Doesn't Qualify as a Headset

So we won't be sumbitting this to Jajah's "ditch your headset" contest. Besides, my granddaughter wouldn't want the Jajah T-shirt in any case. It would have to be pink, and illustrated with horses. My wife wouldn't be caught dead wearing a headset, it goes almost without saying. If I really want to know whether some new innovation is thoroughly mass market, she's the market sample. She wouldn't intentionally use VoIP; doesn't use instant messaging or SMS, either. Will not check email at home after work, for any reason. Does think the iPhone is worth owning. That's significant.

Jajah Attacks Headset Metaphor

Jajah is running a "dump your headset" contest. Users send in photos and videos and win prizes. It's an entertaining and interesting way to dramatize the difference between Jajah's approach to web-enabled calling and Skype's. Jajah is IP-enabled callback, using any telephone or device a user chooses. Skype remains a PC-initiated experience. Hence the "attack" on headsets.

Web 2.0 Enterprises

I wouldn't say many small or mid-sized businesses or entities are adopting tools such as wikis, blogs and the like, but it appears lots of enterprises have figured out they are quite helpful. At least that's what one IDG survey finds. Nor would I venture so far as to say the generally more collaborative world we seem to be moving towards is transforming older hierachical and closed modes of organizing enterprises. But something is happening. And it ultimately doesn't matter whether a transformation creates the new tools that are needed, or the existence of the tools foment a transformation in the ways things are done. Either way, more collaboration results.

It's a trade show, after all...

...so some snafus are to be expected. That worried look on Seamus Hourihan, Acme Packet SVP? He's got his presentations all queued up. But there's no overhead projection equipment in the room, and there is supposed to be. His panel ultimately proceeded without visual aids.

The subject was voice and application peering. As far as drivers, though quality is an issue, Derek Koecher, Qwest wholesale VoIP manager quipped that "price represents nine of the ten criteria for buying wholesale VoIP services." And, presumably also drives desire to peer.

The session was held at NxtComm, which was pretty quiet, though vendors put on a brave face about the quality of their meetings and booth traffic. Nothing like the old SuperComm. Of course, there's a huge current of weariness and dissatisfaction with just about all of the bigger trade shows IP executives have been attending (and I am being polite). People honestly are questioning why they keep coming. And if they are coming, lots of people are saying they won't be exhibiting. Clear signs of trouble for major telecom show producers...

Do the Math

IPTV might have been the one overarching theme at NxtComm, but at&t CEO Randall Stephenson left no doubt about where at&t is anchoring its strategy. "To succeed you have to be a wireless centric company," Stephenson said. "The wireless decision is the first decision a consumer makes."

"Everything else comes after that, because the wireless is the most personal communications device and goes everywhere with you," Stephenson said. Of course, he fairly quickly added that at&t is not neglecting its wireline broadband strategy.

But there's an important principle here. If one totes up the actual revenue any telecom provider can generate from video (ARPU is nice, but gross margin for an entertainment product has to be sliced in half to figure out what "gross revenue" actually is for a service provider), and then compares that to what a service provider can lose from current voice and data, the potential loss from voice and data is a larger number than the potential gains from new video services.

That isn't an argument against providing video. It is an argument for not getting defocused on core data and voice revenues. That's where the money is.

John Chambers on Surviving the Coming Shift

I had forgotten that John Chambers has worked both at IBM and at Wang Laboratories. That means he worked at companies that were leaders of two previous waves of computing technology. IBM is about as good a proxy for leadership of the mainframe era as one could find. Wang also was a leader of the minicomputer era. That's signficant as Cisco Systems attempts something no other company has achieved in the semiconductor era: leading in at least two separate eras of computing. So what's the most dangerous thing that could prevent Cisco from making history in this regard?

Hubris: the idea that your company is so powerful, so well managed, so agile that it cannot fail, even as a new computing paradigm replaces an older one.

"You have to keep it constantly in front of yourself," Chambers says. As in, looking nervously and constantly over one's shoulder, hoping to hear approaching footsteps before anyone can be seen. "We make Andy Grove look relaxed," Chambers says, alluding to the classic Grove dictum that "only the paranoid survive."

"Transition will happen; not could happen," says Chambers, who is as aware as any executive ever has been of what it would mean to lead in two waves of computing. It would make history.

It's Quite a Metaphor

On the day NxtComm convenes, drawing most of the North American telecom press, Google convenes its press day. Not many North American telecom media types will be there (okay, the meeting is in Europe, so logistics are a factor). Apps are separated from transmission. So is the value chain and the business. Where the press is parked today shows that.