Alec Saunders SquawkBox

This morning’s Squawk Box was ably hosted by Dan York. Sitting in for me (I was on an airplane), he took on the twin topics of the carriers rumored attempts to create a Skype competitor, and the launch of Clearwire as the US Cable companies, Google and Intel step to the plate to try to save WiMAX.

On the call: Dan York, Jim Courtney, Ken Camp, James Body, Mark Hewitt, Dave Brown, Todd Spraggins, Jeanette Fisher, Ragui Kamel, Ian Hood, Bill Volk, and Mike Pruyn.

Thank you, Dan, for hosting it. From the listen I’ve had while editing it sounds as if it was a great session.

 

 Squawk Box May 8 [31:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This morning we had the Ribbit team on the call. Ribbit continues to be one of the more interesting voice plays in the market, as they have figured out how to build out the application platform and revenue model that allows ordinary developers (web developers, not IMS geeks!) to be able to successfully incorporate voice into their web applications.

Ted and Greg walked us through the Ribbit for Salesforce application, as well as the overall Ribbit strategy, and we had some good and very intriguing questions from the likes of Dan York and Martyn Davies.

Enjoy the podcast! Tomorrow I won’t be on the call, because I’ll be on a flight, but Dan York will lead a discussion on 2 recent developments… the recent speculation that carriers may be trying to build a Skype competitor, and the new Wimax investments by McCaw and company.

 

 Squawk Box May 7 [35:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ribbit for Salesforce debuted today. First demonstrated at the company’s launch last December, Ribbit for Salesforce has been in beta since, at 70 businesses. It’s now available to all US customers of salesforce.com, via the salesforce.com AppExchange. Prices start at $25/month with a 30 day free trial.

The product looks very good, including the ability to dictate, transcribe and automate various sales processes. For instance, with Ribbit for Salesforce, sales people could dictate meeting notes from the car, making productive use of transit time between meetings. For that reason alone, it deserves a look.

The vision story is a little loftier. Ribbit says they’re creating a new category of applications, called voice automation, with this release. The idea is that mobile voice services will become triggers for business processes, not just in CRM, but in many other kinds of applications .

As part of today’s announcement, Ribbit introduced a new technology — “voice automation” — a new category of services designed to increase productivity by automating and integrating voice into the workflow of mission-critical applications. Ribbit for Salesforce is the first of many innovative services expected in this new category.

I had a chance to speak with Ribbit CEO Ted Griggs, VP Marketing Don Thorson, and Salesforce for Ribbit product manager Greg Goldfarb. Enjoy this short interview, and join us Wednesday at 11 on the SquawkBox for a more in depth discussion of voice automation and Ribbit for Salesforce.

 

 Ribbit for Salesforce debuts [19:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yahoo and Microsoft’s dead deal. How could we not think of discussing it? And so we did. We discussed the possibility of shareholder lawsuits, the price of the shares, morale at both companies, and whether or not the executives involved should keep their jobs.

We also heard from Jim Courtney about the ground breaking announcement that Rogers will be the first North American carrier to offer the Nokia N-95, and chatted about how Canadian consumers can take advantage of Rogers’ plans. And we had a good discussion about how public WiFi is being under-resourced due to low capacity back haul.

And yes, although the recording says SquawkBox for May 8th… it actually is May 5th.

On the call: Jim Courtney, Andy Abramson, Ken Camp, Dave Brown, Brad Jones, Ragui Kamel, Adam Somer, Ian Hood, Bill Volk, Mike Pruyn, and Sheryl Breuker.

Enjoy!

 

 Squawk Box May 5 [41:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Friday’s always a slow news day, and today was no exception. However, there was one notable story that we discussed on the SquawkBox this morning, and that was the latest VoIP and 911 tragedy. This time a toddler died in Calgary after the family moved, taking their VoIP ATA with them, but failing to update the emergency services address. Some will view this as a matter of personal responsibility, but I don’t subscribe to that logic. Networks do keep track of devices that unattach and reattach elsewhere — DHCP addresses have to be given out, PPOE sessions have to be initiated and so on. Moreover, service providers know the addresses of the people they send their bills to. It’s clear that if there was the will to create a solution, then one would be created. The tragedy is that each time this happens, as Aswath Rao commented on the LiveWall during our call, we all wring our hands, but nothing is done to address the issue.

It’s time something is done. We will return to this issue on the SquawkBox. For now, the best recommendation is to call 911 from a cellular phone, rather than a landline in circumstances where you don’t know for certain whether the land line is a voice over IP line. UPDATE: See David Beckemeyer’s comment below about the speed with which cellular 911 responds.  His recommendation is to call the local emergency services — police, fire, etc.

Some of the other stories we discussed:

Adobe making Flash and Flash Light free to mobile device vendors. If true, this could totally change the dynamic for mobile application development.

Microsoft and Yahoo! Ballmer says Yahoo! is a nice to have, not a need to have. So Yahoo is an accessory like cufflinks or earrings? This evening it appears that the companies are at the table and talking.

The reports that Xobni walked away from being acquired by Microsoft. They were worried about becoming just another Outlook feature, and have grander ambitions.

 

 Squawk Box May 2 [27:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download