So much for making quick use of your $8.5 billion dollar investment Steve.

Today Tango, one of the fastest growing communication services ever, announced that its service will be the first mobile video calling service available for the upcoming Windows Phone update “Mango” beating out Microsoft’s own mobile video calling service Skype.

Not that this should come as a surprise. After all Microsoft has a track record of botching acquisition integrations and given that Tango is still a start-up, they’re afforded the benefit of not having to deal with Skype’s massive daily operations (nor the Microsoft bureaucracy).

But adding fuel, or at the very least press release fodder, to a fast growing competitor is never a good thing.

Given the rising interest in consumer and business video calling one has to wonder if Tango, who now has the platform trifecta of iPhone, Andriod and Windows Phone, won’t soon become the front runner in mobile video calling. With video quickly becoming as pervasive as voice it would be a mammoth position to be in.

Thanks to a few month head start on each platform, a laser focus and a boatload of cash, Microsoft’s Skype could have a very real competitor for the first time. The disruptor becomes the disrupted.

Sounds pretty familiar, huh Microsoft?

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

Windows Mobile Gets Tango, Skype Holds up the Wall

Polycom SoundStation Duo

File this one under why didn’t this exist already.

Today Polycom announced their latest conference phone offering, the SoundStation Duo, which marries VoIP and PSTN calling capabilities into one device.

Polycom SoundStation Overview

The Polycom Duo comes packed with all the industry leading features that you’ve come to expect from Polycom such as:

• SIP based, with support for today’s leading IP PBX platforms
• Killer voice quality through Polycom HDVoice
• Full dial pad and four softkeys
• White scale LCD
• Power over Ethernet through a single RJ45
• Single FXO port

Plus…

• Automatic failover from IP to analog in case your network goes down
• Applications port for connecting a mobile phone when an analog line isn’t available

Polycom SoundStation Duo is a Win-Win

This dual-mode conference phone is a smart move by the folks at Polycom.

With analog line revenues decreasing, but still representing a large chunk of their conferencing business, the Polycom Duo will allow Polycom to merge their legacy SoundStation into their current IP offerings. This will give Polycom them the ability to painlessly phase out their analog offerings without losing revenues to those behind the times.

All while ensuring the market laggards are future proofed for when they final make the switch.

The Polycom SoundStation Duo is now available through certified Polycom partners like VoIP Supply with a list price of $849 USD.

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

Polycom SoundStation Duo

Everyone sees the world through a different lens.

At no time has this fact struck me harder then at a recent partner event. The event was designed to bring channel partners from around the world into one room to learn and discuss the future of manufacturer’s product direction.

Now any time you get folks from all parts the of the world into a room there’s bound to be differences of opinion, but I was shocked by the reality distortion of some individuals when it came to certain topics, like product roadmaps.

This not to say that their reality was distorted negatively; it’s just that many failed to see that there is no such thing as one size fits all or one way to please them all. An especially vexing position for a manufacturer to be in, considering they have to attempt to serve many masters.

So what’s a manufacturer and a channel partner to do? Maybe consider a different view:

• You – As a channel partner, be it distributor, reseller or retailer you always want what is best for your company and the customers or market you serve.  No one expects less, but the plain truth is that most channel partners are specialized in one particular area. There are few, if any, one size fits all partner because it is virtually impossible to serve everyone’s needs adequately if you are playing in any market of considerable size (trust me, I’ve tried). Your best bet is to align yourself with those manufacturers who fit your niche and value proposition; then educate current and courted manufacturers on how you can help them address that market. Never fight or demand; show them how you can give them a hand.
• Market – We’re all part of the market and thus the “market” is a vast landscape with folks at all levels looking for different products and services. Typically there are mass and then niche market products all which attempt to meet demand. Demand, however is tricky. What has hot yesterday, might not be hot tomorrow and manufacturers must keep a keen eye on the future; as much as preserving the here and now. Same goes for channel partners, expect we’re typically niche players ourselves, however we need to be mindful of the overall trends that are occurring. “Follow the money” is a famous saying that hold some truth; just don’t don’t turn that follow into a chase. Overall channel members, serve your market today and do it well, but look for parallel and ancillary niches that a growing to fuel your expansion.
• Manufacturers - You’ve always got the most to win and the most to lose. You’ve got to serve and protect existing market, place bets on the future and respond rapidly to new trends. You’ve got to know the end customer, but also satisfy the demands of your channel. Doing this all successfully is no easy feet. But the best of the breed, all have one thing in common. They are great listeners; they listen to their end customers, their channel partners and the market THEN make decisions on where you are headed (which in this day and age can be done quite rapidly) . You will never serve everyone, nor will you ever make us all happy, however, at least let us know we’ve been heard.

There’s a multitude of different ways to look at anything, all of which is distorted by our own self-interest and experiences. But some times it’s good to step back and take a different view.

You might just find that you’ll learn something new.

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

You, the Market and the Manufacturer

This is the third in a series on the VoIP equipment channel designed to educate, bring transparency and inspire change for the good of all channel members. You can read part one here and part two here.

Wild Wild West.

Or is it the world wide web? Eight years ago they were one in the same.

At least for the VoIP equipment channel.

While our service brethren were busy disrupting Telecommunications industry using the Internet as a new transportation mechanism for voice, the equipment channel itself was going through the same exact disruption lead by a number of young guns who thought of distribution in an entirely new way.

At its core equipment distribution is similar to any other form of distribution; whether it be knowledge or media. And just like the Internet disrupted and transformed the way in which we both find and consume knowledge and media, the Internet proved to be a capable medium driving awareness and access to equipment for this new market.

Lead by companies like VoIP Supply (where I am currently the CMO), new supplier models were created to eliminate the two distinct distribution issues that persisted:

1. Awareness – In the early stages of any market, there is a need for outlets that can drive awareness for equipment and solutions. The Internet is an efficient, effective, scalable medium for driving awareness for products and services. To be successful online, you need to be as much direct marketer as educator. Thus new suppliers leveraged the Internet to not just sell product; but educate the world on the benefits of VoIP (and how to use it).
2. Access – If one cannot get their hands on products, services and solutions a market will never grow in size. At the early stages of any new market there is rarely enough business for large, legacy players (like a tier one distributor) to pay attention and with technology, people aren’t exactly opening the yellow pages to find a local provider. So new suppliers leveraged the Internet to provide access to products that early adopters were searching for.

Built from the customer up to the manufacturer, these new supplier models were radically different than the established manufacturer down two tier distribution of the traditional telecommunications world. They were, to quote one channel executive at the time, “very scary.”

Indeed these new suppliers were very scary. They were very scary because they were not well understood (and they were growing, and growing). They were also very scary because they were able to serve a wide variety of customers, with efficiencies that allowed them to operate at margins others in the channel could not.

Obviously a problem for the old guard and those manufacturers with closed minds.

As time grew, so did the number of new suppliers adopting the Internet to drive awareness and provide access for VoIP equipment. With it came a number of issues; and many a problem child:

1. Margin Erosion – Built from the customer back to be ultra efficient and require less overhead than legacy distribution models, the new suppliers were able to sell equipment as price points that made most cringe. Like the providers of cheap minutes, it seemed to be a race to the bottom for all involved (or was it?).
2. Selling to Everyone – End users, businesses, resellers, service providers and even the government were coming to these new suppliers to gain access to products. With a lack of control over the flow of product, manufacturers and traditional distributors were up in arms over the fact that someone could sell to both an end user and a reseller; while adequately supporting them both.
3. Lack of Support- The result of serving everyone, manufacturers and traditional distributors agonized over the possibility of directly supporting customers because these new suppliers couldn’t possibly handle these immensely technical products. While some failed in this regards, others excelled, leaving mixed emotions about the value of new suppliers.

Fortunately for the telecommunications channel and the VoIP equipment channel not all new suppliers were problem child’s. In fact some, such as myself, realized that while there were substantial benefits to working with new supplier models that replace traditional distribution there were bound to be problem child’s that would hurt manufacturers.

So like any great channel partner, after all these new suppliers are still a channel, many, including companies like VoIP Supply championed a number of channel centric measures to ensure that problems were prevented:

1. Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) – One of the largest components of the new supplier model was the retail store front which allowed suppliers to offer direct purchase of equipment online. A great way to provide access to product, no doubt, but also a way for some to drive down street price, resulting in low margins for ALL channel partners. The solution, naturally was to create and enforce a MAP policy which dictated the minimum price a product could be advertised for sale, something which today most manufacturers in the VoIP industry maintain.
2. Certifications – Believe it or not, you once could gain access to VoIP equipment without any formal training or certifications. Don’t blame the new suppliers on that one, but without barriers to supplier entry many unqualified organizations sprang-up and caused many a support nightmare. The solution, demanded by many new suppliers, was that manufacturers create formal training and certification programs so that suppliers could distinguish themselves from those of lesser quality.

These two measures, driven and supported by the new supplier model businesses, disciplined or drove away the overwhelming majority of problem children.

Yet one pervasive issue still remained; selling to everyone. The topic for the fourth installment on the changing and disruption of the channel.

Disclosure: The views represented in this post are solely mine and do not reflect that of my employer, partners, suppliers, friends or family. They all love VoIP and everyone in it. At least that’s what they tell me.

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

The Channel’s Problem Child

That echo you hear is caused by the lack of posting.

I haven’t been writing for a long time (unless copy, plans and emails count).

Call it burnout (3,200 posts in four years). Call it lack of inspiration (lack of industry innovation). Call it what you want.

I took a lengthy break.

Now after a year of less than frequent posting I’m knocking the cob webs off this site.

There’s a lot going on in the space. Things are picking up in many areas.

And I’ve got things to say.

So stay tuned…more to come soon.

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

Hello, hello is anyone home?

Month’s ago most pundits torched UMI, Cisco’s high-end home telepresence offering.

They said it was too expensive. They said no-one would pay $24.95/month for video calling.

Oh and who were they supposed to call?

Yesterday, while flushing Flip down the toilet Cisco announced that UMI would be rolled into their business telepresence unit. I guess the pundits were  right.

Or were they?

Cisco is a marketing machine. Anyone “in” the industry would’ve told you that UMI makes sense as a business product – not a consumer one.

But business products are boring. No one (even those selling) seem to care about them.

Consumer products? That’s the another story.

Launch a revolutionary new way to communication with friends and family right from the convenience of your own home? Now that’s going to get everyone talking.

Exactly what happened and though the overall reaction was perhaps not what Cisco had originally intended, it certainly made UMI a rather well known product.

The same would not have happened had it been a business product.

So like the marketing machine that is Cisco, they’ll take that initial awareness campaign, swallow their pride and deliver this solution into the small business.

Probably what they had planned to do anyways…

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

Cisco UMI: Coming to a business near you

The recent news of AT&T’s acquisition offer for T-Mobile USA got me thinking (and talking) about the small business voice space.

The small business space is very unique. It’s very unique because every single business is different and is looking for different things out of their voice service.

Two trends that have definitely emerged within space – regardless of the type of small business – is the need for flexibility and greater accessibility of voice service.

Twenty years ago, small businesses were chained to POTS lines. Ten years ago wireless was a luxury. Five years ago VoIP became the new small business must have.

Now everywhere you turn you see hosted this, cloud that, so on and so forth. Pretty much anyone selling anything into the small business space has a “cloud strategy.”

This had lead to an explosion of hosted VoIP providers. All trying to sell similar offerings into the small business space. Competition is fierce and margins are tight.

Competition between similar providers is fierce, but the biggest threat facing hosted VoIP providers is not coming from one another. It’s coming from wireless providers.

Yes, I said wireless providers.

With the rapid advanced of the smart phone (or the computer in my pants as I lovingly refer to them as) many small businesses are forgoing wired voice services altogether. Opting for the flexibility and accessibility that wireless provides.

And as device manufacturers and carriers continue to introduce more innovative mobility products, such as the Motorola Atrix 4G with laptop dock, wireless will continue to draw the attention of small businesses.

After all if you are small, lean and mean paying for voice service twice doesn’t really make sense.

If you’re a hosted VoIP provider and you’re not yet considering the competitive impact wireless carriers are having on your business start thinking. Before it becomes your worse nightmare.

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

Hosted VoIP’s Worst Nightmare

There’s a battle on the street folks.

Hide yo’ momma. Hide yo’ daddy. Hide yo’ kids.

The under $100 turf wars are on!

It use to be that the only VoIP phones you could find under $100 came from Grandstream or some unheard of Chinese manufacturer. After all this VoIP technology was simply too “advanced” for it to be “cheap.”

As the years rolled on, Grandstream dominated this market. That is until late 2007/early 2008 when other manufacturers started to sense that under $100 was where it was at.

Why? Well a few reasons:

1. Grandstream was quickly rising in popularity. Their VoIP phones weren’t the prettiest, but they worked and were cost effective.
2. Asterisk and other open source platform were taking off. But if you’re not paying for the software, chances are you’re not paying for an expensive phone.
3. Customers were use to analog phone pricing. Most businesses and consumers balked at the cost of “business grade” phones from the likes of Cisco and Polycom.
4. There was looming economic uncertainly of a magnitude few predicted, but many sensed.
5. There was volume. Lots of it.

Armed with this manufacturers hurried to deliver compelling under $100 VoIP phones to market. Inside of an 18 month span everyone had an at least one or two VoIP phones under $100.

Offerings from Aastra, Cisco, Grandstream, Polycom, Siemens Gigaset and snom appeared. They were relatively feature rich and quite popular.

From one manufacturer to over eight. And in an 18 month span, thanks in part to a budget crippling recessionary period, the under $100 VoIP phone market became the most hotly contested market in the VoIP equipment industry.

It seemed that the corners once dominated by Grandstream, with their Budgetone series and benchmark GXP2000, were now crowded with others slingin’ similar offerings. Customers could now get their VoIP phone fix from any number of manufacturers.

A price war ensued.

Try as the MAP cops may price erosion came and with it a little known company, poised to save the day. In early 2009 Yealink came on the scene.

Little known and overlooked by many, Yealink arrived just in time to deliver what every supplier was looking for – a solid series of VoIP phones with a pleasant design aesthetic that were easy to configure, deploy and use to be sold at a under $100 price point all without sacrificing margin.

Dubbed (personally) the “poor man’s Cisco” the early Yealink phones found fans within the open source space and even with hosted service providers, who are always looking for ways to differentiate (and make more money).

As time went on Yealink has grown to have an increasingly larger presence on the corner of under $100 avenue.

That leads us to today where the under $100 VoIP phone turf wars rage on. There’s still no clear cut winner, except for customers, nor is there a clear cut loser.

Despite moves in on their turf, Grandstream’s GXP series remains as popular as ever. Aastra’s 673Xi series is popular with small businesses and hosted VoIP providers. So too are the offerings from Polycom and Cisco, who have both aggressively gone after this market the last few years. Siemens has found a home in the SOHO space and snom is making moves in the Microsoft world.

There’s a battle on the street folks. One that’s not soon to be over.

So pick your sides wisely. Because their sure are enough ones to choose from.

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

The Under $100 Turf Wars

$95.88.

That’s the cost of a year’s worth of unlimited North America calling via Skype.

Apparently that’s not enough. Skype now wants to monetize me by showing ads.

Sure they’re not directly in your face.  And one can understand advertising to FREE users.

But why am I paying to be advertised to?

This sort of feels like cable TV – which I hate – since a good third of the time spent watching TV is viewing ads.

Most people hate their cable company too. This is a slippery slope for Skype.

Over the last two years my Skype usage has increased due to the user experience. Skype is simple, easy and devoid of distractions.

The collaboration tools and general accessibility fit my work style. It’s just that ads don’t.

For paying users ads should be opt-out.

And if you really need more, just charge me double.

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

$95.88 Isn’t Enough

Phew! What a show.

For the first time in two and a half year I attended ITEXPO as an exhibitor. As usual, the TMCnet team did a great job in putting together the conference and expo.

The show provided productive meetings, new business connections and even allowed for the closing of some deals

It also provide me with a number of notable offerings that I want to share with you.

• hookflash – Softphone king Erik Lagerway is at it again with hookflash, a soon to be released service that SIP enables any IP enabled endpoint. With hookflash one will be able to access their SIP service on their computer, iPhone, Blackberry, Windows 7, iPad, etc. Having seen it in its early stages, I can’t wait to see it when it is out.
• Yealink T38G – I got a sneak peak at Yealink’s soon to be released color screen phone. If you haven’t heard of Yealink by now you will this year. They are quickly emerging as a strong player in the IP handset space. And when I say compete, I’m not just talking about sub-$100 handsets.
• VoIP Fulfillment by VoIP Supply – This is a new suite of services specifically designed for VoIP providers, allowing them to increase operational efficiency, decrease touch costs and bolster their customer experience. Through services such as warehousing, device configuration, direct end user shipments, returns processing, device reconditioning, extended warranties, technical support and real-time on-demand reporting, a service provider can get everything they need to power their VoIP service operations.
• Grandstream GXV3175 – Grandstream’s latest IP video phone, the GXV3175, is their sexiest offering to date. It features a 7″ color touch screen and a much improved user interface that makes this phone an excellent for those looking to get into video calling.
• PRISM – Last, but certainly not least was PRISM, a services management tool from StarView Solution. PRISM provides current and aspiring VoIP providers with everything needed to run an efficient, profitable operation through instant order provisioning, activation, routing of DID phone numbers and SIP connections. Broadsoft look out – I’ve yet to see something as simple and easy to use.

Get more Free VoIP information like this at Smith On VoIP.

Top 5 Offerings Spotted At ITEXPO