Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Jon Arnold has some very kind words about this blog, and iotum’s customer announcement yesterday.  Thanks, Jon!

Another big day for iotum at ITEXPO.  Today we announced our first partner.  We’re working with the folks at Epygi Technologies to integrate the iotum Relevance Engine with their Quadro line of IP PBX’s.  You can read the announcement here: iotum(tm) to support Epygi 3.1 Release.

I’m sitting in Carly Fiorina’s keynote at ITEXPO.  She’s speaking without slides, and she’s doing a great job of it.  Her theme at this point is that industries are merging and that customers are in charge.  It used to be that the regulator existed to protect customers from the service providers, but not anymore.

If the customer is really in charge, what does that mean?

Megatrends:

Every physical process and all analog content will become digital, mobile, virtual, personal.  The classic example is VoIP, but what about photography, music — all that goes on in entertainment.  Think about some hard problems — healthcare — digital, mobile, virtual, personal.  Access to care when they need it, where they need it, and how they need it.

It’s all about horizontal collaboration models.  Increasingly, in every industry, innovation occurs at the interfaces.  Vertical products, processes and industries are moving to horizontal collaboration models.  That’s where the real innovation occurs.  In the 20th century, decisions flowed up and down.  In the 21st century, decisions aren’t being made in vertical silos.  They’re being made across organizations.

The customer is in charge, because of all the choices. 

Globalization is another trend.  She feels that the US is behind because it’s so insular.  The US is a big enough market, that you can do business without ever leaving US shores.  However, every business is in some way dependent on products or processes outside the US, today.  The US needs to be better integrated with the rest of the world.

Let’s start with the premise that regulatory processes cannot keep pace with technology.  So, unless the job of the regulator is to slow the advancement of technology, you have to think very carefully about when you want regulatory processes to intervene. 

Regulators need to change their mindset from one of consumer protection to one of consumer enablement. 

Communications technologies are a key to competitiveness.  The regulators mindset needs to be one of enablement of consumers, enablement of industries.  The regulator needs to stop thinking nationally, and start thinking globally. 

Regulators need to think about the absolute minimum they need to do in order to enable, rather than protect. 

Carly Fiorina is an impressive speaker.  She manages to draw out the themes in her speech well, and tie them to large ideas like power, wealth, potential. 

Today’s a big day for iotum.  We’re announcing our first customer, a regional carrier named Unlimitel.  You can read all about it here:

VoIP ITSP Unlimitel and iotum to introduce iotum Relevance Engine ™ to Unlimitel Customers in Quebec and Ontario.

We expect to be commercially available in the first quarter of next year.

I’m at the Internet Telephony Expo, and listening to Brad Garlinghouse of Yahoo give his keynote.  I really wanted to hear this speech, because I missed him at VON. The session is sparsely attended.  I hope that’s not a harbinger for the rest of the show.

He begins by talking about two "pink elephants" - the MSN/Yahoo interoperability agreement, and whether VoIP will kill the telecom industry.

He compares the agreement between MSN and Yahoo to interoperate to Theodore Vail’s decision, 100 years ago, to drive interoperability between the telephone networks.  Moreover, as presence becomes integrated across all of your experiences, it becomes critical to have interoperability.  It’s the first time I’ve heard a VoIM vendor explicitly talk about themselves as the public presence cloud.

On the topic of "Industry Misperceptions" that VoIP will kill the phone business, he is backpedalling like mad.  There are still over a million rotary dial phones in use in the US.  These industries move slowly.  Rather he sees VoIP as a massive opportunity - to extend voice into other devices, to use internet calling as a base to build other businesses, to expand voice into many other businesses.

He explicitly compares the Web 1.0 / Web 2.0 transition to where VoIP is.  Skype is VoIP 1.0, Brad contends.  It isn’t the rich, converged experience that he feels is VoIP 2.0.  Lovely spin here.  He’s got a graph of Skype’s growth rat over the last 8 months, declining.  It’s a striking graph which makes it look like Skype’s growth has slowed.

So, how do we think about the birth of Voice 2.0?  It’s an omnipresent platform. Applications bridge the PSTN and IP Worlds.  Voice drives value for the entire ecosystem.  We have to bridge the IP and PSTN worlds to drive seamless experiences across the entire ecosystem.

The worlds of communications are colliding — the networks are colliding, the devices are colliding.  And now, where Yahoo is focused, the applications are colliding — IM, SMS, Email, voice, video.   There is an opportunity to simplify users experiences dramatically.

He also talks about "intelligent presence".  It’s about "where I am", "what I am doing".  We need intelligent networks that can learn from user behaviour.  That will be the driver that causes the emergence of voice 2.0.

One of the reasons that Brad believes Voice 2.0 will be successful is because, unlike the Voice 1.0 experience, it will not require a change in user behaviour. It will be seamless, and users won’t even know that convergence is occuring.

What are the new opportunities? 

1. Convergence: SBC and Yahoo are rolling out a new service.  More profound, the address book needs to converge.  YAWN.  I’ve been doing that for more than five years, synching my outlook and my mobile phone.
2. Personalize: ring tones exist on mobile phones.  What about your land line?
3. User Control: the advantage of the telecommunications revolution is that you are always connected.  Laughter.  He describes a scenario like the one that Iotum is building, with an intelligent agent capable of filtering and managing calls on your behalf.
4. Mobilize: making voice omnipresent across the network.

Yahoo does a lot of research.  The message they hear from customers is "communications should simplify my life".  

What is Yahoo doing?  "We’re clearly focused on how we can lead in a Voice 2.0 world."  They view Voice 1.0 as a necessary, but not sufficient framework to win.  Voice 2.0 is an integrated experience across networks, devices and applications; a personalized experienced.

The four walkaways:

1. Interop changes everything.  Broad industry interop
2. The PSTN is alive and well. 
3.  Voice 2.0 will be omnipresent.
4.  We have to deliver a consumer-centric approach.

 I understand Brad’s softpedal message.  The PSTN is going to evolve into a Voice 2.0 world… it has to, or it will fail.  His future is a compelling vision, which we believe in at Iotum.  I’m glad I got to see this.

Update: Here’s a link to Rich Tehrani’s post on Brad’s speech.