Backblog | Unified Communications

Last night was MobileMonday Toronto's annual Meet the Analysts event at the MaRS Discovery District facility.

When old becomes new again, ISVs look to telecom for pricing inspiration. For decades, the telecom industry has been honing what other industries are only now getting into – business models that start with simple subscriptions then add complex pieces such as sign-up/activity/event fees + bundles + add-ons + incentives + promotional products. SaaS operators are evaluating new ways to create multiple revenue streams from each customer by blending limits and usage (usage being the “activities” in which end-users engage in consuming or interacting with goods and services).

Would it surprise you to learn that only 30 per cent of Canadians own a smartphone? It surprised the heck out of me.

This morning [December 15, 2011]  I attended a breakfast session hosted by IT World Canada, and it was a good update on the state of the channel, especially for serving the SMB market.

I was invited to attend an update here in Toronto yesterday [December 6, 2011] on Avaya's IP Office, which inluded a preview for Release 8.0, scheduled to launch on December 12. Lots of Avaya folks on hand, along with the sponsors, Smart IP. They're one of Avaya's top 10 Canadian reseller partners, and having started out as a Nortel shop, they know the territory pretty well.

Great start to Cisco's Collaboration Summit today here in Miami Beach. Having been to a few of these, it's really interesting to see how the overall messaging has evolved, along with all the new offerings that keep coming. I don't say that last point lightly, as Cisco is working very hard to address as many touch points as possible around how people get things done in the workplace. Sure, it all drives network usage, and that's good business for Cisco. There's a higher motive at play though, and there's little doubt that Cisco is trying to be a lead author in the next great American novel, Work 2.0.

MicroSkype? - clunky, but there's a fit here. I've been traveling, and haven't been able to comment on this news til now. It's too late for news, and you've probably read enough about this already, so I'll just add a few thoughts here.

As public frustration with the state of telecommunications services such as Internet access and wireless competition mounts, a relatively obscure government consultation on spectrum deserves far more attention.