New White Paper on Enterprise Mobility - for Enreach

I’ve got another white paper update to share - this one was done for Enreach, a leading EU mobility and platform provider.

Mobility has long been a challenge in the collaboration space, but more importantly, Enreach feels what’s really needed is an integrated approach to manage all forms of enterprise communications. That’s their strong suit, and my white paper examines the trends that drive the need for this approach. Mobility is a big part of the story, but it’s not the whole story.

The white paper was published yesterday, and I hope you give it a read. Here’s the press release they issued with the backstory, along with a link to download the paper. Would love to hear your thoughts, and am sure Enreach will too!

Mavenir Analyst Day - Quick Take and Pix

It’s been quite a week - or two, actually. Last week, I drove to - and back - from Florida for a much-needed family visit. A day after that, I was off to Dallas for Mavenir’s analyst day, then to San Francisco for Twilio’s SIGNAL conference. Both events were first-timers for me, and Mavenir was of particular interest since I’m not that strong on wireless, so this was a good way to get caught up.

That said, the event was pretty much under NDA, so I don’t have a narrative to share. There certainly is a good story here, especially to give carriers an alternative to the Tier 1 mobile vendors, and Mavenir is one of those “best kept secrets” kind of players. Over time, my learnings will come out in other ways, so for now, I just have some photos to share.

First, some pix from the event, both during the sessions and the demos. And then, there’s this fantastical “George” poster. Take a close look - “master of magic” - and deep in the heart of Texas - kinda has that travelling medicine show look, and it’s not a stretch to say that sometimes applies to tech companies selling complicated solutions that buyers don’t really understand. But no, not here at Mavenir, right? :-)

The event was held at the hotel - Zaza - and it’s one of the most eclectic hotels I’ve been to. Definitely gotta come back here for fun. All kinds of quirky sculptures, paintings, photos and knick knacks. Check out their shuttle vehicle - soooo Texas. And then, my friendly man at the front desk. This hotel has a cool, retro vibe - really - really slow elevators, and on the desks in our rooms - pencils (not pens), paper clips and staplers - when was the last time you saw or used those? And for the topper, he’s showing off their manual credit card imprinter, which they actually use. Millennials have probably never seen one of these analog relics, but hey, they still work - even if the broadband is slow!

Upcoming Webinar - "BYOD Mobility or Bust"

I do my share of webinars, but for a change this one isn't mine. Am just doing a friendly shout-out for Voxvalley, who is doing their own webinar this Thursday.

The topic is a familiar one for me, and wanted to help get the word out. It's got a catchy title: "The Death of the Desktop IP Phone. BYOD Mobility or Bust!" Am not sure if that's a promise or a threat, but it's not hard to make the case that the desk phone is in terminal decline. If you accept that premise, then developing a business plan around BYOD should be a priority for 2016.

To learn more about why this is important and what businesses should be doing, sign up now. Here's the registration page, and after that, mark your calendar for this Thursday at 2pm ET.

ITExpo Shout-Out #3 - Turning UC into Revenue

I don't mean to confuse you, as this message isn't meant for IT managers deploying UC - although that could be a worthwhile topic to explore - creatively. What I'm talking about here is for service providers - how they can leverage Unified Communications as a way to drive new revenues. This is pretty much a mobility story, where operators are struggling to keep up with our ever-changing wants - you can call them needs, but we've survived for thousands of years without these goodies - to satiate our smartphone and tablets obsessions. There's definitely money to be made here, and UC actually provides a lot of value to businesses trying to make sure their employees stay productive when out of the office.

That's the set-up, and for the rest, you'll have to join us next Thursday at 3:30 for our panel. I'm moderating, and will be joined by Chris Carabello of Metaswitch, Leslie Ferry of BroadSoft and Payam Maveddat of Taqua. These are all familiar faces for me, so it should be a lively session.

So, where and when? Almost forgot - Miami Beach - you ok with that? Of course, it's TMC's ITExpo, and this is the third session I'm moderating at the show, so I won't be hard to find. As with my earlier posts about my sessions, you can get all the details here - just scroll down to Thursday and you'll find us on the Service Provider Solutions track. See you there!

Metaswitch launches Accession at MWC

This is Super Bowl week in the wireless world with Mobile World Congress, and everyone there is trying to get and keep your attention. I'm not at MWC, and I don't usually post about launches tied to the event, but I got an advance briefing of Accession, Metaswitch's latest value proposition for mobile operators.

It's a heady word, and a lot of interesting ideas to kick around, but the overall spin for Accession is pretty good from what I can tell. The goal is clear, and operators know they can't drop the ball with mobility - the field is shifting too fast to stand on the sidelines and watch subscribers figure things out without their carriers coaching them along. If you happen to drop by Metaswitch's booth, you'll know why I'm saying these things - otherwise, let's just punt this para and move on.

So, if you want to get into the details, go straight to the Accession website, and the easier-to-digest press release that ran this morning. There are lots of new acronyms in this tech-heavy announcement, but the standout for me is IMT - Immersive Multimedia Telephony. Ultimately, this is about delivering a mobile experience that is as close as possible to what we get on our PCs or video monitors in the conference room.

That's asking a lot, I know, but Metaswitch understands the pain points of carriers, and mobile operators have a distinct set of challenges. Mobility delivers so much more utility than most fixed environments, and wireless operators know they have to move on from simple voice to keep subscribers happy. End user expectations are so high now, and the smartphone explosion has put operators in perpetual catch-up mode to upgrade their networks and deliver the services that make these must-have devices so popular.

As such, Accession is all about enabling an IMT experience so carriers can stay relevant with their subscribers. At the end of the day, operators really just have two things that matter - a phone number to assign subscribers and their trust. That number can be incredibly valuable if you can wrap all these other services around it - much like designating your favorite website as your home page. Accession does this in many ways, and I'll just cite a few examples.

One is how their platform is RCS and IMS-based, meaning that the subscriber's phone number can seamlessly connect across various mobile networks, screens, and support the modes we're used to on the PC - messaging, IM, presence, video, etc. Nothing really new here, but Metaswitch is positioning this in a way that makes the phone number more valuable. They've had good success with Thrutu, which now has 28 options to make the in-call experience richer. This adds a lot of stickiness and value to what once was an ordinary phone call, and provides the caller with the aforementioned IMT experience.

Another way they do that is enabling the operator to centralize the storage of the subscriber's contacts. So, whenever you update your contacts, those changes are propagated to all your other devices associated with your mobile number. Now things get interesting with FMC-type handoffs from mobile device to desktop softphone - or even other mobile devices - smartphone to tablet. Related to that is what Metaswitch calls the "new twisted pair", the idea being to twin your mobile device with your softphone for any screen, anywhere communications - but with the mobile number being the driver.

These capabilities are really important, not just to play in the emerging world of LTE, but also to co-exist with the OTT interlopers who are siphoning away minutes and revenues like never before. Savvy operators need to find a way to partner with those who are really in demand with subscribers, but also to add their own value and participate in the new revenues that LTE will make possible. Again, this is where that phone number has value, since all the subscriber's data and history are attached to it. So long as operators use that data responsibly, trust will be retained. That's other key asset they have, and it makes all the difference for getting subscribers to adopt new services.

There is a lot more to consider there, but the main thing for operators is that Accession can provide all this now, without the need to invest in new/costly hardware. OTT is both a threat and opportunity, and Accession opens up new possibilities, not just for operators to keep their fingers in more revenue pies - both from subscribers and advertisers - but also in creating new business models built around private labelled offerings that could in fact be done in partnership with OTTs. With the right moves, mobile operators can get the best of both worlds here - theirs and what OTTs are getting - and on that front, Metaswitch has a good story to tell with Accession.

ShoreTel Conference Recap – Brilliantly Simple, Sort Of

ShoreTel is a company that’s definitely doing things right, and while I’ve only been following them closely for about three years, they’ve come a long way during that time. Having come from Cisco’s event last week, the market share lines are clearly drawn in the IP telephony space. In North America, Cisco and Avaya/Nortel hold about 75%, which doesn’t leave much for everyone else. The playing field has inevitably thinned out, and for anyone else to crack double digits in share, that would be a pretty big achievement.

As in any market with this type of structure, there is room for a few Tier 2 players that will collectively grab maybe 20%, and the remaining 5% will go to a fragmented field of Tier 3s who are barely hanging on, or have found a defensible niche. ShoreTel is clearly in the Tier 2 group, and the case can be made – and they had industry data to show it – that they are the top player in that stratum of the market. Sure, there’s a huge jump up to the Cisco/Avaya league, but Tier 2 is still a big space, and ShoreTel can do very well here without worrying too much about who’s above them or the multitude of Tier 3s down below.

Just like last year, it was easy to see the strong rapport that ShoreTel has with their partners, and that goes a long way to explaining their momentum. Being a public company, there were plenty of proof points to support this, and I tweeted several of them during the event (#shor11). In terms of my key takeaways, I’m going to focus on the messaging we heard, both in the keynotes as well as the various personal briefings and hallway banter.

I’ll start at the top, with CEO Peter Blackmore. He came across as a serious, credible leader, and presented a pretty sound vision for ShoreTel to make the most of their market opportunity. The unspoken message is to beat Cisco – where they have had their share of success – but the clearer message is to present a great offering that the market can understand and see value in. This is the root of their “brilliantly simple” tagline, and with all the complexity around making IP technology actually work, it resonates nicely with both customers and channel partners.

I’m not going to rehash the details, but he set the stage explaining the market drivers they’re trying to capitalize on. Mobility is the big one, and this was a strong theme during the event. Video was big too, but secondary to video. They’re a bit behind the curve on these fronts, so there’s a lot of hasty catching up going on here. However, we have to remember that a lot of businesses wouldn’t know what to do with a soup-to-nuts collaboration solution, so there’s a still a window here for ShoreTel.

Peter Blackmore stated an ambitious goal of reaching 20% market share from their current level of 9%, and that would really put them in the big leagues. A lot would have to go right, especially in moving up-market – and wrong for their competitors – and he identified building the right mix of channel partners as the key for doing this. There was a lot of talk around how they’re supporting their channels, especially in terms of having no conflict. This clearly is a pain point for channels with other vendors, and ShoreTel looks to have a good plan here.

I could go on and on about all the positives their executives shared with us (I need to be balanced and fair!), and taken at face value, it’s not hard to understand why they’re winning business and why their stock price has doubled. If you’re a fan, the strong financials make them poised for a good run, and possibly to make some acquisitions. If you’re a doubter, and still think about the old ShoreTel, you’ll point to their lack of profitability, and perhaps say they can’t scale enough for enterprise customers. You didn’t hear much about the latter at the conference, but given the history, these things can’t be ignored either. Overall, though, I like their chances.

So, what’s to worry about? Well, “brilliantly simple” can be a differentiator so long as you can deliver it. Clearly, ShoreTel has done this, but it’s largely been with voice and fairly basic deployments. On one hand, there’s a huge market around this, and their CEO noted that only half of the market has moved to IP. The opportunity is easy for businesses to understand - and for channel partners to sell/support. If that was the extent of the business, we could all go home happy.

As mentioned, mobility and video are just now being added to the mix, and while it’s early days still, these are much harder to keep simple. I have no doubt they will get all these pieces to work, but as we saw from various demos and briefings, there’s a ways to go still. Their acquisition of Agito gave them some FMC expertise, but mobility is not native to ShoreTel’s R&D DNA. When the bigger players talk about collaboration, conferencing, social media, mobile UC, SIP trunking, etc. it’s pretty clear what these look like and how they work. You don’t have the same sense of that yet with ShoreTel. For example, their Polycom videoconferencing endpoints only work with each other, and aren’t yet integrated with the desktop. That’s ok – they’ll get there, and I think they’re realistic about where they can compete successfully here.

I guess it all depends what you’re comparing this against. CEBP is not on the ShoreTel menu yet, but does it need to be? They know their market, and they know what their partners are willing/able to support. These capabilities are really not big drivers yet among their core customers, so they don’t have to be best-in-class here. The challenge comes in trying to make mobility and video as “brilliantly simple” as voice. I don’t think anyone has been able to do that yet, so if they can truly pull this off, they’ll really have something special.

I’m not alone in wondering how quickly all this will come together. If their roadmap takes too long, there’s a real danger of businesses finding ways to do what need to do with Lync, at which point ShoreTel doesn’t have much to offer beyond voice. Similarly, if mobility and/or video take things from simplicity to complexity, they’ll undermine their core business. That’s a tricky balance to strike, since they need to succeed with both channels and customers.

Now it’s easier to understand why they’re using a two-tier channel model, and why so much emphasis is being placed on expanding/enhancing their partner base. It’s no secret that data VARs are not created equally when it comes to voice – and vice versa. This is a different sales pitch, and it has to work for the channel as much as for the customer. ShoreTel certainly isn’t alone here, but they definitely have a lot riding on keeping things simple.

In short, I think ShoreTel has a strong hand, and the market is theirs to lose. They’re also late to virtualization, and that’s a dual-edged sword. If it happens too quickly, the core business is cannibalized, and the XaaS model is harder for channels to understand and monetize. On the other hand, if other vendors have better virtualized offerings, the business may go that way among customers who decide to go all-in.

On the upside, there’s a lot to like about ShoreTel – the little engine that could. This also came out in the closing keynote by Joe Theismann – yeah, the football guy. Boy, was he good. Motivational speakers are pretty predictable, but I thought his message worked really well. He talked about teamwork and the need for channels to work closely with ShoreTel to get the results. He had great analogies and stories from his playing days, and they apply very nicely to what the conference was all about. So, lots of positives to build on, and it’s pretty simple for me – if they can keep it simple, they just might get their 20% share – and if they do, Joe will no doubt double his fee to come back, but it will be worth every penny.

Mobile VoIP Webinar with GIPS, May 20

I'll be moderating a webinar on mobile VoIP in a couple of weeks, and I just got the URL for it. It's being sponsored by GIPS - Global IP Solutions - a company I've known for a long time and did some work for last year.

It's a pretty big topic, and the focus here will be on how HD voice supported by GIPS and a smartphone apps suite from Media5 (previously Mediatrix - Canadian!) can help carriers grow their mobile ARPU. It's a strong story, and I'm looking forward to the webinar. I hope you can join us, and you can get all the details and registration information here.

August Media Roundup

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

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

- "Smart Grid Consortium Ramps Up in New York"

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

Then, some citings for IP comms:

- "Trouble Ahead for Microsoft Reponse Point?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- "UC Experts Discuss Google Voice"

- "UC Experts Discuss Cloud Computing and UC"

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

- "Telecom 2.0: Guidelines for Service Provider Success"

iPod Touch - Bringing SIP to the Masses

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

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

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

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

Time Magazine's Top 10 Tech Failures - Vonage?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What to do with Skype?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flat Planet Brings VoIP to Mobility - and the IT Expo

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

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

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

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

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