toast to Joanna and a moment of silence with Whitney.

Verizon and BT Announce Cross-Network Video Calling & Telepresence

Verizon and BT announced a deal enabling each of their respective customers initiate high-quality video conferences and telepresence sessions. I spoke with representatives from BT and Verizon to learn more about their collaboration. Marc Hambley, Sr. Product Manager at BT explained, "We are connecting our respective telepresence exchanges together - that will allow BT clients to have meetings with Verizon clients, either hosted on BT service or Verizon service. It goes both ways equally. What it really does for our clients is that they can include in their conversations a broader number of suppliers, customers and business relationships." He continued, "We're trying to make business-to-business video collaboration more accessible to a greater number of clients." Verizon and BT are connecting their private networks together using security devices to maintain a secure perimeter, while adding the benefit of quality of service, which is required when performing high-bandwidth videoconferencing and telepresence. Under this new agreement, customers of Verizon and BT are now able to communicate with each other via Cisco TelePresence. Verizon already has a similar interconnect agreement with Tata with two other interconnect agreements in the works but not yet announced. BT has interconnect agreements with AT&T, Tata, and OBS. I asked about interconnecting with other telepresence / videoconferencing products, such as ones from Polycom, which support the TIP protocol. I was told that currently this deal is exclusively for Cisco Telepresence (CTS) endpoints, but Christine Howley. Senior Product Manager for Verizon mentioned, "there would be several exciting announcements by several carriers over the next several months because the interoperability or the any-to-any goal of the client base is pushing everybody toward that objective." Verizon and BT telepresence customers will experience the same interface and service quality they do today, with similar scheduling, support, security and encryption. In addition, customers will have access to a directory to determine which organizations are registered and are available for intercarrier telepresence meetings, and where the sites are located. Customers will continue to rely on their respective service providers as a single point of contact for telepresence support, assistance and billing. Mike Palmer, vice president of product strategy for Verizon Enterprise Solutions, said: “This agreement makes video communications more widely available to meet the needs of the evolving nature of work. We believe that enabling customers to communicate across networks will speed the adoption of video communications and that one day it will become as ubiquitous as voice communications. As businesses adopt collaboration and mobility technologies to expand beyond the four walls of a traditional office, we’re seeing more of our customers turning to advanced collaboration tools like telepresence to help boost their overall productivity and performance.” Rich Lowe, CEO of BT Conferencing, said, “This agreement, the latest expansion of the video industry’s connectivity capabilities, is an important step forward. Being able to connect across telepresence networks greatly expands the reach and value of the service. The more locations customers can reach, the greater the business benefit and the more quickly they can realize return on their video investment.” Tags: at&t, b2b, bt, business, cisco, interconnect, interoperability, polycom, telepresence, verizon Related tags: video communications, product manager, cisco telepresence, interconnect agreements, telepresence, verizon Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Polycom RealPresence Connects Non-standard TIP TelePresence Systems - Nov 16, 2011 Cisco Responds to Polycom's Adoption of TIP and Interoperability - Feb 10, 2011 Polycom UC Intelligent Core Platform Supports TIP Standard - Interoperable with Cisco - Feb 09, 2011 Use Skype to Video Call Any Video Endpoint: Polycom, Cisco, Tandberg, etc. - Nov 22, 2010 Cisco Buys Tandberg, but does Video Interoperability Suffer? - Oct 01, 2009 VoIP Patents run amok - Apr 02, 2007 As Predicted - the Cisco Umi Demise - Jan 04, 2012 Apple iPad - Your Next Desktop Phone? - Sep 22, 2011 Blue Jeans Network Launches Video Conferencing Service - Jun 29, 2011 Top 20 VoIP Innovators of All Time - Jun 13, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Verizon and BT Announce Cross-Network Video Calling & Telepresence Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog Sponsored by the Call Center Outsourcing Community & the Virtual Contact Center Outsourcing Community

Windows on ARM - New Tablet Operating System With Some Limitations

Microsoft Windows President Steven Sinoksky OR is this Bruce Willis? The next version of Windows will run full-sized desktop applications on low-power ARM-based tablets. However, the only desktop applications approved to appear on ARM devices will be those designed by Microsoft such as Internet Explorer 10, Office, and the Windows file explorer. Affectionately known as WOA (Windows On Arm), it includes desktop versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. In an lengthy blog post, Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows division explained how WOA will work. In a nutshell, you can think of WOA as a specialized version of Windows 8 designed for ARM processors. There will be two new versions of Windows 8 for PCs and tablets - one for high-performance Intel/AMD processors and the other for lower performance but ultra-lower power ARM processors. The advantage of ARM is tablets that have much longer batter life. This isn't to say you won't be able to get apps installed on ARM-powered devices. Microsoft will duplicate Apple's App Store model with Windows on ARM, forcing application distribution exclusively through the Windows Store. So you won't be able to sideload / install your own apps directly. Sinofsky explained the reasoning as follows: If we enabled the broad porting of existing code we would fail to deliver on our commitment to longer battery life, predictable performance, and especially a reliable experience over time. The conventions used by today’s Windows apps do not necessarily provide this, whether it is background processes, polling loops, timers, system hooks, startup programs, registry changes, kernel mode code, admin rights, unsigned drivers, add-ins, or a host of other common techniques. By avoiding these constructs, WOA can deliver on a new level of customer satisfaction: your WOA PC will continue to perform well over time as apps are isolated from the system and each other, and you will remain in control of what additional software is running on your behalf, all while letting the capabilities of diverse hardware shine through. Trying to get around this via virtualization won't work either, as Sinofsky said that won't be allowed. Microsoft also did an about face and isn't allowing third-party plugins for Internet Explorer on ARM - so no Flash support. Sinofsky explained, "If you need to run existing x86/64 software, then you will be best served with Windows 8 on x86/64. If you’re already considering a non-Windows device, then we think WOA will be an even better alternative when you consider the potential of form factors, peripherals, Windows Store apps (and developer platform), and Office applications as well as a broad set of intrinsic Windows capabilities." Fair enough. I'd personally go with a x86/64 tablet to have the full desktop capabilities, but I understand the need for a tablet with longer battery life. Exit question - Why is Bruce Willis (photo top) demoing the latest Windows 8 hardware? Tags: arm, bruce willis, intel, microsoft, processors, steve sinofsky, tablet, windows on arm, woa Related tags: bruce willis, version windows, sinofsky explained, longer battery, internet explorer, windows Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Daring Fireball Gets It - Windows 8 Will Rival the iPad - Sep 15, 2011 Intel Silverthorne Back in the Mobile Game - Feb 06, 2008 USB 3.0 Standard Coming - Sep 19, 2007 DigitalLife Is On Its Way! - Sep 01, 2006 Intel new ultra-fast low power transistor - Dec 07, 2005 Lync Federation Tool Makes it Easy to Find Lync-enabled Business Partners - Jan 23, 2012 Begun the Search War Has! Google+ Social Search Results in Bing Defections - Jan 13, 2012 Fonality Names Former Microsoft Exec David Scult as CEO - Jan 10, 2012 Microsoft Lync 2010, Asterisk & Skype Integration Tutorial - Dec 28, 2011 Windows 8 CPU Slow Benchmarks! - Dec 20, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Windows on ARM - New Tablet Operating System With Some Limitations Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Apple Planned the iPad BEFORE the iPhone. Who knew?

Everyone assumes that Apple was working on the iPhone before the iPad. However, the recent lawsuit by Proview Electronics suing Apple over the name 'iPad' says others wise. The iPhone was launched in 2007 and the iPad in 2010. However, in 2006 Apple purchased the iPad trademark from display manufacturer Proview Electronics (Taiwan) for $55,000 by way of a front company called IP Application Development. So it appears Apple planned on making a tablet before the iPhone even came to market!According to TMC's Peter Bernstein, Proview says the trademark deal with Apple did not include the rights to the trademark in China. It says that Proview Technology (Shenzhen), a subsidiary of Proview International in Hong Kong, owns these rights.Interestingly, back in 2007 Cisco sued Apple over the use of the iPhone name, since Cisco has several products with that name, including a few that I reviewed - the Linksys iPhone Cordless Internet Telephony Kit - CIT200 (one of the first cordless Skype phones) and the iPhone Cordless Internet Telephony Kit - CIT310. But then Apple and Cisco made up and settled the lawsuit. I questioned back in 2007 "what's in it for Cisco?". As part of the settlement, Apple and Cisco will "explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and (business) communications". I questioned this vague statement and I was right. Apple and Cisco do absolutely nothing together worth mentioning. Cisco's stock back in 2007 was $30 and now it's $20. Cisco should have taken some Apple stock in the settlement agreement! I know what Cisco is thinking now...In any case, a Chinese court ruled in favor of Proview and the decision is now under appeal. TMC's Peter Bernstein writes: Proview Shenzhen's lawyer Xie Xianghui’s court statement which stated that the company was ready to "slap Apple with a 240 million yuan ($38 million) fine," but the ruling has been delayed due to Apple's appeal. The good news for Apple was that the Xicheng district administration denied Xie's claims of an impending 240 million yuan ruling. The posting said it gets better. Xie appears to like to talk with the press, and he told the China Daily that Proview wants and apology as well. He also said the company has more litigation still to come, with separate lawsuits against Apple's authorized retailers and stores in courts around China. So the IP bully is getting a taste of its own medicine. When you add it up, Apple is looking at $1.6B in the original infringement case, a possible $38M fine and the issuance of an apology. Even for the world’s most valuable company, this is not just pocket change. The collateral damage on this and the workplace protests could be significant. Proview has home field advantage and any disruption of either the supply chain or damage to the reputation of the company in the over-heated Chinese market for Apple products is non-trivial. Apple certainly has $1.6B in its deep pockets to pay off the Chinese company if it has to, but it would be a deep blow. It's ironic how Apple uses Chinese workers to build the iPhone and iPad and now it could come to bite them in the ass. On a related note today we had a highly-publicized planned protest against China's Foxconn, the builders of Apple's products for horrid working conditions. It was not been a good day for Apple, though the planned protests seem to have fizzled. Tags: apple, china, cisco, ipad, iphone, proview, tablets, trademark Related tags: apple cisco, internet telephony, proview electronics, peter bernstein, cordless internet, apple Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Apple vs. Cisco over iPhone - Jan 11, 2007 iOS 5.0.1 for iPhones & iPads Released! Battery life Fixed? - Nov 10, 2011 Adobe Surrenders Mobile Flash - Steve Jobs FTW, Users FTL! - Nov 09, 2011 With Steve Jobs' Passing is Flash for the iPhone/iPad Now Possible? - Oct 11, 2011 Hookflash for iPad Launches - Sep 13, 2011 magicJack Plus Update - Sep 12, 2011 Facebook Launching HTML5 Skype App? - Jul 06, 2011 Blue Jeans Network Bridges Skype, SIP, H.323 for Multipoint Telepresence Solution - May 09, 2011 Atari's Greatest Hits on iPhone and iPad! - Apr 07, 2011 Apple Releases iOS 4.3.1 Fixes Bugs But Annoying the Hell Out of Me - Mar 25, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Apple Planned the iPad BEFORE the iPhone. Who knew? Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

The Only Way Google can be Successful in Consumer Electronics

Yesterday I detailed how Google IS the tech news of the day and folks, this search leader is ambitious – more so than Microsoft ever was. In addition to a Dropbox killer and massive Google+ growth I outlined in this recent post, the company is also getting into the home entertainment business through its Motorola Mobility acquisition. Specifically Google will release a self-branded line of consumer electronics allowing you to stream music throughout your home. Google already has a cloud-based music service so obviously there is synergy there but the only way I see this strategy working is by Google doing things differently. My loyal readers know I am a fan of Sonos – they sell an in-home audio streaming service which integrates with Slacker, Pandora, Sirius/XM, Spotify and even integrates with iOS devices and iTunes libraries stored on computers. In-short, you have access to all your music and favorite radio from any room. But Sonos products although they are great, are not cheap. The company’s Play:5 for example will set you back $399 and the company’s Bridge which you’ll also need adds another $49 to the total. Sure this is cheaper than wired alternatives but at just over 1,000,000 rooms the company has a long way to go before it becomes the audio equivalent of Apple. Moreover the palindromic Sonos taps into existing ecosystems – it doesn’t get involved with them. In other words you have the option to pay for the ad-free or premium versions of each radio service you are interested in. Google execs woke up today and realized Apple’s market cap just surpassed the combined value of it and Microsoft together. It understands the ecosystem is the future. And Google’s strength is selling ads. What this means is that Google needs to have its own streaming radio station and moreover needs to get into the radio advertising business again – the last time it tried it had disastrous results but I would liken this sort of radio ad model more similar to YouTube than traditional radio advertising. All of this is great news for Google because they excel at on-demand as opposed to real-time ad selling – for the moment. So what I see Google having to do is integrate radio ads into its music streaming service but more importantly it needs to one-up Siri by speech-enabling all the devices in the house before Apple beats them to it. Remember that in December of 2009, Apple purchased streaming service Lala and at the time I surmised it was to Get Apple into the in-home streaming business. The race is on. Back to Google – it obviously would want to integrate Google+ into any of its new offerings allowing users to share the music they are listening to, the programs they are watching, and everything else. Sonos for its part has nearly-perfected home audio. Google should think about picking them up rather than reinventing the wheel. Moreover, if Google is really serious about this market it should consider an acquisition of Bose – if the privately-held company would consider such a deal. That way it could have an established brand with retail stores which will allow it to go head-to-head with Apple in malls worldwide. So I see the only viable future for Google in home entertainment being a subsidized model like the Amazon Kindle Fire. It is just unclear if advertising will generate enough revenue to offset the hundred dollars or more I believe the company will have to discount each product to gain the massive traction it needs in the market. As we know, Google hasn’t been successful in retail and Motorola Mobility has had some moments of brilliance in the past but got its teeth kicked in by Nokia, RIM and Apple. The Kindle Fire model – “we will give you an awesome deal” is the only one I see working here. The question is can the company really monetize this hardware effectively? Time will tell. Tags: amazon, android, apple, bose, gadget, google, ios, iphone, ipod, kindle, kindle fire, lala, motorola, motorola mobility, pandora, radio, sirius, slacker, sonos, spotify, streaming, wireless Related tags: streaming service, consumer electronics, radio advertising, future google, motorola mobility, google Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries FlyCast Adds Streaming to PCs and Google Android - Jan 08, 2009 Sonos Wireless Dock Review - Oct 26, 2010 Sonos iPad Remote Control - Sep 29, 2010 Sonos Nearly Perfects Home Audio - Jun 27, 2010 iPad's Lack of Flash and Openness a Blow to Publishers - Jan 28, 2010 Why Apple Spent $80M on LaLa - Dec 07, 2009 Would Apple Let Your Product Out its Door? - Oct 20, 2009 Ultrabooks, Kindle Fires and the New World Apple Must Compete in - Dec 27, 2011 Apple Responds to Locationgate - Apr 27, 2011 Blackberry Torch 9800 Analysis - Aug 05, 2010 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: The Only Way Google can be Successful in Consumer Electronics Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Dell Voice Launches in Canada - Will it Fail As Badly As Dell Video Chat?

Dell has partnered with Ontario-based Fongo to offer Dell Voice, a VoIP app exclusively available exclusively in Canada that offers a Canadian phone number and free calls to most of Canada. Also, incoming calls and Dell Voice-to-Dell Voice calls are free of charge. This reminds me of how Dell partnered with Sightspeed, now a part of Logitech to offer a multi-party video conferencing service called Dell Video Chat. I reviewed the software and it works well, but with free alternatives like Skype, having the ability to do 9-way (3x3) Brady Bunch video is a very niche application. Practically nobody has ever heard of Dell Video Chat, so here let me share a couple screenshots of it...Screenshot of me testing it:2x2 (4-way video call)I suspect Dell Voice will suffer the same ignominious fate as Dell Video Chat. There's just too much competition, including superior offerings from Google Voice, Skype, and most recently Vonage. It's like Dell is getting killed by their core market (PCs & laptops) by the explosion of the tablet and they're trying anything to diversify. Dell mobile phones - fail; Dell Video Chat - fail, Dell Voice - soon to fail.In any case, the Dell Voice app currently available for Android, iOS and Windows (Desktop), with a Blackberry version coming. You can port your existing number for $25. Although this app is only available on the Canadian iTunes and Android app stores, there are hacks around that. Google is your friend! Tags: android, apple, dell video chat, dell voice, google, logitech, ontario, sightspeed, skype, voice Related tags: video, voice, canada, calls, available Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Amazon Kindle Fire - Hot or Not? - Sep 28, 2011 Facebook Phone? Who cares! - Sep 20, 2010 eBuddy for iPhone Supports Push Notifications - Jul 01, 2009 Vonage Attacks Skype with 30% Price Cut and Free App-to-App Calling & Texts - Feb 08, 2012 Kindle Fire Silk Browser Proxying Stokes Privacy Concerns - Sep 29, 2011 Skype 2.5 for Android Adds More Video Support - Sep 29, 2011 Microsoft front-facing cameras, Skype & Lync Mobile client Coming Very Very Soon - Aug 25, 2011 Skype (Microsoft) Blows $85 Million on GroupMe - Aug 22, 2011 Twilio, the Cloud-based VoIP/Skype App Enabler - Jul 26, 2011 Skype for Android Gets Video Love - Jun 30, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Dell Voice Launches in Canada - Will it Fail As Badly As Dell Video Chat? Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Google+ Growth, Dropbox Killer: Google IS the Tech News

Google has entrenched itself is so many areas of tech they have become the technology news of the day. First off, Google+ growth has been nothing short of fantastic, in part because the company has altered search results to put more emphasis on this social network. Every SEO/SEM professional has had no choice in the past few months to get up to speed on the latest social network from the search giant. And this in part is the reason why it has half the unique visitors of Twitter according to web traffic tracking site Compete. In other unrelated news in the mobile market – hey wait, it isn’t unrelated at all – once again it features Google whose Motorola Mobility acquisition is about to get OKed – perhaps as early as next week. The bad news now for those companies selling products with technology covered by Motorola/Google patents – you’re on the hook for 2.25% of every sale. This includes iPhones and even cars which utilize H.264 or UMTS. Think that one through – that is $2,250 for a $100,000 BMW or Mercedes. Of course if you don’t agree to these terms, you get thrown off Google’s search home page – just kidding – you actually just get sued by Google’s ever-expanding army of lawyers. It may be preferable to just get booted from the first SERP. It is worth mentioning this is the same standard set by Motorola – many in the industry hoped Google would ease up on these requirements. By now you have followed the trend – we will move on to yet another unrelated space – cloud storage where Google is set to release a Dropbox killer – its new Drive service. Really though this move was necessary as Google has to have an iCloud competitor as well if it plans of allowing Android to copy all the cool functions and features of iOS. Google is into so many things and as a result you have two groups of people. First are the users who are happy to see the company expand because they rely on Google’s free services for everything from email to RSS reading. And then there is the second group – competitors and investors who worry Google is suffocating the rest of the tech space with its ever-expanding growth into new and perhaps unrelated spaces. This latter group includes privacy advocates who worry that these moves coupled with Google’s new “shared data” privacy policy allows Google unprecedented access to personal information. But whatever your feelings, you’ll be happy to know that Google has even more news which will allow you to voice your thoughts in person to a Google employee. You see, the search leader is said to be opening a new retail store in Dublin. And I am sure your Android device will have no problems giving you step-by-step directions on how to get there once it’s built. Tags: android, apple, bmw, drive, dropbox, google, google+, icloud, ios, mercedes, motorola, patent, seo Related tags: dropbox killer, google growth, social network, google, unrelated, search Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Mobile Banking and Payments the Next Frontier - Nov 03, 2010 Woz, I Agree. Now What if the Samsung Galaxy Note Ran iOS? - Jan 17, 2012 Analysis of FT and NYT Paywall Success - Jan 09, 2012 Ultrabooks, Kindle Fires and the New World Apple Must Compete in - Dec 27, 2011 iPhone 4S Review with Help from Duran Duran - Oct 27, 2011 Google Pays Half Million Per Patent for Motorola Mobility - Aug 16, 2011 Living in a Post-OS World - Jul 28, 2011 Survey: Games Most Popular Smartphone Apps - Jul 06, 2011 Yes, Most Tablets Will Still Fail - Mar 01, 2011 Behold the Anticloud - Lapdoc is Born - Jan 07, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Google+ Growth, Dropbox Killer: Google IS the Tech News Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Sponsored by the Call Center Outsourcing Community & the Virtual Contact Center Outsourcing Community

Why Steve Jobs had an FBI File

The FBI just released the file on Steve Jobs and it contains information about hem being not the nicest person in the world and in addition lists the various drugs he used such as marijuana, hashish and LSD.I know what you are thinking... Why on earth would this man need an FBI file? After all, he was the man behind the personal computer - how dangerous is that? The reason it turns out is In 1991, Jobs was being considered for a post on President George H.W. Bush’s Export Council, an appointment that would not have required Senate confirmation.So that explains it. Still, it is worrisome to know the FBI has files on people - it does remind one of the Hoover times where the bureau kept files on many famous and outspoken personalities. Tags: apple, steve jobs Related tags: , apple, steve jobs Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Show Me the Opportunities! - Jul 19, 2008 Steve Jobs Biography in Cliff Notes Video Format - Oct 25, 2011 SNL Skit Features Mark Zuckerberg Rupert Murdoch, Reed Hastings and Arianna Huffington - Oct 25, 2011 Jobs, Ritchie & Galvin Dead but not Forgotten - Oct 14, 2011 iOS 5 Update: Steve Jobs Rolling Over Already? - Oct 13, 2011 Should this be Apple's New Logo? - Oct 07, 2011 Advice From Steve Jobs on Life, Death - Oct 06, 2011 Even Apple Wouldn't Hire Steve Jobs Today - Sep 01, 2011 6 New Rules in a Post-Jobs World - Aug 29, 2011 Suggestion: Apple's First Move Without Steve Jobs - Aug 25, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Why Steve Jobs had an FBI File Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com

Vonage Attacks Skype with 30% Price Cut and Free App-to-App Calling & Texts

Vonage today launched new versions of their mobile app for both iOS and Android phones that feature free app-to-app calling and international calling rates that on average are 70 percent less than major mobile carriers and 30 percent less than Skype according to their release notes on iTunes. What's nice about their mobile app is it lets you talk and text worldwide for FREE with anyone else who has the app. It's also wideband HD audio for better audio quality. Another nice feature is that you simply use your existing address book and there is no need to leave the app. It works on both Wi-Fi and 3G/4G. Importantly, it uses your mobile number as your caller ID, which is another value-add that not all mobile VoIP apps provide. It also offers easy in-app purchasing through your iTunes or Android Market account to charge-up our account.Another nifty feature is that you can check the calling rates for any number in your address book directly within the app. No need to launch your mobile browser and look up the calling rate. Here's a screenshot of this in action: Here's a screenshot showing your contacts with a Vonage "V" logo next to contacts that are a free phone call, with the ability to invite others as well:You do not need to be a Vonage phone service customer to use the app. However, as an added benefit to all app users, calls to any Vonage number are also free. To encourage usage of this new app for a limited time any phone number in the United States, Canada or Puerto Rico from will be free. Sweet! Via The Verge Tags: 3g, 4g, android, apple, free calling, ios, mobile app, mobile phone, skype, vonage, wi-fi, wireless Related tags: calling rates, mobile, calling, vonage, number, another Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Facebook Phone? Who cares! - Sep 20, 2010 Samsung Mocks Apple Fanboys in Hilarious Galaxy S II Ad - Nov 23, 2011 Microsoft front-facing cameras, Skype & Lync Mobile client Coming Very Very Soon - Aug 25, 2011 Vonage Time to Call iPhone App Makes Cheap International Calls - Aug 03, 2011 Verizon MiFi 4510L 4G WiFi Mobile Hotspot Now Available - Apr 18, 2011 AudioCodes Adds Mobile VoIP Solutions for Blackberry and Android - Aug 05, 2010 Nokia runs Skype on Wi-Fi and 3G - Suck on that iPhone! - Feb 17, 2009 Mobile VoIP Challenges - Oct 20, 2008 Truphone on iPhone Apple Store enables VoIP - Jul 11, 2008 Why Apple's A5 Processor is Big (Siri) + Why Doesn't Siri Support Dictating Emails? - Feb 06, 2012 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Vonage Attacks Skype with 30% Price Cut and Free App-to-App Calling & Texts Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

ITEXPO IP Communications Trade Show Continues Solid Growth

ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami was TMC's best show ever with over 200 booths and over 8,200 attendees. Conferee attendance for ITEXPO East increased more than 50% from 2011, resulting in dozens of standing room only sessions at ITEXPO and collocated conferences such as HTML5 Summit, M2M Evolution, Business Video Expo, Super WiFi Summit, and 4GWE. As an example, here's a photo I took at the jam-packed Ingate SIP trunking conference session:Even with the additional third day of exhibit hall hours, foot traffic was pretty good - on a Friday no less. I heard from several exhibitors saying it was their best ITEXPO ever.TMC's next show, ITEXPO West 2012, is scheduled to take place on October 1-4, 2012, in Austin, Texas, (the 'new' Telecom Corridor) which will be the second time in Austin after moving from Los Angeles. “ITEXPO has enjoyed a long and successful run in South Florida since TMC first brought its event there in 2001. The impressive turnout we saw this week validates the content we’ve offered, and the comprehensiveness of the solutions showcased on the expo floor,” said Rich Tehrani, TMC CEO and Conference Chairman. “Today – more than ever – ITEXPO is the world’s leading B2B communications and technology event, and we’re looking forward to carrying this momentum over to Austin this fall.” You can check out the attendee demographics for ITEXPO Miami by reading the full news release. Tags: austin, florida, ingate, ip communications, itexpo, miami, rich tehrani, texas Related tags: itexpo, austin Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries ITEXPO in Austin, Texas Just Days Away - Some Photos from Today - Sep 08, 2011 ITEXPO in Austin, Texas - Business & Pleasure - Sep 09, 2011 Fonality Named Newest Platinum Sponsor of ITEXPO - Jun 20, 2011 ITEXPO Moves to Austin, Texas - The New Telecom Corridor - Jan 28, 2011 ITEXPO Austin, Texas - Day 1 Photos Slideshow - Sep 13, 2011 Bob Metcalfe Keynotes StartupCamp, Communications Edition, collocated with ITEXPO - Aug 08, 2011 ITEXPO Named Top 50 Fastest Growing Tradeshow - Jan 19, 2011 ITEXPO East Features Impressive Vendor Participation - Jan 11, 2011 Microsoft Response Point SP2 launches + review - Feb 02, 2009 Ready for ITEXPO? - Jan 26, 2009 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: ITEXPO IP Communications Trade Show Continues Solid Growth Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Verizon and BT Announce Cross-Network Video Calling & Telepresnce

Verizon and BT announced a deal enabling each of their respective customers initiate high-quality video conferences and telepresence sessions. I spoke with representatives from BT and Verizon to learn more about their collaboration. Marc Hambley, Sr. Product Manager at BT explained, "We are connecting our respective telepresence exchanges together - that will allow BT clients to have meetings with Verizon clients, either hosted on BT service or Verizon service. It goes both ways equally. What it really does for our clients is that they can include in their conversations a broader number of suppliers, customers and business relationships." He continued, "We're trying to make business-to-business video collaboration more accessible to a greater number of clients." Verizon and BT are connecting their private networks together using security devices to maintain a secure perimeter, while adding the benefit of quality of service, which is required when performing high-bandwidth videoconferencing and telepresence. Under this new agreement, customers of Verizon and BT are now able to communicate with each other via Cisco TelePresence. Verizon already has a similar interconnect agreement with Tata with two other interconnect agreements in the works but not yet announced. BT has interconnect agreements with AT&T, Tata, and OBS. I asked about interconnecting with other telepresence / videoconferencing products, such as ones from Polycom, which support the TIP protocol. I was told that currently this deal is exclusively for Cisco Telepresence (CTS) endpoints, but Christine Howley. Senior Product Manager for Verizon mentioned, "there would be several exciting announcements by several carriers over the next several months because the interoperability or the any-to-any goal of the client base is pushing everybody toward that objective." Verizon and BT telepresence customers will experience the same interface and service quality they do today, with similar scheduling, support, security and encryption. In addition, customers will have access to a directory to determine which organizations are registered and are available for intercarrier telepresence meetings, and where the sites are located. Customers will continue to rely on their respective service providers as a single point of contact for telepresence support, assistance and billing. Mike Palmer, vice president of product strategy for Verizon Enterprise Solutions, said: “This agreement makes video communications more widely available to meet the needs of the evolving nature of work. We believe that enabling customers to communicate across networks will speed the adoption of video communications and that one day it will become as ubiquitous as voice communications. As businesses adopt collaboration and mobility technologies to expand beyond the four walls of a traditional office, we’re seeing more of our customers turning to advanced collaboration tools like telepresence to help boost their overall productivity and performance.” Rich Lowe, CEO of BT Conferencing, said, “This agreement, the latest expansion of the video industry’s connectivity capabilities, is an important step forward. Being able to connect across telepresence networks greatly expands the reach and value of the service. The more locations customers can reach, the greater the business benefit and the more quickly they can realize return on their video investment.” Tags: at&t, b2b, bt, business, cisco, interconnect, interoperability, polycom, telepresence, verizon Related tags: video communications, product manager, cisco telepresence, interconnect agreements, verizon, telepresence Follow me: Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google+ Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Polycom RealPresence Connects Non-standard TIP TelePresence Systems - Nov 16, 2011 Cisco Responds to Polycom's Adoption of TIP and Interoperability - Feb 10, 2011 Polycom UC Intelligent Core Platform Supports TIP Standard - Interoperable with Cisco - Feb 09, 2011 Use Skype to Video Call Any Video Endpoint: Polycom, Cisco, Tandberg, etc. - Nov 22, 2010 Cisco Buys Tandberg, but does Video Interoperability Suffer? - Oct 01, 2009 VoIP Patents run amok - Apr 02, 2007 As Predicted - the Cisco Umi Demise - Jan 04, 2012 Apple iPad - Your Next Desktop Phone? - Sep 22, 2011 Blue Jeans Network Launches Video Conferencing Service - Jun 29, 2011 Top 20 VoIP Innovators of All Time - Jun 13, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Verizon and BT Announce Cross-Network Video Calling & Telepresnce Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Rewards Network, the Social Restaurant Hub

In the last few decades it has become apparent that all companies are for the most part limited by their imaginations. Apple was thought to be a computer company but is now a leader in music, movies and phones. Amazon went from selling books to everything – even its servers are for rent via its cloud-computing solutions. Google went from search to purchasing Motorola Mobility and is well known for being involved in many projects from solar to self-driving cars and the television space. But an airline? Certainly they aren’t adapting to the new competitive landscape – after all, many of the airplanes we fly on in the US were built in the 1960s when the cloud was defined as an IBM System/360 mainframe. American Airlines has been a pioneer in loyalty marketing since the AAdvantage frequent flyer program was launched in 1981 and as a result their successful marketing concept spread to many other industries from toys to greeting cards. The airline took a page from its own book and runs an AAdvantage Dining program which allows members to earn points good for travel and other services. This isn’t unlike agreements AA and other airlines have with credit card companies where a percentage of the money spent is converted to airline points or miles. The company just announced a new program called the Get Ahead Bonus promotion where participants are eligible to earn 2 American Airlines AAdvantage bonus miles on every dollar spent after $75. The offer is good until April 30, 2012 and typically participants would get only one mile per dollar spent. The promotion is actually a bit ambiguous as it also says you can get up to 7 miles per dollar between now and March 31st but let’s stipulate you will get more miles than usual to get us back to more interesting topics. And the fine print does get interesting as the company encourages you to be social – you are to submit dining reviews between now and March 32st, 2012 to get your extra points. So here we have an airline who has obviously embraced restaurant rewards and now has found a way to incentivize users to be more social by providing reviews. The company behind this dining program from American Airlines is Chicago based Rewards Network an organization with over 3.4 million frequent diners according to their website. It was founded in 1984 as Transmedia Network by Mel Chasen and at that time had only 225 members. It has become a major force in Airline loyalty card/ restaurant programs and partners similar initiatives at America West, Continental, Delta, US Airways among others. I spoke with Megan Flynn, the Senior VP of Marketing at Rewards Network and she told me the company has an open network philosophy – sharing data and reviews with not only their partners but with social networks. She says there will be some announcements soon regarding new content sharing partners. She likens her company’s service to a “secret shopper” experience where you know the review is from a person who actually ate at the restaurant. You see, the way the program works is it matches credit card numbers to ensure customers get credit for eating at a particular establishment. So the company has not only credit card information but email addresses. She contrasted this to other sites where reviews can be posted by anyone – there is really no quality control. And the review numbers are staggering – over 50,000 restaurant surveys are completed each week according to Flynn. To me some natural partners are Google, Facebook and Microsoft/Bing – Yahoo! would make sense as well. Google might be a likely acquirer– remember they have Zagat and they also launched Nosh which isn’t that far from the Rewards Network concept. It’s interesting, Facebook quotes 483 million “active” users – but we know the numbers are fudged (or at least exaggerated). And even if the real number is so big, how do we know if any of them have spending power? I’ve said repeatedly that having a US real unemployment rate somewhere between 18-30M is part of the reason for Facebook’s success. Are these the buyers a restaurant wants or needs? Then we have the Groupon business model – daily deals emailed to members and as a result the company has a valuation of about $15.5B! What is the value of millions of members of a restaurant program who actually spend money? In 2010 the members spent almost $700M in fact. We aren’t talking chump change here. Imagine the potential to grow this business as an even more social company where it starts to get the buzz of a Yelp or LinkedIn. Seems to me Rewards Network is really one of the most underreported stories out there and as long as it can continue to take an industry as stodgy as the airline space and make it social and interactive, imagine the potential it has to transform other markets and industries. Tags: advertising, airlines, amercan airlines, bing, facebook, frequent flyer, google, groupon, marketing, microsoft, rewards network, twitter, yelp Related tags: rewards network, american airlines, dollar spent, dining program, between march, company Follow me: Facebook Profile Google Reader Profile Twitter Profile Related Entries Google: Can it be Everything to Everyone? - Jan 27, 2012 Keep Bing at Microsoft - Jul 26, 2011 Webinar: Smarter SEO Techniques - Jun 16, 2011 11 Things Facebook Should Do With Their New $1.5B - Jan 21, 2011 Digg Layoffs Sad - Oct 26, 2010 Changing The Rules (Again) to Save Newspapers - Aug 19, 2010 Google Far More Feared than Microsoft - Jul 26, 2010 Will Google Wave Transform Communications? - May 28, 2009 11 Things Yahoo Must Do Now That Yang Has Stepped Down - Jan 18, 2012 Google Holiday Promo For Your New Gadgets - Dec 27, 2011 TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com Home | Permalink: Rewards Network, the Social Restaurant Hub Copyright Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com