In this Issue:
- People on the Move:
Jonathan Fram left Net2Phone and joined eVoice as CEO.
Michael Laginski left Lotus and joined Meetu.com as President and CEO.
Paul White joined Deltathree as CFO.
Fred Ledbetter left Global Telesystems Group to join Czesky Telecom as CEO of the Internet Group and General Manager, Value Added Services Group.
Eric Zimmerer left ipVerse to join LongBoard as Executive Director of Business Development.
Katie Meitzler left GRIC and joined LongBoard to head their Marcom efforts.
Mike Katz formally Vice President of Marketing at NetPhone has joined Iperia as its Vice President of Product Management.
Michael Gaines left Performance Technologies, Inc. and joined SS8 Networks Inc. as Director, Marketing.
Sanjay Kaul left Fuji-Keizai USA Inc. and join dynamicsoft as Marketing Manager.
Matt Lazaro left Lucent and joined dynamicsoft.
Martin Krauss left Teles AG to join gecco.net (Berlin) in the Network Management.
Denyse Hochstein left British Airways to join gecco.net (Berlin) as Office Manager.
Lorie Stull has moved from Telogy to Texas Instruments Semiconductor Sales.
Thommy Eklof recently left Ericsson and joined Hotsip, a new SIP company.
Christian Testman left Ericsson and joined FAST Search & Transfer as Executive Vice President.
Jeremy DuPont - former Senior IP Product Manager left Qwest Communications to join Voyant Technologies as Business Development Manager.
Jacques Picard from the Universite du Quebec à Trois-Rivieres left his position of project manager for a similar position at Cesart Creation.
John Kincaide has joined Frost & Sullivan as Director, Network Convergence
Nestor Remata has left ISLACOM to manage and operate his own ISP business.
Ze'ev Likwornik left Vocaltec and joined Comverse Network Systems as a Product Manager in the VoIP Solutions team.
Nir Chen left Vocaltec and joined Comverse Network Systems, R&D Core Technoligies - VoIP section as a Inter-OP program manger.
Jeff Sherwood left ACS Innovations and joined Net2phone as Vice President of Business Development.
Jeff Dworkin left iFace and has joined pulver.com as a community developer.
(Please email: people@pulver.com to report a change in your position. Please put: "People on the Move" in the subject of the email.)
- Companies on the Move:
Acquisitions:
ADC Telecom agreed to buy Broadband Access Systems for $2.25 billion in stock. The move bolsters ADC ability to delivery Internet-protocol-based services.
Tundra agreed to acquire Quadic Systems, Inc. for a deal valued at US$45 million.
Funding announcements:
ipVerse received $21.8 million for its third round of funding. Kleiner Perkins served as the lead investor in the round.
IP Unity received $12 million in funding From Kleiner Perkins
eYak, Inc. secured third round funding of $60 million.
eDial, Inc. received $25 million in second-round funding led by Atlas Venture. The Company's existing investors, including Greylock Management and Matrix Partners, also participated.
Ubiquity Software Corporation received $42 million in second round financing from CapVest Equity Partners, L.P., JK&B Capital and first round investors Celtic House Investment Partners and Alcatel.
Pingtel received $13 million in second round funding from Dain Rauscher Wessels, Intel, St. Paul Venture Capital and Wind River.
Convedia Corporation has received $11.25 million in new financing. The financing round was lead by Celtic House Investments and included participation from Alcatel, MDS Capital, Ontario Teachers Pension Fund and Altamira.
CosmoCom, Inc. has received $40 million in private equity financing. First-time investors include the Intel Communications Fund; Marconi Ventures and Technology Crossover Ventures, with most of CosmoCom's previous investors completing the round.
Net to Net Technologies Secures $15 Million Investment from Summit Partners.
Tenor Networks Closes $93 Million in Third-Round Financing
Other News:
Net2Phone formed a new company, Adir Technologies, Inc., to develop and market network management software for Voice over IP (VoIP) and other packet-based multimedia networks. Cisco Systems, Inc. purchased a minority equity interest in Adir Technologies.
ITU considering International Regulation of IP Telephony
One of the best things we've had going for us is that so many governments have either ignored the industry's development or been afraid that attempts to impose old-fashioned regulation from the circuit-switched world would kill the development of the Internet in their country. Many countries, however, have sought to ban the deployment of VoIP or have said that they will impose legacy regulation. Now, along comes the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in many ways a bastion of old-style telecom regulation and an entity that many people fear is trying to regulate the Internet, saying that it is going to convene a World Telecommunication Policy Forum in Geneva on March 7-9, 2001. While we may be able to use this forum to our benefit, this forum must be considered to be a serious threat to accelerate efforts to regulate the VoIP industry.
The forum can be expected to attract government telecom officials from around the world and will result in a report by the ITU Secretary General. Planning for the forum began with a workshop last June that promoted parity in the regulation of IP telephony and circuit-switched telephony. (see http://www.itu.int/osg/sec/spu/ni/iptel/workshop/index.html. )
The Secretary General of the ITU is already directing the creation of a draft of the report, to be circulated beginning November 1, 2000. At the same time, he will be selecting a group of experts to advise on the development of the report and the preparations for the three-day meeting.
The worst case, which has to be a real concern in light of the June workshop, would be that the forum leads to a report that recommends regulation of IP telephony and by implication other Internet services by national administrations and perhaps attempts to create a role for the ITU that is similar to the international accounting rate process.
Our best chance to turn this around is to get actively involved in the planning process and encourage participation in the forum by as many of our allies as possible in the public and private sectors. Your company can participate in the forum if it is a member of the ITU Telecom Sector. I believe that we can expect support from the Clinton Administration and the FCC, but we can't take that for granted.
At this point, I'm working with the Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition to organize industry participation. The first thing we need to do is make sure that the "experts" group includes as many industry representatives and sympathetic government policymakers as possible. That group will be selected in October so we have very little time. We need to get behind a strong group of candidates from as many different countries as possible, including as many from developing countries as possible.
The next thing we'll need to do is work on the draft report, which will be the key document for discussion at the March forum. We need to be sure that appropriate background information and policy options are included in the report.
One of the other key ingredients to the forum will be an initial "Information Day" at which there will be a series of presentations intended to educate those in attendance. If we are willing to commit the resources, Information Day gives us an opportunity to show how Voice over IP contributes to the development of the kind of data networks that most governments are hoping to develop and to describe the valuable services that can be provided using VoIP. Our opponents, of course, will try to portray VoIP as limited to accounting rate arbitrage.
If you or your company can get involved, please contact me, with a copy to the VON Coalition's counsel, Bruce Jacobs. He can be reached at bruce.jacobs@shawpittman.com.
When people translate words from one language to another, one looks at the origins of the words (the etymology) to help find the best word in the target language which makes the most sense.
My word of advice to the softswitch industry is to apply the same approach when developing softswiches. Like it or not, there are over 3,000 features in a class five switch. What I find interesting (and alarming) is that at Fall VON it was common to overhear a conversation from vendors that "we have ported the 25 needed features", "the 75 revenue-producing features", "all of the features one needs to replace a class 5 switch".
While everybody seems to be approaching the problem by simply porting subsets of the real feature set, what is sometimes missing is the understanding of the problem which caused the feature to be created in the first place.
The telecom industry has been in business for over 125 years. Back in 1897 there may have been a customer who requested a certain feature to solve a basic business need. Somebody took the request and decided to implement a new feature. Using the tool sets available in 1897, some engineer solved the problem and the resulting feature set became embedded inside of the class five switch we use today. Fast forward 100 years and each time a new innovation for a switch was introduced, the same feature was included just in case it was needed for backward compatibility. Unfortunately, what was not always kept was the trouble ticket which cased the feature to be implemented in the first place. In some cases the person who requested the feature has died and it has become difficult to research the history behind the specific feature.
My advice to the Softswich industry is that now would be a great time to show off some of the things which IP-based networks can do that are just not possible using circuit-switched technologies.
This way, the next time somebody decides it would be great to create yet another softswitch or add yet another old feature, why not take the time needed to re-solve the problem using the tool sets available in 2000 and maybe introduce a more inituitive user interface than a rotary phone dial or a touch-tone keypad.
Looking at class features, I believe the time has come to consider the VoIP Class features for 2001. Looking at the space, the features which come to mind include:
After walking around the exhibit hall at Fall 2000 VON, I decided it was time for somebody to create "Softswitch Anonymous". Don't be surprised when you hear of the weekly Thursday night meetings at a secret hotel meeting room in Santa Clara.
"Hi, my name is Jeff and it has been one week since I told a prospective customer that they can throw out their Class 5 switch and related infrastructure and replace it with the softswitch from my nine month old company."
"Hi, my name is Carl and I admit that I have made my customer's expectations unmanageable."
"Hi, my name is Mike and it has been five days since I told my partners we should invest in another softswitch company."
In all seriousness, something has to be done with the outrageous amount of noise/hype being generated by the 85+ softswitch vendors in the marketplace. While there will be winners and losers in the softswitch space, too much overdone hype doesn't help anybody and could have a negative effect on the marketplace.
Some of the more successful softswitch vendors will be those who realize that a Class 5 switch may not be going away so fast, so instead of promoting a fork-lift replacement, they should consider positioning their solutions to add value to the existing infrastructure and when/if a company replaces their switch, be in a position to offer a compatible replacement.
Back in the 1980s during the time when Lotus 1-2-3 was the leading spreadsheet in the business community, and before Lotus Notes became the focus of Lotus Development Corp., I was president of company called "Spreadsheet Solutions" which catered to the Lotus 1-2-3 aftermarket.
One of the best things Lotus Development Corp. did to foster the growth of the spreadsheet add-in business was their internal creation of the "Lotus Developer Marketing Program". Lotus Developer Marketing provided a direct channel between the executives at Lotus and the community of people responsible for developing the add-ins which in many cases added specialized horizontal and sometimes vertical market appeal to the core spreadsheet offerings from Lotus Development Corp.
Lotus also went out of their way to produce their annual Lotus Developer Conferences which provided community amongst the people involved in the global spreadsheet user community.
For developers, Lotus offered the promise of access to their direct sales channel to their customer base, and in special cases Lotus either acquired a product from a third-party developer or did a special bundle to help promote a product upgrade. Back in 1987, Lotus looked for ways they could leverage their presence and sales channels and help bring the products of these small companies into the marketplace.
Fast forward thirteen years and a strategy which could work for the telephony and instant messaging portals which have attracted traction amongst their millions of subscribers for their free services is to openly embrace the emerging Communication Application Service Provider (CASP) industry and look for ways to bundle and actively engage in revenue sharing with the CASPs who add value to a specific market segment and offer the telephony portal the chance to offer diversified services while making little or no monetary commitment to the new service.
The problem that exists today is that most of the major players in the instant messaging and free telephony space have taken the position of: "We own the customer. We don't do profit sharing or revenue splits. This is our channel. These are OUR services. Give us equity in exchange for using our channel and we may consider doing business with you." The ironic part is that the same companies which are promoting open APIs for their products are not always open to engaging in open business relationships with their supporters.
My hope is for the industry to lighten up and look for ways to embrace the community of emerging service providers who want to offer services to its customers. Perestroika is a good thing. Learn from it. Hopefully your competitor has read this message and will consider launching their own version of the old Lotus Developer Market program. (Marc Scapicchio please give me a call...)
The time has come for companies to follow the Lotus Developer marketing approach of 1986 and go out an embrace developers and establish "developer marketing" programs for their communities.
The successful free service providers of tomorrow will learn that they can leverage their presence and generate income from the sale of valued added services from their website. Hopefully the players will start to forget about their existing corporate policy of the portal owning everything and not sharing revenue with anybody. I can only hope they look out to embrace the emerging Communication Application Service Provider (CASP) industry.
As of September 22nd, pulverradio.com ( see http://www.pulverradio.com ) was listed as the number 8 radio station according to the ratings listed on ( http://www.mp3daze.com/shoutcast.htm )
Congrats to Matt Wolfe, Top Cat, Carl, our guests and our worldwide listeners who have contributed to the fast rise in pulverradio's ratings!
While I was getting ready for Fall 2000 VON, I realized that the need for applications was greater today than it was two years ago when the winners of the first cool apps contest was first announced.
Now is the time for the industry to come forward and demonstrate the applications which are possible because of IP-based networks.
As such, at Fall 2000 VON I announced the "Cool Apps 2001 Contest".
The purpose of the contest is to give attention to the cool products/services which clearly demonstrate the benefits of VoIP and at the same time are just not practical in the circuit-switched world. Nine companies have agreed to provide judges for the contest and the winners will be announced at Spring 2001 VON in Phoenix on March 21st. pulver.com is acting as the facilitator and organizer of the contest but will not engage in any judging activities.
Prizes will be awarded in two categories - 1st/2nd/3rd for Industry players who have products which can be evaluated by the judges as well as 1st/2nd/3rd for College Students who just need to submit a thesis and/or functional prototype to the judges for review. Cash prizes of US$ 5,000 / 2,500 / 1,000 will be awarded to the students. In addition, pulver.com will pay for their round-trip air fare and accommodation to receive their award at Spring 2001 VON.
The contest will be opening on October 17th and judging will be done during February, 2001.
Please visit: ( http://pulver.com/contest ) for more details.
For those readers of The Pulver Report not familiar with my events, the pulver.com VON Conferences focus on the convergence of the Telecom and Internet Industries. While other events may cover similar information, it is at VON where the thought leaders of the industry actually get together to do business. These are the people companies seek to contact and influence with their product announcements and services. The delegates attending VON are people with vision. In many ways, one could argue that "convergence" takes place at VON when people get together to discuss ideas, solve problems and help evolve our industry forward.
Personal networking is a big part of the "VON Experience." VON is one of the events where the Chairmen, CEOs and CTOs of the industry companies attend and take advantage of the unique business opportunities which are available at our events. People look forward to attending the conferences because it gives them a chance to re-sync with their past and future business partners as well as get an update to the direction(s) the industry is taking. VON is also a place where startups have "come out" to launch their companies and/or products.
Our unique blend of industry perspectives and breakout sessions with no "exhibit only" attendance creates a working environment where everybody at VON is a relevant industry player. Our exhibit hall has grown from two exhibitors with tabletops in September 1996 to 175 exhibitors in booths in Atlanta at Fall 2000 VON, September 11-14.
As promised, the conference was the meeting place for the VON industry and brought together over 1,800 delegates with the 175 exhibitors and 1,600 people working inside the exhibit hall.
On a personal note, it was great to have FCC Chairman Kennard join us at the conference and show his support for the industry. (see ( http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Kennard/2000/spwek019.txt ) for a copy of his remarks.) SIP happened at Fall VON in both the presentations we saw and in the products in the exhibit hall. Special thanks to all of the speakers and moderators who took the time to present at Fall VON. The success of the conference is a direct reflection on the people who contributed to it.
I'd like to thank Lucent for producing the Tuesday night party at the Fox Theatre which was open to all of the conference delegates. I believe those who attended the Wednesday night "All Conference" party with Stroke 9 and Smashmouth enjoyed themselves. (The mosh pit at the Roxy was a first for us...)
The Open Test Network had the biggest turnout to date and provided great demonstrations of: OSP, iNow!, SIP and H.323 interoperability. Special thanks to everybody who contributed to the Open Test Network who helped make this happen.
Presentations from Fall 2000 VON are available from: ( http://slides.pulver.com )
If you didn't exhibit at Fall VON and you are interested in exhibiting at Spring 2001 VON taking place in Phoenix March 20-23, please visit: ( http://pulver.com/von/exhibit.html ) and submit your request.
During November, 2000 I will be working on the schedule for Spring 2001 VON. Please feel free to email me directly any suggestions for the topics/content you would like to see covered in Phoenix.
In August, 2000, pulver.com, in association with Technical Marketing Inc. started publishing The Presence and Instant Messaging Report.
This monthly report is written by Mona Johnson of Technical Marketing Inc., and is produced and distributed jointly by pulver.com and Technical Marketing. Our purpose in starting this report is to help develop the Presence and IM community, and provide the resources and links that industry participants need to understand business and technical issues.
If you would like to receive future issues, please visit: ( http://pulver.com/imreport/subscribe.html ) to subscribe.
We envision future issues of report and its companion web site ( http://www.instantmessaging.org ) to be a sort of electronic forum for two-way conversations about the Presence and Instant Messaging industry. This electronic forum will compliment the "live" Forums provided by the Instant Messaging, VON and other conferences produced by pulver.com.
Registration is now open for Fall 2000 Presence and Instant Messaging which will be taking place at the Marriot in Santa Clara, CA November 28-30. Details regarding this event are available at: ( http://pulver.com/im2000 ).