ITExpo Session in Austin - Multichannel Communications and the Changing Customer Relationship

Been too busy to blog lately - offsite a bit, and working on new things, including some upcoming webinars you'll be hearing about soon.

Time for a shout-out about a session I'm moderating at TMC's ITExpo 2012 West, back for a second year in Austin, Texas. Am really looking forward to it, and on Thursday, I'll be wearing my moderating hat for a panel focused on the impact of multichannel communications, and how that's impacting the relationship between businesses and their customers. I've written a fair bit about this topic elsewhere, and given my focus on Unified Communications, I see a lot of implications, especially for companies who don't understand this new environment.

Joining me will be speakers from Aspect, Zuberance, Voice4Net and Radish Systems. Based on that lineup, you should just come for the names alone - anything goes these days for what companies call themselves. Our session is part of the Customer Experience track, and we're on at 1pm. The full details are posted here on the Program Guide - just scroll down to our time slot and click on the session title.

Oh - if you haven't registered yet, there's a discount code on my blog landing page - upper right - you can't miss it. Hope to see you there!

Snail Mail - Flawed, but it Works - Just Like TDM

Pretty busy writing and researching lately, but I just had to get this posted today.

Call me old school, but I still use the postal service - just like I still read newspapers, use a paper-based calendar, and listen to vinyl. I'm even still into silent movies, table hockey and board games, but let's save all that for another blog, or just come by for a visit.

Bear with me, foks, there is a telecom thread coming. I got a check in the mail yesterday from a client in California, and was kinda surprised to see the state of the envelope - see below - this is pretty much exactly how it looked.

As you can see, the envelope wasn't sealed, the flap was torn, and the letter was half-opened. It's a total mess, yet the letter got to me, and the check inside was perfectly fine. There was no damage, and anyone can see this was a check, yet nobody saw fit to take it and pretend to be me at their local Money Mart (and the check wasn't just a few hundred dollars, so it could have been a nice payday).

I've actually had stranger things happen with my mail, but generally, the service works fine for me. Sure, sending mail from the U.S. to Canada costs more and takes much longer, but it does get here. Email has its virtues, but regular mail still has value too. This letter travelled over 2,000 miles, and to arrive in my box in this shape tells me that the mail service works pretty well. Sure, I'm probably lucky too, but the bank took my check, and the end result was achieved.

The parallels to telecom struck me right away. Snail mail is like TDM - both are great for what they were designed for, but they're costly and complex services to provide, and are being replaced by cheaper, more efficient alternatives. I'll bet you'll have to think hard if I ask you whether it's been longer since you last mailed a letter, or made a legacy landline phone call.

With all that said, both services still function very well, but most people simply don't value them any more. We used to take the reliability of these services for granted, and when email crashes or VoIP sounds like you're under water, we just shrug and carry on. These shortcomings are part of the experience, but they never would have been tolerated with legacy services. Sure, there were lots of problems with mail service, but the rain or shine delivery promise of the U.S. mail is about as ingrained in the culture as apple pie. That reliability isn't what it used to be, but the mail comes 6 days a week (for now - but only 5 in Canada), and for those still using TDM, the service pretty much still has 100% uptime.

I've long maintained that the postal service is really in the privacy business. The mission is to deliver letters and parcels from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. Mail is private and personal - the seal on an envelope is a pretty flimsy form of security, and it only works because it's implicitly understood that you NEVER open someone else's mail. Postal workers don't do it (well, they're not supposed to!), and we don't even do it when we see other people's mail. For the most part, personal privacy is respected.

Yet, the letter in the photo above got to me just fine. I can't say whether anybody actually looked at the contents, but it arrived in the same condition it would have if the envelope was sealed. The idealist in me would say that the privacy principle was upheld here, and even with an unsealed, half-open letter, nothing was compromised when it easily could have - or maybe I'm just lucky!

Let's get back to telecom. In the TDM world, there's a dedicated circuit between the callers. For the most part, it's totally secure and private, the reliability is virtually 100%, and the quality is pristine. IP-based calls may be far more efficient in terms of using network resources, but all of these TDM virtues are somewhat compromised - that's why phone calls today are practically free. 

Now, think about my letter being a VoIP packet in a data network. I can't articulate the specific comparisons, but a packet with this much damage would never get to its intended destination. Or, if it did, it would be exposed to all kinds of security and privacy vulnerabilities along the way that any wannabe hacker could have a field day with. I'm just saying that the potential for bad things to happen here is very high, and it's part of the bargain when you move on from legacy to nextgen technologies.

So, while TDM and the postal share similar baggage, they still have their virtues. Their successors no doubt have their advantages, and there's really no turning back, but the price of progress can be higher than expected. There's no way that the equivalent of my letter in a data network would have gotten to me, and while this isn't an everyday occurrence, it's a reminder about why what we had worked so well for so long.

It's the same reason I still listen to vinyl. If you didn't grow up with it, you can't possibly understand what you're missing. As with VoIP and email, digital music definitely has its virtues, but even with a bit of homework, it won't take long to understand the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that vinyl is hands-down superior. Time to get back to work - if I have to explain this, then you really don't know, but I'd need a entirely separate blog to debate these things. Hmm....

Tablets at Work - Beyond BYOD

One of my many writing hats is a monthly column I started this year for TMCnet's flagship publication, Internet Telephony magazine. My column is called Rethinking Communications, and you can probably guess what I'm writing about from the title. Better yet, read 'em all, and if there's a topic you'd like me to explore, let me know. As Obama said last night, it's all about you - I'm here to serve, so your ideas are always welcome.

The September print edition is out now, and the digital version just went online yesterday, so if it's not in your mailbox, you can just click here to read it now. This month's focus is on BYOD and the broader implications for both IT and the business overall. It's a messy challenge for sure, but businesses have to embrace it unless you have no intention of ever giving up your rotary or touchtone phones. Going the other way, if you've adopted BYOD without skipping a beat, I'm sure a lot of readers here would love to know how you did it, so don't be shy.

ITExpo Shout-Out - Austin Calling

Last I checked, the ITExpo West 2012 website says the conference starts in 24 days and 23 hours. If you have absolutely nothing to do between now and then, feel free to stare at the home page non-stop to follow the countdown, right to the last second. Uh huh...

TMC's next show is just under a month away, so it's time to start talking it up. Last year marked their first shift from LA to Austin, and I'm not alone in thinking this was a good move. If you're still planning to go, it won't take long to find the link on my blog homepage, including a 20% discount offer. Otherwise, the ITExpo website should do the job of selling you on the event, both for the content and the exhibit hall.

I'll be there Wednesday through Friday, and will update my activities as things firm up. As things stand, I'm moderating a panel on the Customer Experience track - Thursday at 1pm - and speaking on a panel on Wednesday at SUITS, one of the co-located events at the Expo.

More details to follow, and you'll be hearing/seeing/reading about/from me in a few places leading up to the conference, so stay tuned. Until then, I sure hope you're coming, and hopefully the weather won't be as hot as last year. Regardless of the heat, I'll be making my rounds to the bars to see live blues at night - joiners are welcome!

UCStrategies podcast - Gartner UC Magic Quadrant

On this week's UCStrategies podcast, we discussed our views on the latest Magic Quadrant report from Gartner, which was focused on UC. Needless to say, we all have opinions on this, so it was a lively discussion, which was hosted by Marty Parker.

Not surprisingly, Cisco and Microsoft ranked highest on the grid, and each is there for different reasons. Avaya remains up high as well, but am not so sure they'll keep pace next time around. Siemens also fared well, and Mitel stood out again on the innovation spectrum, mainly based on their virtualization focus.

That should be enough to get you over the portal, where you can now listen to the podcast and/or read the transcript.Once there, you should also read Marty Parker's detailed analysis of the key findings, which is posted now on the portal.

Metaswitch Forum 2012 - Are You In?

Finally getting back into routine after Labor Day, both with project work and some new things you'll be hearing about soon. Been close to home for most of the summer, but industry events are popping up now for the Fall, so I'll be doing my share of travelling soon enough.

Next up is Metaswitch Forum, which is a bit less than a month from now, running from October 1-4. This has long been one of my favorite vendor events, and it gets better every year. The 2012 theme is "who's in ?", and you can read that a couple of ways. I'm in, but only the first two days, as I have to split time that week with the ITExpo - more on that in another post.

So, there's certainly the post-London Olympics vibe of competition, racing and winning, and this oh-so-British company is game to take on all comers - which they've been doing successfully for some time now. Their momentum continues to be strong, and the program for 2012 very much reflects that.

Did you see Bill Clinton's DNC address last night? Wow - pretty tough act for Obama to follow, but it makes me wonder if Steve Gleave didn't write some of his speech. So much of Clinton's messaging aligns with the Metaswitch theme this year, and being a Democrat, I couldn't help but think this way. We're all in this together, coming to the Forum to learn from each other, discover what the technologies can actually deliver, and how the company's roadmap is built around what their customers actually need.

Bill Clinton talked about cooperation, inclusion, collaborating, and shared values that make for a stronger nation and more equitable society. As a company, a lot of that actually comes mind with Metaswitch, but these ideas also very much apply to what they're empowering their customers to do. I think we're going to see a lot of this reflected in their value proposition and how they make their customers more competitive. Am not expecting a keynote from Barack Obama, but when it comes to sharing a vision, the leadership at Metaswitch does it as well as anybody. I'm in.

UC state of the market review - UCS podcast

Seems to be a good time to reflect on where the UC market is going these days, and if you follow us on the UCStrategies portal, you'll know we've done that a few different ways. I wrote a piece there the other day, and on this week's podcast, we explored things a little further, mainly through the lens of recent reports produced by UCStrategies experts.

This is not an easy market for anyone to understand, and while that's good for business at our end as analysts and consultants, we don't have all the answers either. UC remains a work in progress, making it challenging both for businesses to buy, and channels to sell. My view is that the vendors continue to innovate and enhance their UC offerings, but the value proposition remains ahead of what many businesses are able to manage right now. Of course there are loads of success stories out there, but UC has a ways to go before it becomes the lingua franca of business communications.

I'll leave it at that, and hope this tweaks your interest enough to hear what all of us at UCStrategies and our reports have to say about the current market - so, time to move on, go to the portal and give it a listen. This podcast was ably moderated by Marty Parker, and there's a transcript if you'd rather just read what was said.

New Smart Grid Report - Asian Energy Storage Market

Some of you know that I wear two hats as an analyst - primarily tech/telecom, but also in the smart grid space. I've been active with the latter for a few years as a thought leader, speaker, conference producer and market researcher. The parallels and overlap with telecom are too strong to pass up, and I'm constantly looking at ways to bring these worlds together.

One way I do that is through my association with Austin-based Zpryme Research. They produce best-in-class research on smart grid and cleantech, and I have worked with them on several studies. In May, I was added to their Advisory Board, which gives me a chance to help guide them in developing topics and strategic analysis that really helps move smart grid forward.

Zpryme has some big things planned for the Fall, and the first offering comes with their latest report, which was just published today. The report focuses on the Asian market opportunity for energy storage, and in my view, this is a major smart grid driver. As the report shows, Asia represents about 50% of the overall market for energy storage, so it's a pretty big indicator as to where things are going. As Executive Editor, I have incorporated my insights along with those of the research team and the Advisory Board, so there's a lot here behind the numbers.

If want to know why energy storage is such a big deal for smart grid and who the big players are, you'll get a lot out of this study. The report is the first in a new series just launched, and you can download it for free at Zpryme's site. All the details are here in the press release, along with some key findings and data points. If you get it, we'd love to hear your thoughts - that's a pretty good deal, right?

Is the UC market moving forward or backwards?

I don't really have the answer to this question, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you follow the UCStrategies portal, you'll know that we cover the ground pretty well, but the jury is still out for me. For this month's contribution, I've written about how UC remains a moving target, which must make it difficult for IT decision makers choosing a solution - and equally challenging for the channels.

Am pretty sure I'm not alone on this tangent, and if you're of the same mind, you should enjoy my post, which is running now on the portal. Even better - if you're not of the same mind, please speak up and share this with the rest of the class (can you tell it's almost Labor Day?). Healthy debate is always welcome here!

UCS Podcast - How Are UC Vendors Doing?

This week's UCStrategies podcast was based on a series of recent earnings reports by vendors in the UC space, with the most recent being ShoreTel. We started there, and moved on to the general state of things given the current struggles many vendors are having with their numbers.

No doubt, ShoreTel continues to post solid growth metrics, and they're certainly holding their own against the competition. It's also great to see that they're adding new customers - no doubt at the expense of others - so, they're doing a lot of things right. Overall, though, they're not making money - it sure beats losing money, but the bottom line performance isn't matching the top line, and that's always tough on a public company. Of course, the M5 acquisition will take some time to bear fruit, so let's hope that's reflected in the next update.

Looking more broadly, most of the discussion on the podcast was on the overall weakness of vendor performance. We know that Cisco was hurt because public sector spending is down, but we also touched on the impact of wider trends that are slowing down adoption of UC. The cloud is probably the biggest, and while ShoreTel has a good growth story to report there, the base is still pretty small. My take is that buyers are still uncertain about putting UC in the cloud, and equally important, channels still don't have the right business model to help them drive adoption with their customers.

There is a lot of uncertainty in this market, both for vendors and buyers, and that's the gist of what we talked about on the podcast, which was moderated very nicely by Blair Pleasant. I think you'll find this a good discussion, and it's available for listening now on the UCStrategies portal.

VoIP, Video and Collaboration - Andy Abramson's Take

Andy Abramson's VoIP Watch blog has long been one of the best out there, and we've been helping each other as long as I've been an analyst. He's got both wide and deep perspectives, and is as well connected as anyone I know in this space. You can - and should - also follow Andy on Twitter: @andyabramson.

The other day he pinged me about a news roundup post of his from the weekend which focuses on current VoIP, video and collaboration items worth following. It's a great recap, along with Andy's personal views on where things are going - and more often than not, he's right. The post may be a couple of days old, but it's still  very timely, and you really should give it a read. 

He's considering doing this on a more regular basis, and I think that's a great idea. After you read this, I'm sure you'll agree, and by all means, let him know - he'd love to hear from you. There's a lot going on in these rapidly converging spaces, and Andy has it covered pretty well.  If there's anything else you'd like to see covered this way, let both of us know, and maybe we can take this to another level.

Innovating with UC - Outcomes, Processes and Subscribers

I don't blog about everything I write, and my column on ADTRAN's UC blog is one example of that. I've been writing a regular series of posts there for some time, and I use it as a forum to explore various facets of UC from the IT perspective. I don't focus on the technical aspects, but there is no shortage of other factors that drive success deploying UC across an organization.

Most recently I've been writing about the role of innovation, and how IT can think differently about the needs of end users to encourage and accelerate adoption. End users don't think about UC as a solution, but they do use the applications on a daily basis. My view is that there are several ways take an innovative approach and get them thinking differently, not just about the value of UC, but also about how IT can be their best friend in helping them derive that value.

So, for a change, I'm doing a shout-out here to let you know I've been on this tangent for a while. My latest post is running now on their site, and it's about why outcomes are more important than processes for UC to have value. As a teaser, there's a nod there to Apple and a throwback reference to the early days of the PC. If you like my thinking, I hope you mine my older posts, leave a comment, and track what's coming next.

Quiet, but busy

I wish I could say blogging has been light because I'm on the beach, reading novels and getting back to playing piano, but it's not the case. Dang.

Just been busy, plain and simple. Quite consumed with one large project that will keep me going through early Fall, and finishing up a couple of white papers this week. Of course, this is the slow season for conferences, so travel has been light, but that will change soon enough. I've got several conferences in my calendar for the Fall, and am sure others will add to that after Labor Day.

I probably won't be blogging much for another week or so, and just wanted to pop my head up let readers know what's keeping me busy. Until then, I hope you're following my posts on the Adtran UC blog, my regular contributions on UCStrategies, my monthly column in IP Telephony magazine, and my occasional tweets. Back to work!

Vertical Communications - East Coast Analyst Day Recap, and a New Market Opp

Don't get too many trips where I fly to the U.S. for half a day, but that's what I did on Tuesday. In theory, it's very efficient - leave early, do your business and be home the same night. Sure makes for light packing, but just like when packets get dropped with VoIP, things happen - more on that later...

I'm seeing a common theme these days among second tier or lower vendors in this space, and what I heard at Vertical's event was no different. Analysts, of course, are in a different boat than customers or channels - we're influencers, not buyers. The Vertical team gave us a pretty good overview of their portfolio, which has 3 core offerings - Wave IP, MBX IP and SBX IP. In short, Wave is their future-forward UC offering, while MBX and SBX are hybrid key systems to get laggards started on the path to VoIP.

Vertical is a classic SMB play - their sweet spot is multi-site businesses, and the more the better. Their product line certainly covers the core needs of this market - it's very telecom-centric, with some collaboration capability. We didn't hear about video or social media, but they address needs that provide plenty of value for SMBs - IM, presence, mobility, soft phone, voice mail, conferencing, call recording and even some core contact center features. It really is an all-in-one solution, and on that basis, I can see the appeal for sure.

There's a  lot of legacy in their DNA - mainly from Comdial and Vodavi - so they have a solid solution to get businesses on the path to VoIP and UC. The messages here are different than what you hear from the Tier 1s when they talk about the enterprise market. I found it a clear reminder that a lot of the business world is still very much entrenched in legacy, so you have to dial things down to a level they can relate to. That's why I don't think it matters much that Vertical isn't talking about video or business process improvement - these aren't value drivers yet for SMBs. Actually, what SMBs really value is good value and simplicity, and that's what Vertical seems to be doing well. They talked a lot about their singular licensing model being a differentiator, and I can see that having appeal for SMBs when considering how to make all these applications work together.

As you know, I'm not a technical analyst, but based on the presentations and demos, it's fair to say that their technology does the job well enough. Actually, probably better than others, especially if you consider their large customer base, growth track record and portfolio of over 200 patents. Also, as their name implies, they  have a strong focus on vertical markets - especially retail, but others, such as education, medical, financial and government.

This takes me to the common theme mentioned earlier. I have no reason to doubt that Vertical's technology works fine and that they really understand how to help SMBs move along the TDM-IP migration path. The real challenge that all vendors serving SMBs face is marketing and sales. This is what really creates separation. Vertical understands the needs of SMBs perfectly well, but the big job is getting the market to see that. We heard plenty from COO Rick Dell about how hard they're working to build up the channels and to educate them on Vertical's value proposition. It's an endless job, of course, but it's the lifeblood of their business.

The SMB market is huge, and it sounds like Vertical has a good game plan here. My post here is one example of how engaging with the analyst community is part of that plan, so I'd say that's working pretty well. For me, the bottom line is that you have to bring the technology to the market - for most SMBs, their phones work just fine, but there's not a huge impetus to change. The market needs to be educated first, and you need to show them what's possible with VoIP and UC.  Based on Tuesday's event, Vertical knows how to do that, and if they stick to plan, they should continue to do well.

Oh - one more thing you should know that could bode well for them down the road. Vertical is privately-held, and Korea's LG is a major shareholder, as well as a development and distribution partner. I found that pretty interesting, and can't think of any parallels among Vertical's competitors. Clearly, this could open some avenues for global growth, and possible tie-ins for mobility offerings. Most of the aforementioned patents are Vertical's, but you can't rule out leveraging LG's R&D at some point, or even access to capital for expansion or acquisitions. Consolidation at this end of the vendor pool will no doubt happen at some point, and I'm sure that must be in Vertical's thinking.

As a quick coda, I mentioned this was supposed to be a tidy, one-day trip. Well, best intentions aside, the weather didn't cooperate, and I spent a lovely evening trying to sleep on the floor at the airport. My 6am flight the next day went off without a hitch, but Tuesday night was pretty chaotic. All I'll say is that there were many missed opportunities where the airline could have made this mess totally manageable with some simple communication. This isn't rocket science, but as a parting message to my hosts, the airline sector sure looks like a ripe vertical for the taking.

Next stop, Elizabeth, NJ - Vertical Communications

Been heads down working this week on projects, so not much time for blogging. Not traveling much lately, but I do have a short one early next week. Am not here on Monday, and Tuesday, I'll be attending the East Coast analyst event for Vertical Communications. They're doing some good things with hosted UC, and am looking forward to hearing more, especially their routes to market. Never been to Elizabeth, NJ, so my circle of travel will soon expand by a degree or two - whoo hoo!

New UC Report - Slacks, Jackets and Suits - Q&A with Blair Pleasant

Things have been busy in the UCStrategies camp, with the latest buzz being the release of a report produced by Blair Pleasant of COMMfusion, titled Unified Communications & Collaboration Market, 2011-2106.

I'm not alone in wanting to see some solid research quantifying the market opportunity as well as surveying the vast and ever-changing vendor landscape. Blair has done a great job with both, and to further explore what the research can tell us about the state of UC - or as Blair now says, UCC - we just did a lengthy Q&A, which I think you'll find of interest, especially if you want to know what slacks, jackets and suits have to do with UC!

The interview is running now on the UCStrategies site, and by means, please follow up with Blair with any questions of your own.

When Microsoft starts losing money... UCStrategies podcast

Sometimes the stars line up nicely, even when not by design, and that's certainly what happened this week with Microsoft and UCStrategies. This week's podcast topic was a review of how recent announcements and moves at MSFT following last week's WW Partner Conference here in Toronto would impact the UC space. There's lots to consider here, especially around Lync, Office 365, Surface and Skype implications. 


As usual, the podcast has a wide range of views, and while I didn't have any comments to add, I still want to socialize this here. We did this on Tuesday, which was 2 days ahead of Microsoft's quarterly results, and by now you would know this was their first money-losing quarter ever. EVER. I don't think any tech company has had a run like theirs, so this is a big deal, at least to me. With Google and Apple doing so well these days, MSFT can't afford any wrong moves, and they've had a few of those. Despite their dominance and resources, they're still on the outside looking in with mobility, and if they can't catch that wave, these other players will have little to fear as this trend continues.


I wrote earlier this week about RIM's challenges, and as big as they are here in Canada, they're pretty minor compared to what happens if Microsoft hits a wall and keeps losing money. Definitely a trend to follow closely, and to better understand what UC has to do with their fortunes, you really should check out our podcast, which was hosted by Jim Burton. It's running on the portal now, along with a transcript - and once you're done, poke around - there's lots more great content there.

Canada's Shrinking Tech Sector - Is Mitel #1 Now?

Some stories have a shelf life beyond 30 seconds, and this is one of them.

Those who follow me closely know that I don't chase news stories, and I'm rarely first out of the gate with happenings in this space. I'll never become beholden to the reflex-like urge to tweet about life as-it-happens - am way too old for that, and nobody cares two seconds later. Journalists and bloggers thrive on being the first know and first to show, but analysts are a different lot. There's very little value in that for my line of work. Our role is to be objective and reflective, and our value comes from describing and explaining. Enough about that - here's an example of what I mean.

I'm one of those old school types who still reads the paper every day, but some stories don't get read right away. Our leading national paper, the Globe and Mail had a nice piece from earlier this month about the demise of Canada's tech sector, largely hinging around RIM's struggles, which are in the news every day up here. For a while now, RIM has owned the mantle inherited from Nortel as Canada's pride and joy in tech, and while there are many flavors of tech, this run has been great for telecom analysts, as we've been spoiled with visionary leaders for about 15 years now.

I know I'm dating myself, but this is a bit like watching Jean Beliveau hand the reins over to Guy Lafleur in 1971 - he left the Habs in good hands and fans could rest assured Les Glorieux would continue their legacy (which of course they did, but being a Bruins fan, let's move on). Yeah, I'm a huge hockey fan, and sorry Leafs fans, but I can't think of anything remotely close to that, and frankly, I can't think of too many really solid comparisons in hockey since that time. Anyhow, we're talking about Canadian success stories here, and I'm sure you get the point!

Well, by all accounts our telecom run in Canada looks to be ending, and we see evidence of that every day. Until the iPad and Android came along, RIM owned this market, and there was no credible alternative for business users. We all know what's happened since, and it astounds me how every vendor has the same roadmap for mobile integration with UC and VoIP. They all have the same plan - support Apple first and then Android.

End of discussion -- but oh, did someone at the back mention RIM? Well, we're not sure yet and might support it next fiscal year, but it's not in the immediate plan - no one is asking for it and we can't find many developers. By the way, someone left their BlackBerry out at the registration desk - here it is. Oh - nobody's coming up to get it - hmm. Well, I'll just leave it here and you can claim it later after everyone has left.

You think I'm making this stuff up? Sad but true.

Let's move on to the bigger picture. Iain Marlow and Sean Silcoff have done a nice job in this article examining why Canada can't grow our tech companies beyond being mid-size as well as having sustainable success in the global market. Being American but  having lived in Canada most of my life, I have a pretty good handle on why that is, and I couldn't agree more with what Iain and Sean are getting at. Culture has a lot to do with it, not just within Canada, but also the way others view us - and both are problems. Like a lot of other industries (banking and resources aside), Canada does a great job of creating tons of small, successful businesses, but scale isn't our strong suit.

Both RIM and Nortel sure broke the mold, but they got too close to sun and now we have to wonder what's left and what does the future hold? The biggest surprise for me was how the article cited Canada's strongest current success story in tech - SXC Health Solutions. Huh? Well, the numbers are there, but I'm sure you've never heard of them either. We're conditioned to think of tech leaders up here as being in telecom, since that's the been norm since Nortel got hot, but clearly tech encompasses many things. Of much greater interest is the fact that this company was initially based near Toronto, but as the article explains, their path to big time growth came from essentially moving the core business to Chicago. In this case, the grass is definitely greener on the other side.

Anyhow, just read the article please. You'll get a better understanding as to why it's so hard to raise capital here, get attention from outside of Canada, and how the loss of big players like RIM takes away the anchor needed to nurture the supply chain and developer ecosystem so important to long term growth.

On the financial side, the article clearly shows how our startups sell out too soon, and hardly ever build up to the billion dollar paydays that Yammer is so typical of. As a result, the article also points out that tech companies now only make up 1.6% of the TSX's valuation (and this doesn't include SXC, since it is rightly categorized as a healthcare stock) - a far cry from 2000, when the metric was 41%. Wow.

This brings me to the final item - the one that should matter most if you believe RIM's best days are in the past - who is #1 now in telecom? I doubt anybody was thinking about this a year ago, but if you care about Canada's tech space, it's a valid question. Pretty much all the companies cited in the article are pure software companies or component makers, and they provide a nice update on once-hot players like JDS Uniphase, ATI, Cognos, Descartes and Corel. They also mention Mitel, and this is really the only one of the bunch I would consider telecom-related; and in my books, they would be the successor to RIM. I've been of this mindset for some time now, and here's my take on what this means from a post back in March.

Is that a good thing, and what does this say about Canadian telecom? It's great for Mitel, presuming they can keep up the good work, and based on what I saw at their Business Partner Conference last month, they seem to be on the right track. They recently listed on the TSX (MNW - also MITL on Nasdaq), so if they can boost that 1.6% share of index valuation, it's a very good thing. What do you think?

Avaya Office 8.1 Release - Cloud for SMBs

Today, Avaya announced a major update with Office 8.1, with a particular emphasis on giving SMBs more options and flexibility. I don't think anybody is really driving the IP communications bus these days, but in 2012 all the major vendors seem to be the same path with UC, cloud, mobility/tablets and BYOD. Clearly, the days of owning customers with proprietary PBX systems are over, and these vendors have pretty much now shifted entirely to offering software and services. We all know how businesses benefit by reducing Capex and funding UC out of Opex, and that puts a lot of pressure on vendors to be more price-competitive and innovative in terms of meeting today's moving target of end user needs.

Along those lines, I participated in Avaya's Office 8.1 brief last week, and now the word is out. There's a lot of news here, and beyond today's press release, I'm not going to get into the details - you're just a click or two away from finding that on the news sites. On the whole, I think Avaya has done a great job, both for customers and channels. Of course with such a huge installed base - 7.5 million users globally - they have a lot to defend, and that's what 8.1 is designed to do. For SMBs, they've added scalability, giving IP Office a big swath from 10 users, right up to 1,000, at which point the mid-market overlaps with Aura. That's fine, at least they have all the bases covered with a complete UC solution.

As with many other vendors, there's a cloud version - Avaya Live - really an entry-level offering to complement the premise-based IP Office offering. Keeping pace with the market, IP Office serves multiple endpoints - PC, mobile and IP phones, along with an iPad-compatible Flare experience. They outlined a nice roadmap into 2013, including video interop/support for their Radvision acquisition, Lync integration, virtualization support, enhanced contact center capabilities and fuller integration of Flare with other environments.

The only thing missing for me was social media, which I don't think got mentioned at all. Considering all the recent buzz with Cisco rebranding Quad and Microsoft acquiring Yammer, I thought there would be something, if only just on the 2013 roadmap. Nada.

I also found it interesting that desk phones were almost entirely absent from the discussion about 8.1. Again, I don't think they were cited at all during the briefing, and there's no mention of them in today's press release. Just shows you how much the market has shifted, that even Avaya (don't forget Nortel) doesn't talk about phones any more. My main concern is with 8.1 focused heavily on SMBs, this customer set is still pretty telecom-centric. I raised this point during the Q&A, and it was taken in stride, so hopefully they've read the tea leaves well enough to make 8.1 attractive to both channel partners and SMBs. Time will tell, but the bigger picture shows a strong update that should keep Avaya at the front end of the UC market unless social media disrupts everything, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Enterprise Social Software Trends - UCStrategies Podcast

Busy week here on many fronts. This week's UCStrategies podcast built on two news items for major players - Microsoft acquiring Yammer, and Cisco rebranding its Quad platform. Both play into the ever expanding/confusing zone where social media and business communications intersect, and within the UCS group, Blair Pleasant has had a strong focus here.

Blair did a great job putting this podcast together, and we did our best to elevate the conversation above the din of social media, and into the more sophisticated realm of "enterprise social software". When the business world comes up with its own language to describe something we're already using, you know there's money to be made and empires to be lost. That's exactly what's driving the news from Cisco and MSFT, and we came at the topic from our usual wide range of perspectives.

We had a very lively discussion, and if you're wondering whether social media will have a legit home in the world of UC, this is what you should do after reading my post. The podcast - and transcript - was just posted to the UCS site, so click here to give it a listen and/or read, and by all means, join the conversation. After all, we're talking about social media here!