New Focus Guide - Enterprise Phone Systems

Been busy on a few fronts, and that cuts into blogging/tweeting time. Lots of writing lately, and one of those efforts is now published. I've been contributing various things to Focus.com for almost a year now, and I'm the co-author of their latest guide.

The Enterprise Phone Systems Expert's Guide was just published, and as the title implies, it's intended to help buyers make informed decisions here. It's a short guide by design, but is one of their most popular resources. To get your copy, you just need to register here, and then it's yours.

Mobile Unified Communications - Another Variation

My latest UCStrategies contribution is running now on the portal, and the focus is mobile UC.

This all started with a briefing I had recently with an Irish company called Openmind Networks. They have a pretty distinct offering built around messaging, and it got me to thinking this could serve as another flavor of UC. To find out more, please read the article, and if I've done my job, then you'll reach the same conclusion too.

Contact Center Analytics - Are We Doing Things Backwards?

My latest column is running now on Exony's website. This is a fairly new venture, and the overall focus is on the conatct center space, especially hosted operations. In this column I begin exploring analytics and whether existing approaches are focusing on the right things. It's running now on their site, and you can read it here, along with my earlier columns.

Rogers Launches New SMB WiFi Service

Interesting launch today from Rogers here in Toronto. You don't usually associate wireless business services with cable companies, but Rogers is no ordinary cable company. They've long been one of Canada's major cable operators, but they got in the mobile game very early, and are #1 up here. Cable is a regional business by nature, but wireless gives them a national footprint, and that's where things get interesting for SMBs. The business market has always been the last great frontier for cablecos, and if you can't get in the door with wireline data and voice, wireless is the next best thing. Rogers has always been on the front end of the curve, and today's news is more of the same.

So, the new service is called WiFi Calling for Business. Rogers may be a tech innovator, but they could use a bit more creativity with their branding. Am not a big fan of their TV spots either, but that's another conversation. Anyhow, the name says it all, so I'm pretty much done. Sort of.

You may be wondering why a mobile operator is offering WiFi for their business customers. It's no accident that the incumbent telcos were the very last ones to offer VoIP - why kill the golden goose of legacy telephony? Clearly, market dynamics are changing quickly, and all carriers know that all voice will eventually be some variation of VoIP running over a data network. Rogers is simply being proactive here, and making sure they keep as big a share of wallet as possible with their business customers - most of whom are SMBs.

Basically, the service allows subscribers to keep their mobile calls going when moving out of network coverage by automatically switching over to WiFi. It's a pretty handy service, especially since the UMA software is embedded in the smartphone, and subscribers don't need any downloads or upgrades - they just need to be on the Rogers network. Not only does it keep your calls live when going in and out of places like elevators, office towers and garages, but it lowers your telecom costs by routing LD calls over less expensive WiFi networks.

Of course Rogers wants to maximize wireless revenues and usage potential among subscribers, and this service will definitely help do that. More important in my mind is the bigger overall trend toward mobility, which is where so much of our communications usage is going. Rogers is simply making it easier for SMBs to do that, and for now, they're the only ones in Canada who can offer this service. Just like they had an early monopoly with the iPhone, Rogers is first to market here, and like you, I'll be keen to see what the takeup rate is.

If you want to know more about WiFi Calling for Business, I can show you - and tell you with two links:

- today's press release

- RedBoard Biz - their SMB community blog, featuring a post from Duane MacDonald, and a 3 minute video interview with me, conducted by Miranda MacDonald. I should add that RedBoard, the host of the RedBoard Biz blog was 1 year old the day we did this shoot, so a belated happy birthday!

Renewable Energy Report Launched!

Well, this has been a while in the making, but our renewable energy report was launched today. As you may know, I've been working with Zpryme Research in the smart grid space, and under my ICP Strategies moniker, we've co-produced this report. We think it offers a lot for anyone interested in renewable energy, and it's our intention to continue producing these joint reports.

I've been quite busy all day helping the get the word out, and it's taken until now to find time to blog about it. If you haven't seen anything about the report yet, I'll steer you to the press release, and you can take it from there.

Fonolo News

I've been quiet lately - but busy. Busy is good, but sometimes that means no blogging. Gotta make a living, and I'll have updates as things move along.

One item to quickly share - Fonolo had some nice news yesterday with Sirius Canada. Aside from my being an Adviser - gotta be transparent about these things - this is good news on a few fronts.

First, it's a Canadian story, which is always a good thing up here!

Second is the application itself - virtual queuing. It's a strange term, I know, but in contact center circles it's a big deal, and Fonolo has a new twist that makes a lot of sense. I've written about it before, and Fonolo is definitely on the right track for bringing the contact center into the Web world.

Third is more of a sentimental thing. I'm not a fan of satellite radio, but radio is my favorite medium, and I have early roots there. This is another topic, but despite all the head-spinning innovations we have in the communications space, I just think nothing beats radio for immediacy, authenticity and engagement.

Enough talking. If any of this is of interest, then it's time to move on and read the press release.

Backbone Magazine - 10 Years and Counting

From what I can tell, Backbone is Canada'a longest running magazine focused on technology, especially in terms of how we use in everyday life, both at work and home. Last night they hosted a 10th anniversary event here in downtown Toronto, and I was an invited guest. The event had a series of thought provoking presentations around cloud computing from the likes of author Jim Harris, Matt Stein of Primus, and two strong presenters from PWC - both about enterprise trends, as well as how they're deploying cloud-based productivity tools in their own practice.

For any publication to last 10 years these days, they must be doing something right. I'm occasionally cited in their articles, and follow it regularly, so I can tell you they provide a important voice for the Canadian tech landscape. My roots are in trade publishing, and I know how challenging this business is, especially in Canada where our small market makes it tough to achieve economies of scale for printing. So, hats off to Editor Peter Wolchak and his team for keeping print magazines alive, and filling an important need with consistently strong content.

Editor Peter Wolchak


Jim Harris


Matt Stein

Magor Communications - Making Collaboration Easier

Last week I got a briefing in advance of some news items that are going public this morning. The focus here is on Ottawa-based Magor Communications and their TeleCollaboration offerings. They've been in the market for one year now, and today's announcements are meant to show some critical mass and validation for their value proposition.

I think Magor has the right idea about using video to drive collaboration, and providing solutions that are as easy to use as making a phone call. They have a good story to tell, and I put my thoughts together about this for my latest analysis on the UCStrategies portal. The article is running now, and was posted just after the new releases were made public, so I'd like to think that UCStrategies has the scoop on Magor. You can read it here, and as always, your comments are welcome.

Building the Case for Hosted Contact Centers

The second installment of articles for my new blog feature is running now on Exony's website. I'm told that my first column was picked up by numerous visitors to their site, and as this series continues we hope this traffic will build nicely.

In this article, I touch on some drivers, issues and challenges faced by enterprises - and service providers - who are considering the hosted path for some or all of their contact center operations. There are many moving parts to integrate, so nothing about this is easy. However, the associated benefits can be pretty attractive, and this is my first look at the big picture here. I'll get more granular in future postings, but here's my current thinking, and I'd certainly like to hear yours.

UCStrategies - Our Take on ITExpo and Lotusphere

This week's UCStrategies podcast focused on two recent telecom events - TMC's ITExpo and IBM's Lotusphere. Both are important, long-running events that go well beyond telecom, and are relevant to the UCS audience. Some of us attended ITExpo, some attended Lotusphere, and David Michels attended both (that's ambitious!).

I was at ITExpo last week, but only saw it in passing, since I was running my smart grid event. However, I saw enough and have been to enough ITExpo's that I could add to the conversation. So, if you want to know the key takeaways from both events - esp from a UCS perspective - have a listen to our podcast.

It's running now on the UCS portal, and you can open the link here, as well as read the transcript. If you attended either event, by all means, share your thought with us!

Smart Grid Summit - Day 1 Highlights

I don't blog here much about smart grid, but wanted to follow up on the photos I posted yesterday. My first recap article is running now on the Smart Grid Portal, and I'll have another one coming tomorrow - stay tuned!

New Forum to Follow - Exony and Hosted Contact Centers

I've been shifting my workload a bit lately - let's just say I'm right-sizing and aligning myself with some new opportunities. One of those is with Exony, an up and coming vendor in the hosted contact center area. They're U.K.-based, but have strong traction with an impresssive client base - not just over there, but over here in Canada and the U.S. as well.

We've recently launched an initiative where I'll be producing an ongoing series of research and thought leadership articles about this space. These articles will be featured on their website in a section called The Jon Arnold Blog. Perhaps that title could use a bit of work, but you get the idea! Anyhow, my first article - "Redefining the Contact Center in 2011 -What's Your Plan?" - is posted there now, and I'm about to get busy with the next one. I hope you follow along, and would love to hear your thoughts.

Siemens OpenScape UC Suite 2011 - Making UC Work

I've been working with Siemens under the UCStrategies banner, and wrote an article about some recent deployments to showcase the diverse capabilities of their latest iteration of OpenScape.

The article was published late last week on UCStrategies.com, but with the smart grid summit last week, I wasn't able to get to this until now. So, if this is still news and you're interested in Siemens and/or Unified Communications, you should find this a good read.

Smart Grid Summit - Photo Highlights

I've been on vacation the past few days and wasn't planning to post these til tomorrow. However, there's a flight delay and with free WiFi, I've got a window here to share some photos. I'll have a recap article about the summit on the portal in the next day or so, but until then, here are a few photos...





Larry Karisny leading the opening panel on cybersecurity. Larry was a huge help, not just with his industry knowledege, but also for moderating and speaking on a few sessions.


Dr. Massoud Amin from U of Minnesota. The "father of the smart grid" did not disappoint - just wish the lighting was better for a picture!


Maureen Harris and Orjiakor Isiogu on the NARUC smart grid working group update


Joy Rychlik (also from Toronto), moderating the Green IT/Data Centers panels, along with Henry Bailey (SAP), Kyle McNamara (Verizon) and Charles O'Donnell (Liebert AC Power)


Ken Rowen's keynote about what PAETEC Energy is doing in this market


Sandra Manning, City of Tallahassee - very engaging, and great to have some local presence for the Florida market


Dr. Mo Shakouri (Alvarion) on the Rural Smart Grid Opportunity panel


SAP's Henry Bailey on the Electric Vehicle session - yes, they are very busy in this space!


Olivier Pauzet (Sierra Wireless) on the Public vs. Private Networks session, along moderator Larry Karisny, Andy Balaschak (Tropos) and Jeff Dygert (AT&T)

Five Best Practices for Hosted Services - M5 Shows the Way

My latest Focus Brief is running now on Focus.com. Last week, I attended M5's launch event around their Geckotech acquisition from last November. A number of things struck me there as best practices that help explain why M5 has been successful with hosted VoIP for SMBs. This business is harder to do than it looks, and my Brief shares some thoughts on what it takes for success. Comments are welcome!

Next Stop - Miami and the Smart Grid Summit

For a Northerner, it's pretty hard to beat Miami in February, and that's where I'll be the rest of this week. Seems like yesterday when we had our last Smart Grid Summit in Los Angeles. This time around, it's a much shorter time between events, and we have another strong program in place.

I've done enough talking about it on the Smart Grid Portal, so that's where you need to go to get the latest on the summit, which runs this Wednesday and Thursday.

The summit will keep me pretty busy, and aside from stealing some time to walk through the ITExpo show floor, you won't likely see me around that show, or any other of the sub-events running under TMC's big tent.

For now, there's just one exception I can tell you about, and that's on Tuesday night. Interactive Intelligence is hosting a special ITExpo event on cloud communications, and I'm one of the panelists. Should be fun, and I'm looking forward to wearing my telecom hat for a topic I really enjoy following.

UCStrategies Views on Social Media in the Enterprise

Things are quite skewed for me with the Smart Grid Summit a week away, plus a few new projects to pay the bills. Blogging and tweeting is sporadic at best, but am doing what I can.

Last week's UCStrategies podcast was on a topic we're all trying to figure out - managing social media in the workplace. We had lots of perspectives on this one, and you're free to join in. You can listen to the podcast here, as well as read the transcript, and share your own comments on the posting.

Tru - Making Mobility More Affordable

My latest Brief is running now on Focus.com. It's based on Truphone - a company I've followed for some time, and a briefing I had with them last week about how/why they recently re-branded themselves as Tru.

From the beginning, they've been disrupting the status quo in mobility, and under the Tru moniker, they're taking this to a new level. I welcome you to read this Brief to get my thoughts on why they're doing this and what Tru brings to make life easier for SMBs and international travelers.

Alteva's Video Auto Attendant - Feature or Application?

Been back in writing mode, and my January contribution to the UCStrategies portal is running now. The focus is on last week's announcement by Alteva about a new feature - video auto attendant. I've always liked their thinking about hosted services, and for companies that embrace video, there's a good opportunity here to add value. Not everyone uses video yet, but for those who do, the potential should be easy to recognize. This isn't really a big breakthrough, but Alteva has the right idea by bringing water to the horse. Sometimes you just have to show/tell people about an idea, and let them connect the dots.

You can read my thoughts about this here, but aside from that, I wonder - is video auto attendant a feature or an application? To me, a feature is fairly static, and first mover advantage lasts until competitors catch on and start doing the same. Features are great, but can be hard to monetize long term or sustain true competitive advantage. An application can add more value if its integrated with other systems or processes, and is more dynamic in the sense that it's constantly evolving.

I may be splitting hairs here, but I think applications make for a better business model. I'd say video auto attendant is a feature right now for Alteva, and if it doesn't evolve, it probably won't take them very far. However, as my article discusses, I think there are lots of innovation possibilities here, and this could be a great opportunity for Aleva to create some differentiation for themselves. We'll see!

SMB Communications Trends for 2011 - Webinar with Panasonic

I'm doing another Focus.com webinar next week. This time it's with Panasonic, and I'll be presenting on five communications trends that will impact SMBs in 2011. Just finishing that up today, and we'll be doing the webinar next week - Wednesday, January 19 at 1pm EST.

You read more about the webinar and how to register here. Hope you can join us!