Google + Gizmo5 = More Disruption

Voice continues to be a really interesting space, and while I was attending Cisco's Collaboration Summit this week, a couple of notable developments took place. On the topic of disruption, Cisco is doing its best to upset the apple cart and reinvent itself as a software company. During their summit, we got a steady diet of collaboration, video, cloud services and the new world of work, but never a word about routers. Anyhow, you can review my earlier posts this week for more about that.

Back to Google. I'm going to keep things short and steer you to a nice piece that ran in Wired on Wednesday. It sums up the Google/Gizmo5 story quite well, and give appropriate kudos to uberblogger Andy Abramson, who has been on the right side of deals like this for some time. Many of his clients have had successful exits, and he's been writing about Michael Robertson and his Gizmo venture for ages. Great to see Andy get his due in a publication like this.

More importantly, Google is methodically building on their earlier GrandCentral acquisition (another Andy thread here) to create a bona fide service in Google Voice that should be cause for to concern to anyone in the voice business. In some ways, this could be the first serious challenge to Skype, especially since Gizmo5 is totally SIP-based, and can connect to all the mainstream IM platforms, including Skype - and Skype can't do that. So, this has the potential to become a truly global any-to-any service, and if the quality is there, this can be a big deal.

I say so for two simple reasons. First, between GrandCentral and Gizmo5, Google has move to the head of the line without even spending $100 million. They've been accumulating fiber for years - not likely at great expense - and through the wonders of the Internet and an endless expanse of server farms, they can now compete against any carrier in any part of the world, all of whom are struggling to compete under the weight of complex, expensive communications networks.

Not only that - my second reason - but Google doesn't need to make money with voice - at least right away. Skype needs every penny it can get from subscribers since that's their only real revenue source. Google still makes most of its money from advertising, so they can run Google Voice without much regard for making money, which is a luxury no other operator can afford. Pretty interesting set of circumstances to say the least.

Anyhow, I have three posts to steer you to that cover the ground very nicely. First is the Wired piece I referred to earlier; second is Andy's post - which ran before Wired's story, and finally, Andy's post from today, which notes that the deal is now official. I'd say everyone connected to these posts is pretty happy today.

While I have you, Google/Gizmo5 isn't the only deal going on this week of note. These things always seem to happen while I'm away. A step or two away from the world of Google Voice/Google Talk is Jajah, a company I've followed and written about for a while. Sooner or later you know they'll be a target, and you may have picked up on this from TechCrunch. I don't have anything new to add, but this item doesn't surprise me in the least. They are another disruptor like Google, and following Ribbit's acquisition last year by BT, these companies are truly validating Web 2.0 as a platform for creating, hosting and providing all forms of communications services. This is not good news for incumbents.

Finally, let's not forget Logitech, who have made their second video acquisition of note. Following last year's pickup of SightSpeed, this week they announced their deal for LifeSize, valued at $405 million. This deal pales besides Cisco's dogged attempt for Tandberg, but together, all of this activity points to some serious consolidation coming in the video space. And this brings my post full circle to Cisco. For them, video is every bit as disruptive as voice is for Google, and when players of this size make moves all at the same time, you know big things are coming. It's made for a busy week, and I'm happy to end the week posting about it.

Cisco Collaboration Summit - Day 2

Tuesday was end-to-end Cisco, starting at 8, going through til 5 with a series of presentations around various aspects of collaboration and cloud services. It was a pretty intense day, and if there was one thing everyone could agree one, it was the overwhelming amount of information.

There was definitely a lot of interesting content here - a mix of demos, announcements and vision - but it's not the kind of thing you can distill into a sentence of two. To me, that's the strength and weakness of events like this. It's a strength in that having us all here is an efficient way to get all this information across - fair enough. However, it's also up to us to make sense of it all, and with so many new things to take in, everyone will have their own take on what Cisco is doing here.

Without a doubt, the word of the day around here is "collaboration", and it turns up in about every third sentence. Fair enough, and there's no doubt that the focus is on how people work together, and Cisco wants to be in the middle of all this. Until recently, most of Cisco's messaging has been around the network and convergence of various technologies. There's a definite shift now from convergence to collaboration, but as we're seeing across all the sessions, there are so many branches to this tree.

As hard as Cisco is trying to be the great enabler of collaboration, it's a very broad pallet, and these capabilities don't emerge overnight. They're about as far along as any company can possibly be, and as you get your head around the scope of all this, you have to wonder how willing and able enterprises are to run with Cisco. No doubt Cisco is getting its share of traction, but I think it's going to take some time for businesses to catch up with all this, especially since we heard very little about the ROI story.

I'll leave you with some photos and narrative to give you a sense of the topics we heard about yesterday. If there was one takeway to share it was their WebEx Mail announcment. I commented about this briefly in the last two photos below, but I'll also point you to an article that David Greenfield wrote yesterday on ZDNet about the news.

I should add that the genesis of this story very much embodied the spirit of collaboration we've been hearing so much about here. During the WebEx Mail demo yesterday, I was IM'g with David on Skype, and within an hour I had given him enough narrative and one of my photos for him to get an article written and posted. That's pretty much a real-time form of collaboration, and I'll bet he had the very first published article about this launch. Way to go, Dave!

I'll stop now, and leave you with some photos.

Demo with David Knight and the virtues for enterprises to use a blend of premise based and cloud based collaboration solutions


Charles Stucki and the rationale for Cisco's big push into video


Video demo where Charles talked about Tandberg and how Cisco can seamlessy interop with Tandberg, Polycom and Lifesize - all at the same time


Rick Emery, talking about what Jabber brings to Cisco



Laurent Philonenko demonstrating Cisco Unified Presence 8.0, and their advanced capabilities for working across various IM platforms


Murali Sitaram talking about ESS - Enterprise Social Software - and Show and Share, their new solution to enable video-based collaboration. Pretty neat stuff, including tagging video content and making it searchable, just as you would with text-based content.



Duncan Greatwood and the "evolution of email". This was the highlight for me, and we got a solid demo of their just-launched WebEx Mail service. For any heavy user of email, it wasn't hard to see how they've added intelligence, and made the user experience more powerful. It's especially attractive in that you never have to leave the email interface to do other things such as start a chat session, retrieve and review files, and access the personal profile and contact history of anyone in your log of messages.

Cisco Collaboration Summit - Day 1

Yesterday was the kickoff for Cisco's Collaboration Summit. Last year I attended virtually, and this was my first time going in person. As with other Cisco events, it's very well staged, and has the feel of a rock concert at times. Given that the focus is on collaboration and using all the multimedia tools to fullest effect, it all felt about right.

There was a lot of buildup around the slew of releases coming from Cisco now, and they made this clear repeatedly, so the basic message is that Cisco is up to some big things and jumping to new curves. That's not a new message from Cisco these days, and they shared a lot of vision with us about how they're taking collaboration and the cloud to new levels, and how this is going to change the way we work.

A lot of the discussion was around plumbing and architectures, and not being an IT guy, the technical revelations were not as interesting to me as the focus on what collaboration and the cloud means to the enterprise and the end user experience.

Things opened with an appropos reference to the fall of the Berlin Wall, which happened 20 years ago yesterday. Of course, Cisco is trying to do the same thing with their vision for collaboration. They view this as a $30 billion opportunity, and in short, their definition of collaboration is people + teams + information. Fair enough, but it's going to take the better part of 3 days to explain all this to us.

Even though yesterday's session was only 2 hours long, I wasn't alone in trying to get my head around the multitude of announcements and initiatives Cisco shared with us. Lots of talk, esp from John Chambers, about the need to have strength in two areas - the underlying technologies, as well as being supported by business processes that are driven by specific goals for the enterprise.

They spent a lot of times demonstrating this by Cisco's own example in terms of how they've done a lot of this themselves. John Chambers talked about the cultural changes Cisco has gone through, shifting from "command and control" to "teamwork and innovation". He backed this up talking about Cisco making 4 acquisitions in the past 45 days, which could only been possible by having all these collaboration capabilities in place. Am not sure if enterprise customers have taken these ideas totally to heart, but Cisco sure seems to have made the move, and it's hard to deny that they have a lot of agility for a company of its size and global reach.

Otherwise, lots of impressive demos and messaging about how "the new normal" is driven by collaboration, especially video. Most of the focus is about Webex and Telepresence, with a few references to IP phones (esp the new 9971 video-enabled phone). Remember routers? Not a word here. This is all about defining the new normal - helping IT cope with the endless treadmill that IP is putting us on - more info than ever before, more devices, more access, more security risks, more storage needs, more power/energy demands, fast time to market, etc. More, more, more.

If you can figure all this out, then Cisco has the answers. I can't sum this up with a simple explanation - that's why we're here for 3 days. So, conceptually, we all get it, and in Cisco's mind, the path is clear. With each passing session, it's getting clearer to the rest of us, so just bear with me another day or two.

Waiting to begin - setting the stage...





See that glow above his head? That's the JC halo - it follows him everywhere - he's so good getting his message across...



Nice demo here, with a video image on the right for Telepresence, and the same image on the left on Cisco's new IP phone.

Telio - Still Going Strong

Telio is far from a household name in North America, but if you follow the residential VoIP market - or VoIP in general - they should be on your radar. I've been following them for years, and if this is news, here's what you need to know. They went public about the same time as Vonage, but let's just say the companies have gone in different directions. You can get a taste of this from my earlier posts, such as this one. Since this comparison post from 2006, the song has basically remained the same, and Telio keeps making money.

So, who is Telio? Well, if you do a Google search, you'll discover this is a Canadian fabric company whose website is under construction. Ok, well, let's try Bing. This search turns up a popular Greek restaurant on the the Upper West Side of NYC. Hmm - we're getting colder, not warmer.

If you dig a bit deeper, you'll eventually discover Telio Holding ASA, and that's where your search ends. A profitable VoIP operator based in Norway - who knew?

It's an old story for me, and you'll have to look at my older posts to get filled in, but basically Telio has got the right business model for OTT - over the top - VoIP, and with every passing quarter of profitability, they're proving that it can be done. And for what it's worth, they have some cool looking phones now and have made a strong push into video. I couldn't help noticing their latest phones on display at BroadSoft Connections last week.

I'm posting about them now as they announced their Q3 results a few days ago, and I'm determined to share this before the week is out. The results are not spectacular, and that's exactly what I like about this. They don't need an amazing quarter to get your attention and make you believe the worst is over. There never was any of this - they just continue posting steady growth - isn't that better?

In this economy, I'll take those numbers any day. Revenues are up, profits are up, the customer base is growing, and new markets are becoming established. They also mention making Deloitte's Top 50 Technology list for 2009. That listing hasn't been publicly announced yet, and I can't find it on the website, but I've followed Deloitte's industry lists for a while, and this wouldn't surprise me at all.

Vonage is still with us, but they're not so much in the public eye any more, and they're still struggling to find a niche for long term survival. The market has changed so much since their debut, and I'm not sure if that time will ever come. Telio, on the other hand, has stuck to its plan from the beginning, and they continue to execute with ongoing innovation, nominal marketing spend and a focused value proposition.

Perhaps most important is their ability to enter new geographic markets and grow their footprint. While markets like Holland and Denmark are pretty small, Telio has proven they can replicate their domestic model elsewhere. Just you wait - it's only a matter of time until they set their sights on bigger markets, and if they can scale successfully, Telio will be a company you'll have to follow, not want to follow. Just remember where you heard it first.

Next Stop - San Fran - Cisco Collaboration Summit

It's been a busy few weeks travel-wise, and my last stop is finally coming up. Next week, I'll be in San Francisco, attending Cisco's 2009 Collaboration Summit.

Not much more to say, but I feel lucky to be part of this group, and collaboration is definitely of interest to me these days. Cisco has been active in this space all year, even if you put the Tandberg story aside. Am sure that will be one of the topics of discussion, but I'm particularly interested in how they'll be going to market with scaled down collaboration solutions that will have broader market appeal. As I saw on my Telepresence panel at Supercomm last month, Cisco is doing just fine there, but not everyone needs or wants full scale TP.

Anyhow, I rarely get to San Francisco, so this will be nice stop. I'm there Monday through Wednesday, and if things go to plan, I'll be done traveling for 2009. Time will tell.

October Media Roundup

Not a lot to report for media coverage last month, but for good reason. October was my busiest month travel-wise in ages, plus I had two new projects underway that kept me pretty focused. Plus, planning for the next Smart Grid Summit is in full swing. For regular readers, you'll know that this is becoming an important focus for me, and I'm regularly posting content to our Smart Grid portal, but not normally citing any of that here.

With that said, here's where I turned up otherwise last month. First, a mainstream business citing:

- Business Week - "Vonage: Smartphone Apps for International Calls"

Next, I was interviewed by GreenerIT.ca about Smart Grid. Ok, yes it's Smart Grid, but I'm not usually the subject of an interview...

- "Smart Grid in an ICT Eye"

For TMCnet, my regular Service Provider Views columns:

"Why Skype is Good News for Service Providers, Part 2"

"Service Providers: Be Careful What You Wish For"

Finally, I was quoted in a press release from Phone.com, a company I've been close to since inception. Long time industry colleague Ari Rabban is their CEO, and he's really moving this company ahead. They just keep adding features, and in time, I really think they're going to validate the web-based hosted model for SOHO and home communications.

If you haven't checked them out, you should. It's pretty hard to get more for your money, and they really get it when it comes to innovation and constantly building on their value proposition. Ok - commericial over - here's the press release. I should add that Jeff Pulver was cited in this release as well, as it fits his current focus on HD voice. Nice to see Jeff turning up again in these circles!

"Phone.com Launches First Hosted HD Voice Phone Network"

Reminder - Media Gateway 2.0 Webinar Tomorrow

Just a last call for tomorrow's webinar I'm doing with TelcoBridges. Basically, I've completed a White Paper for them on what I can Media Gateway 2.0, and we're sharing the highlights on the call.

There's still time to register, so join us if you're interested. All the pertinent details are outlined in my earlier blog post, so I'll steer you there for next steps.

BroadSoft Connections - Recap on Microsoft's Blog

Just when you thought I was done with BroadSoft Connections! Wait - there's more, but with a twist. Microsoft's Communications Sector recently started a blog called Behind 3 Screens - referring of course to the three screens they're trying to serve in our digital world - PC, TV and mobile.

Anyhow, they've been on me for a while to submit a guest post, and this is my first one for their blog. If you follow my blog and/or BroadSoft, you'll know they're working closely with MSFT, especially for hosted UC. As such, they were keen to hear my thoughts about Connections, and I prepared an exclusive recap post for their blog, which is running today.


So, if you haven't quite got Connections out of your system, I welcome you to read my post there, and I'm sure MSFT would love for you to leave a comment or two behind. Even Microsoft likes to hear words of encouragement from time to time! Me too...

Smart Grid Portal Traffic - On Track for 1 Million Views

The October traffic stats for the Smart Grid portal are out now, and the trend remains very strong. October page views were just under 600,000, and unique visits were almost 200,000. Based on the growth to date, we're on track from 1 million page views and 400,000 unique visits by year end. Not bad for a venture that just started in July. This is a hot market for sure, and we're doing our best to be in the middle of it, and ultimately put on a successful event in January.

For more detail, I wrote a short article about the news today for the portal, and TMC issued a press release earlier as well.

Media Gateway 2.0 - TelcoBridges Webinar, November 4

Just a heads-up about a webinar I'm presenting on next week.

I just finished a White Paper for TelcoBridges, an up-and-coming Canadian media gateway vendor. They've actually been at this for a long time, and are finally gaining some nice traction and industry recognition.

The focus of the webinar is on the evolution of media gateways from 1.0 to 2.0, as well what TelcoBridges brings to the market in terms of their intelligent media gateway product portfolio.

We're doing the webinar at two times next Wednesday - November 4 - at noon for the North American market, and again at 9pm for Asia. The press release is out now with more detail, and if just want to register now, here's the link. Hope you'll join us!

BroadSoft Connections - More Day 2

Am not quite done yet posting about Connections. I wanted to share a few more highlights from the Solutions Showcase. Aside from having 60 exhibitors, BroadSoft had pavilions of their own, and this year they had dedicated showcases for their various UC solutions as well as their home-based solutions. Aside from that, they had some nice demo setups for specific aspects of the BroadWorks platform and the Xtended Marketplace, which just launched.

For me, Marketplace is the coolest step forward from what was on display. It's exactly like the Apple apps store, but for BroadSoft customers. Most of the apps are for business use, like SpinVox or Salesforce, and it's pretty easy to see how this can be a great value-add for carriers to generate new revenues that make their customers more productive. There are a few consumer-type apps there as well, but I suspect this area will take a bit longer to develop. Anyhow, BroadSoft claims to have 2,000 developers in their Xtended ecosystem, and I have no doubt we're going to see some great apps coming in 2010 that will really help re-define what communications services can be in the world of 2.0. It's great way for BroadSoft to differentiate themselves as a solutions partner, and it's equally true for what this brings to service providers who are ready to get beyond TDM and even basic VoIP.

Finally, I'd be remiss to say nothing about the after party Tuesday night. It was every bit as fun as the House of Blues parties at Supercomm two weeks back, and I'm lucky enough to have been at both. BroadSoft has an in-house jam band of their own, and I had no idea Alex Doyle loves to rock. They sure were fun, and if the stars line up right, you just might see me up on stage with them at the next Connections. I'd better keep practising.

BroadSoft Connections - Day 2 - The Appys

Well, it didn't take long for the buzz around apps to reach iconic status, but BroadSoft has taken things to a whole... otha... lay-vel. Yes, yesterday we saw the Appys - their Academy Awards of sorts for the best apps from their ever-expanding community of Xtended developers.

I'll have more on this later, but wanted to post some photos before boarding my flight home...

Yes, they even had the red carpet out...


Shirish and the two Alexes kicking things off


Polycom's Mike Seto - their phones were quite prominent for the demos - gee, it looks like product placement is finding its way into our space now...


BlackBerry mobile integration with BroadWorks


All the way from New Zealand - Zazu - a neat way to integrate all your social media/messaging into one app


IBM's mashup portal with Broadworks. Between IBM and Microsoft, BroadSoft has the market nicely covered.

Service Providers - Be Careful What You Wish For

I was at Supercomm last week, and came away with some distinct impressions about the challenges facing carriers, especially mobile operators. I've summarized those thoughts in my latest Service Provider Views column on TMCnet.

I've titled the article "Be Careful What You Wish For", and it was posted today on TMCnet. I hope you read it, and would love to hear your thoughts.

BroadSoft - Day 1, Part 2 - Video Everywhere

The show goes on, and it's all good. Got a lot to talk about, but I only have the brainpower right now to post photos. This post has a single focus - video. Yesterday afternoon I walked through the Solutions Showcase, which had 60 exhibitors. That's a pretty nice group and shows the depth and diversity of BroadSoft's partner base.

The prevalance of video is what really jumped out for me - either as an interface for deskphones, or variations on HD video monitors. It's all very high quality and sure gives the handset a very 2.0 look and feel. My only question, though is utility. I don't know about you, but I have a PC screen next to my phones. These phones certainly do a lot, but I think it will take some getting used to when a much bigger PC screen is right nearby. Obviously, these vendors don't agree, and they all add some spice to support the BroadWorks platform, which is the reason we're all here.

More posts coming, but here's a sample of what I'm talking about...



Grandstream...



Telio's phones, made by LG/Nortel...


Lifesize...


Tandberg...


Snom...


Radvision...

BroadSoft Connections - Day 1

Finally getting a chance to post about BroadSoft Connections here in Scottsdale. Broadband service has been a bit problematic, let's just say. I'm convinced that the fancier the hotel, the worse the broadband experience is. And this is a pretty fancy hotel.

Enough whining. I'm now WAY behind on everything, so this is my first post from Day 1. I just have time to get some quick photos up, and will add commentary later. Got more photos coming too. Overall, I'll just say this event keeps getting both bigger and better, and the buzz here is as strong as you'll see at any industry event.

Voice and Vision - that's the theme for this year, and BroadSoft is breaking new ground in both spaces.



CEO Mike Tessler kicking things off. He cited some stats to illustrate their growth from last year, and it's pretty impressive given the tough economy.



Author Nicolas Carr - pretty interesting talk about why cloud services is gaining traction and what this means for the future of IT - and by extension communications services in a Web 2.0 world



Lunch - it's not like this back in Toronto...



Peter Radizeski's afternoon panel on SIP Trunking

Next Stop - BroadSoft Connections

Busy travel time for me right now. Am home tonight, then flying out early Sunday for BroadSoft Connections. It's in Scottsdale this year, and they always put on a great event. I'll be pretty busy out there, and will be posting regularly. It's cool, rainy and gray here in Chicago, so I'm looking forward to the change in scenery....

Supercomm Wrapup

Just a quick post to say that my walk-about day at Supercomm was pretty good. Lots of good meetings and briefings, although I can't say I saw anything really ground-breaking. Lots of big name exhibitors, but unless I missed something, I didn't see Cisco or Microsoft. I know the audience is service provider focused, and the legacy vendors were certainly there, even Nortel - although am not sure if I saw Alcatel Lucent.

Anyhow, if there was one takeaway of note for me, it was the strong presence of Asian companies, especially Huawei, Fujitsu, Samsung and Hitachi. Am sure there were others, and I did pass by a Korean pavilion a few times as well. A lot of talk here about how Huawei is making strides, and it's hard to ignore them given all the resources at their disposal. Enough for now - time to get to the airport.








Ibrahim Gedeon - Telus CTO, at a press/analyst reception they hosted at the end of the day

Supercomm - Night 1 - House of Blues

Following my Forrest Gump happenstance wrong turn into Gazastan, Chicago-style, I ended up at the House of Blues for a couple of Supercomm parties. Downstairs was sponsored by my Metaswitch (note the new spelling!), one of the companies I've been close to for a long time; and upstairs was sponsored by Adtran. I enjoyed both for different reasons, and it was great to see so many people out in one spot having such a good time. Haven't really enjoyed live music this much at an industry event since the VON days, and I'm sure many of you will would feel the same way. So, a big thanks to both Metaswitch and Adtran for hosting great parties and picking a great venue.




Downstairs - local blues band, who were pretty good, but I didn't catch their name. Here's what made this really fun for me. When I walked in, they were playing Five Long Years, a Chicago blues classic. Guess what - that was the same song we played at the Interactive Intelligence Battle of the Bands event a couple of weeks ago! How's that for good timing? I was part of an ad hoc band I dubbed the Dead Circuits, and with a tiny bit more rehearsal, we would have sounded just as good! What also made this moment fun was seeing the vocals on Five Long Years being done by Neil Holcomb of Metaswitch - second on the left.



The hostess with the mostess - Metaswitch's Elaine Perez...




Upstairs at Adtran's party - much bigger room and a much bigger band. This band was really great too, and they knew how get people on the dance floor. For those of you who can remember back to VON's heyday, you'll enjoy this post from one of Jeff's great House of Blues parties (when the show was called Globalcomm), featuring the-greatest-cover-band-on-the-planet, the Herding Cats.

Supercomm - Day 1/Life's Twists and Turns

I arrived earlier today for Supercomm and moderated a session on telepresence this afternoon. It was quite well attended, and our panel was in good hands with Lee Himbeault from Telus, Mark Weidick from Cisco and Phillipe Millet from Orange (and the i3 Forum). We were pleasantly surprised to find that only a handful of people in the audience had experienced telepresence, so we had lots to talk about.

Aside from that, I kept running into people all afternoon and didn't get a chance to see any sessions or walk the exhibit hall, but I'll do that tomorrow. Most of the impressions so far though, have been that the show is much smaller than the past. I'll just have to see for myself tomorrow, and will let you know.

Thought I'd share a quick slice of life from my trip back to the hotel. Sometimes things happen without rhyme or reason, but something interesting always seems to come from it. Inexplicably, I got on the wrong shuttle bus, but got dropped not that far from my hotel. As soon as I stepped off the bus at the front of the Hyatt Hotel, there was a pretty vocal anti-Israel demonstration with both sides separated by barricades and lots of police watching closely. The pro-Palestinians were far greater in number, and there were a handful of Israel supporters on the other side, which is where I quickly gravitated.

The ignorance, hostility, racism was really hard to watch, especially since most of the pro Palestinians looked American - and even more sinister seeing them wrapped in the Palestinian flag, wearing the black and white headscarfs, and carrying some pretty nasty placards. To give you a taste, this was typical of what they were chanting in unison, camp sing-along style: "Hey there Israel, what do you say? How many children did you kill today?" Ugh.

Y'know, I saw Inglorious Basterds with my 13 year old son recently, and came away feeling a bit uncomfortable, but still pretty good about the film. It's a perverse form of Jewish pride (but everything Tarrantino does is a bit perverse - that's another topic altogether), but after seeing this ugly display of brainwashed hate masquerading as some form of legitimate protest, I don't feel the least bit queasy.

I just felt bad that the pro-Israel side was so outnumbered, and I hope it ended peacefully. When I heard a white woman from their side scream "go back to Europe", I wasn't so sure, but the police presence was pretty strong. Wow.

Freedom of speech is what makes democracy special, and these people obviously have no idea how good they have it here. Just try to open your mouth in Gaza and see what happens. I'd better stop - I know protests like this happen all the time, but to see it up close like this kinda sticks with you and makes you wonder what makes people think like this. Anyhow, I've posted a few photos and you can draw your own conclusions.

I'll be back tomorrow with Day 2 of Supercomm.





I know I got on the wrong bus, but am I really still in Chicago???




"Olmert's A Whore" - nice t-shirt, buddy...



Not sure why there were so few supporting Israel, but I was glad to stand with them. Makes you wonder, though, when these Israel-bashers organize protests like this and basically nobody is listening, you'd think they'd wonder if maybe their message needs a re-think. I highly doubt it - hate trumps reason every time.




Let's end on a positive note. As big cities go, it doesn't get much better than Chicago, and the Wrigley Building is just so cool, especially lit up like this.

Why Skype For Business is Good for Carriers

In my last Service Provider Views column on TMCnet, I wrote about why I think Skype has a lot to offer carriers, and explored the idea of them trying to be a channel play to develop these partnerships. That column focused mainly on the mobility market, which plays well for both consumer and business subscribers.

I've followed that up with Part 2, this time focusing on the business market opportunity for Skype. This scenario is broader and offers more opportunities, and as Skype followers know, they've made some strong moves recently to make themselves more of a solution partner than a telephony adjunct. I think they have a lot to offer service providers, and if I've done my job, hopefully you'll reach the same conclusion. Have a read for yourself, and let me know what you think!