VoIPWatch

A Lot Has Changed

It's been a while since I've written here on VoIPWatch. A lot has changed and yet in many ways the song remains the same. In the hey day of blogging I would post three to four items a day, share my opinion and the cabal of other bloggers like Om, James, Rich, Jeff, Martin, Ted, Alec, Jim, the late Russell, all would also be posting, linking and sharing. Here, I chose to take a perspective based on the core ideas of blogging-I offered insight, perspective and opinion, which I referred to as IPO. I did this, often with a cadre of clients begging to be written about in my blog, something I did only after others had written, or if no one had taken my offer up to write first. 

Today, being Giving Tuesday, I'll give a few things. First, I put out an almost daily newsletter, The Comunicano,  which you can subscribe to by simply adding your name to the list. It has up to 24 items you should know about, often from the top media sources that are still bastions of integrity and honest reporting, even if they're not always right. It's free and my daily gift to keeping people informed.

But now, it's time to give you my thoughts, as that's what I've always done.

The difference here has been, and always will be that when I write, I write with transparency. If the post refers to a client, I've made a point of mentioning that for many, many years, unlike some so called "top influencers" who are paid to write, post, tweet or go to events at the expense of the company in exchange for regular coverage. Sure, I've been to some of those same events, and have also been paid by some of those companies too, but the lack of transparency with influencers and analysts has made a mockery of the numbers on social media and "reporting," and has for the most part made PR all PESO-Paid, Earned, Shared or Owned and we all saw what that did to the Mexican economy, and what that all led to. 

That's pretty much the state of what attempts to pass as journalism today--Fake News. Made up news. Articles and accounts that aren't fact checked, unattributed statements by someone who told some reporter something. As a lifelong media person, I've been on all sides, and in many ways I still am. I've been a PR person-and I hate that title-a copy boy, a sportswriter, on air talent on TV, sports color analyst, night time DJ, event producer, podcaster, speaker, influencer, and social media personality.  My degree is in Journalism, and I've lectured to students too about media, so over the last four and a half decades of being around all this a lot has changed and yet it really hasn't. Forget about all the stories I've pitched, sometimes I've been the story, other times I've been the architect of the story, but one thing has always been a constant. It has always been true.

Most of all the idea of a "free press" and an unbridled media has all but evaporated. Sure there are the independent thinkers. The pundits who use blogging like I do. We have our "followers" and our "readers" and like some news personalities our stories may get shared, but at the end of the day, the state of media is in a major need of repair as often the news isn't true, but here, like the Elvis Costello tune, "My Aim is True."

While we have more choices, we really have less and less perspective on things. Too much is about the "new and shinny" gizmo or gadget. Or about the funding-not about what that which is being funded may do--if it will do anything but burn the cash and will be in the media solely to get more cash.

No. Our media is no longer the counterbalance to all that is wrong. Reporters, and bloggers too, who dare to challenge or push the hard questions to company CEOs often find themselves no longer included in briefings, getting the "word" in advance or being invited  to the press events.  Brands use access to their information and executives as capital--I know one well respected reporter who once agreed with me about something Apple had done, but chose to not pursue the story out of concern of being left off the list of early device review opportunities or access to the executives. 

And with less "beat" reporters covering the stories, and instead stories have to find the reporter, we get more homogenized accounts of the news release that crossed the wire that same day. I find it rewarding how Jeff Bezos has taken a hands off approach with the Washington Post, and how Mike Bloomberg keeps things fair and honest with the numbers. It's encouraging that the Benioff's have invested in media, and Mrs. Jobs too. These scions of tech and wealth know that there's a need for legitimate, unbiased, fair and respected journalism. And I agree.

I don't know if we'll ever again really have a "free" press. But I do know one thing. A lot sure has changed, but in many ways, it's all still the same.

Voxbone Acquired by Bandwidth

Today Bandwidth announced they are acquiring Voxbone, a company I'm very familiar with from years of working with them in their early stages before becoming PE-backed. I've always admired their foresight, and recall how they always had Bandwidth in their sights, first as a customer, then wearily as a competitor, and even as a possible merger candidate. 

The deal makes a lot of sense, as for Bandwidth, as this removes a layer of supplier/co-opitition in North America, while expanding their footprint globally. The obvious layer it removes is the battle for the supply for telephone numbers, a service both have had for years, but which is not the real key to this deal. The key here  though is Voxbone's very well developed cloud network overlay in Europe and how it connects to the rest of the world. Those interconnections are crucial, and becoming more so as apps that use both Bandwidth and Voxbone look for efficiency, reliability, and consistency. It immediately expands Bandwidth's footprint and gives them a running start in that part of the world.

By merging the two companies, they also streamline sales and network operations for their customers, many of whom already did business with both brands. This also eliminates the "competitive" aspects and will, for a bit of time, remove the negotiations that would go on between buyers of either of their services. Pricing will be now set by Bandwidth, removing the option of Voxbone offering a better deal--something that is not so good for customers who lack long-term pricing already locked in.

Bandwidth has been rising for years and is a very well run, excellent company to do business with. They stand behind their services and have been steadily building out their CPaaS infrastructure and working on their own IP based solutions. With the Voxbone acquisition, they get the IP that Voxbone has, some of which, like Bandwidth, is based upon FreeSwitch, but other parts are not. 

The one surprising thing about the deal is the price tag. I would have thought by now that Voxbone would have commanded a higher price, but the additional stock in Bandwidth the seller will receive likely makes that point moot.

This Time, Microsoft Really Wants To Be Your Phone Company

I've been a fan of Tom Krazit since his days at the original GigaOm, and my pal Om Malik introduced me to him. Tom has been "in the cloud" as a journalist from it's earliest days, and his work at Protocol Cloud has continued to be some of the most insightful and spot-on writing in journalism today. His no B.S., non-shill style of reporting is in the Om style, so when he wrote today that "Microsoft wants to be the phone company," it hit the same cord that I heard when I read Microsoft's own unveil. 

Couple this with the thoughts of another long-time VoIP/SIP/Telecom friend of over 16 years, Counterpath founder Erik Lagerway, now CEO of Vancouver startup SnapSonic, own thoughts about Azure Communications Service, my wheels really started spinning as this may, on the surface, have the usual "Microsoft ring" to it, it's a move that in reality, only Amazon or Google can come close to countering. 

My feeling is, and has been for a while, that the telecom world is in a significant state of change. With the dominance of the cloud and rise of the APIs, all coupled with the steady abandonment of the landline, and any real desire to be the phone company by the long time incumbents, AT&T, BT, Verizon, Telefonica, Orange, Telstra, and others the world over, has actually led to a Grand Canyon wide gap that is screaming be filled. Add to that the current desire of those same legacy carriers to be mobile-first, information service providers to all, and of course, the delivery medium of television content has in turn created a wide-open market for the rise of the new telco.

That's something Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are all pursuing in different ways. And with collaboration now a centerpiece of communications, and more modern services from ZOOM, with ZOOMphone, Dialpad with super-smart voice AI, and a whole host of others, are rapidly carving out their niches in telecom. In essence, they are picking up the ball of  innovation, a place where the old school guys stopped venturing, back about the time Bell Labs died off.

While UCaaS was the hot zone for the last ten years or so, and it's why so much money and investment fueled that sector, its no longer as molten like. Microsoft, the perennial champion of being the second mover, has decided not to be another UCaaS player, but instead to become the CPaaS giant. As Krazit pointed out, this can't be good for Twilio, which had the lead. To me, this spells more significant challenges for Plivo, Vonage (Nexmo), and others who don't have specific niches carved out that can ride atop the Azure cloud+ Communications Services offering.

Why? Azure may be the most widely deployed cloud. If not, they are likely neck and neck with Google. Unlike AWS, they can provide richer and deeper integration into the rest of Microsoft's applications and platforms-all in a single architecture, not via APIs and webhooks. Second is TEAMS, Microsoft's collaboration platform that is out-innovating Zoom and Google Meet at every turn. Much like what Facebook does where the mimic and copy new cutting edge ideas and services to create a new feature, Microsoft copies the best of the rest and then blows it out.

For years I have been somewhat critical of Microsoft and how they bastardized Skype to a nothing burger in telecom, taking a very forward-thinking service and turning into nothing but a very pedestrian VoIP play. But that is a part of a past era, the Steve Ballmer one. With Azure Communications Services, Microsoft has taken dead-on aim at both Twilio and AWS, collapsing the what the two do into one API platform. 

In turn, Microsoft is offering telecom and web developers a whole new playground to develop next-generation services and solution sets. That playground will further enable anyone who needs to make some type of call, voice, or video, send a message, SMS, MMS, or in-app text, and hook into services like those of CRM providers, tables, databases, or even content, in a more knitted together environment.

Game On!

Other coverage by TechCrunch

Lenovo Ideapad Duet Chromebook-The Price Is Right

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking more and more about how much tech jewelry I've been carrying around. In round numbers it's like this:

Mac Book Air 2020        $1600 or Samsung Galaxy Chromebook $1000

iPad Mini  w/LTE           $ 700

iPhone XS                        $1150

One Plus 8                       $ 700

That's over  $3,500-$4,000 in tech I'm carrying around when I travel-and well, that's just insane. Add in headsets, chargers, battery packs, plus a nice bag, and I bet I'm not leaving the house with less than $5,000 in tech gear when I travel or even just jet around town on meetings. Something had to give. 

After consulting with Mr. Chromebook, Kevin Tofel, who I consider my go to expert on all things Chromebooks, I decided to make a small $300 purchase of a Lenovo Duet Tablet, that's fully loaded with 128GB of memory and comes with a stand and keyboard. Yes, I also have a 10" iPad Pro, but my keyboard has been acting up, is out of warranty, and would be about $160 to buy a replacement. And, given how Google GSuite and how Android apps run on Chromebooks, I figured I could  do everything I need to do on the Duet and my One Plus 8, though I will still take along my iPhone as it has both AT&T and Verizon on it, while the One Plus has T-Mobile. But if I only took along the One Plus I'd be at the $1000 mark, not over $3500. 

Plus, I'm lightening my load, carrying a smaller bag and figuring I'll be more productive. You gotta admit, with the switch, the price is right.                

The Cashless Sports Stadium Arrives

The headline on the news release read "Allegiant Stadium to make history as the first American pro sports venue to open cashless" so being a reformed sports marketing executive brought a smile to my face. It was also in a real way, a true to life dejavu for me. You see, 32 years ago when I was working with the Denver Nuggets we were one of, if not, the first arena's to incorporate credit cards at the concession stands.

Back then, cash was king. You bought your beer with cash. Paid for your popcorn with dollars. You picked out merchandise at the stands and handed over ones, fives, tens and twenties. But at the now long gone McNichols Arena here the Nuggets played we were going with credit cards too. Back then we were in negotiations with both Pepsi and Coke for the pouring rights in the building. One of the "big" ideas that co-owner Andy Shlenker had--to this day he was in my mind one of the brightest and most creative executives in sports--was to bring in the fast food brands into the arena and have greater sales as a way to get people to eat more of what they already like, and in turn increase the per caps (per person spending). It was a novel idea. A real first.

But one of the catches with Pepsi was they wanted their spin off brands that became YUM Brands-Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut to take credit cards. So, we said, sure. We turned to our concessions partner, ARA who earlier had suggested the same idea. But getting credit card machines to work inside an arena was not an easy feat back in the late 80's. It started with the fact that the goal was to speed people through the lines, not make them wait longer.

Phone lines wouldn't do it. They take to long. So how did we do it? With a satellite and microwave link. It was a bit of a workaround but microwave link would send the data to a terminal hub, that would approve the credit card. The satellite link would send the data back to the cashier. This all took only a few seconds in theory, but it did work.

Now, with 5G this idea is made easier. So much easier. And more reliable.

Google Voice Adds On Going Call Takeover

Google Voice, originally Grand Central, continues to be around and used by many people. While Google doesn't put the same effort behind it as they are with Meet, it remains a very useful and viable front end number for many people who have multiple phone number, or devices, when they wish to be reached. For many, it's the second number, often used by people who don't want to give out their personal cell or home phone, but still want to be reached by customers.

Today, with one of their iOS updates that they regularly produce, and without much fanfare, they keep adding features found in many of the UCaaS offerings from the brands we hear about everyday. One today that popped up was in call takeover, where a call may be on one device, say your iPad and you want to continue talking on your iPhone. I'm guessing this is also available on Android too, and where it really helps is if you're on a call on a deskphone and want to go take the call and get going. While this feature has been available from other UCaaS providers it hasn't been there for Google Voice users. 

When you add in that functionality to Google Voice's recent Google Fi integration, you have an interesting proposition that the traditional USA mobile operators don't offer. That being the ability to direct a call using Google Voice to a landline, and then pull the call back to your mobile device and get going by moving the call over to the smartphone. They way you do that is you either could take or originate a call on your Google Voice number on a desk phone or tablet at home or at the office, and then using the new On Going Call Takeover function, pick it up on you smartphone and leave the house or office without ending the call in progress.

While Google Voice has not seen the kind of traction that Meet is seeing,  and while Fi is a niche player in mobile, the steady path of merging all the voice services together is apparently going on at Google, just without much fanfare.

While my travel internationally has ground to a halt due to the Corona virus, Google Voice has remained an alternative number for me, just as it has since it's start, as well as being a public facing number too.  It's value proposition from the start has been, one number for life, that can reach you on any other number. Now, it's one number that can truly reach you on almost any device, including SIP enabled phones and speakerphones. 

My feeling is that as more people work from home, and want some division between home phone, personal mobile phone and their work phone, that Google Voice is a viable option, with more features and more outlets coming. Google is far from treating voice as an amenity, and see's it as a core part of GSuite, but hasn't played out their entire hand just yet with it.

Dialpad Gets A Big High Five

To be always transparent, unlike many in the tech reporting or analyst world, I'm a shareholder in Dialpad and have in the past consulted on various projects and programs to the company. That means, I'm openly biased to see the company succeed. But then again, I'm supportive of the telecom industry, and never hide my affiliations or who I work with or advise.

That's why when I learned this morning about the Dialpad acquisition of HighFive, I couldn't have been more ecstatic as it shows a steady path forward for the company that is really one of the few born in the cloud, and buyers of born in the cloud technology, out there.

Often you hear of some company being acquired. Usually its for gap filling, market position, revenue or a team of people to make the business look better.  This purchase does all that and more because as growth oriented as Dialpad has been since their start, they have done it with a very lean team, and a core group of people who keep it going, growing and more. The Talk IQ acquisition two years back set them on a smart path around AI, and while companies like Chorus.AI or Grain, sell similar add-on services, they are plug ins, not a core part of the business. At Dialpad, the TalkIQ integration is woven inside the entire service--phone, conferencing and obviously soon in video. (i.e. Martin Geddes-HyperVoice hat tip circa 2012).

But why buy High Five? Beyond what has been reported already there's a lot more here:

1. Google lineage of staff
2. Understanding of Cloud Native technology
3. Deepening of the team-Vincent, Brian and John plus Craig all have been the product, ops and management team. The Talk IQ team added significant smarts and depth, this adds even more skill sets and greater depth. As a former sports team executive who learned all about TEAM building from the great Flyers GM, Keith Allen, having depth and talent who can all play together is never easy. This group can and does.
4. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is cheaper to buy than to give up equity to investors. As a shareholder who sees that Video is clearly where the market is going, this adds customers who already like the video service. Add in UberConference and Dialpad to those customers and its a multiple win for Dialpad and the shareholders as it increases value of the business. Customers, and revenue per seat are how businesses are bought. IP value is added in, so is team but value comes from what money is coming in the door.
5. Doing Voice right isn't easy. Doing video right, is even harder. Dialpad picks up a video team that's proven. 
6. If video is hard. Getting hardware right is even more complicated. I remember working with the Skype team on their video hardware debut. HighFive has proven they can design, source and supply gear that works WITH THEIR SERVICE. 
7. This means people can't say "you don't offer..." vs, Zoom or Cisco.

Long time VoIP and Cloud exec Jeff Bonforte, while at Yahoo Voice, once remarked he would never be in the hardware business. Well for video to be done right, hardware with cameras and speakerphones is a necessary part of the game. So for Dialpad, HighFive brings them all types of hardware smarts, that integrates into the service natively, not as an add on.

As someone who has been using UberConference video from about the time it was an internal idea, and recalling a video call one fall night while in San Francisco with CEO, Craig Walker who was in Singapore on a local SIM card, and I was on my way to an upscale pizza place, I remember how video at Dialpad started. To say, "you've come along way, baby" is an understatement. With HighFive in the house, you've just moved from a having a "we too" product, to a being serious player to Zoom, WebEx and Teams, as a top flight provider who has cloud, customers, convenience and a cool offering.

Yes, I'm biased, but having been around telecom now for 20 years, this deal rings like money in the bank.

The Video Calling Switchboard Has Arrived

 

Zoom just took the first step to create the video calling switchboard. This may not seem like a big deal, but it really is because right now, video calling and video conferencing, like encrypted communications, is a dystopia of balkanized efforts, where each provider does things their own way, and for users it means having multiple services to subscribe to and use. 

Not only is this unwieldy from a cost control standpoint, it is downright confusing. It's as confusing as the days of ICQ and AOL Messenger being owned and operated by AOL but not being interconnected. Now, so many years later, we still have division by user base, but like so many things I'm polyamorous about, the number of services and apps I need to have to stay in touch is mind boggling. When I compare this to before say 2000, when I had maybe three phone numbers-home, office and cell phone to be found, plus a private 800 number so my mother could call me cross country for free, even then I had Webley and AT&T’s Reach Me , both of which made ringing all the devices at the same time using the earliest of Find Me/Follow Me technology, so easy. These services, all aimed at making us reachable via one number services, as they reduced complexity, they didn’t add to it.

That’s why what ZOOM's new effort and what they are doing today, connecting to Facebook’s Portal, Google Nest with video and Amazon Echo Show 8 is so important. They are getting connected to where the people are, not to where they have been. This “federation” of sorts is very similar to what Michael Robertson and Jeff Bonforte did with the earliest days of Gizmo Project, and what Jeff Pulver and Carl Ford first did with Free World DialUp, long before they idea was taken by the Skype founding team and given an injection of steroids with JOLTID for secure communications, something Skype sure isn’t today.

But today, now with WebRTC and the cloud making it easy for new voice, messaging and video services to spring up, the need for the modern era switchboard for video calling and conferencing, that offers security, privacy and control, and can rest in the hands of the user using a permission based approach, is upon us.

A lot more work still needs to be done, but Zoom’s first step is a big one, and a bold move, especially as they move more and more into telephony with Zoom phone and expand that footprint worldwide. By moving video calling in the direction they are going, and adding phone service, it won’t be long before you can call someone more easily, and have that call end up on the Nest, Portal or Show, just like calls that used to go to your home phone, just like the Jetsons’ cartoons of the past foreshadowed.

Apple Idea of Privacy Could Be Trusted Advertising - Meet The Ad Store

Apple has made a bold move in the world of privacy. They are cutting off the IDFA at the knees. Some may call it digital castration, as John Koetsier points out in his Forbes story.  But I think there's more to this. While Apple does sell ads inside the app store, Apple is really the only one of the giants - Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft which has never really leveraged its' own user base or platforms for ads. 

So here's a concept that may come true.

Right now Apple has radio inside iTunes. It has TV. It has News. It also has apps. And, if those are apps with in app payment or which charge a fee, Apple takes its' cut of 30 percent. But if  Apple was able to insert ads, then it could offer a shared reduction cost to app developers who want to make use of an API that ran ads for services.

Think about it this way. Take Salesforce and their apps. Or Slack. Or even Google. All play in large ecosystems of loosely referred to partners who need to promote their services to one another. If those could be "promoted" inside the app via the Apple Ad store, where Apple knows exactly who has installed and is using the apps, and then combined with the app owners own data of users, data that sits inside SalesForce, HubSpot, Marketo and other marketing automation programs, the idea of direct marketing and targeting becomes even more relevant. Apple, and in reality, Google Android, all become ad or offer delivery platforms. This approach would combine the offer with the "in app purchase" option and Apple would win twice.

Apple has always been the master of the two sided business model, and the App store, where you pay for the right to access it buy buying a phone, tablet or computer, then leads to apps that pay the Apple tax. By offering marketing,  promotion, and ads, all of which the user or the developer can opt into or out of Apple takes the high road. And given that Apple reaches into just about every executive suite in the world, they have access to some of the most powerful decision makers, because those folks have Apple in the palm of their hands every day.

And, since Apple takes the position of protecting user privacy, you can bet that the data it uses will be two-factor separated from the advertiser, until you want to be known. With an approach like this, Apple can still give you the level of privacy you want, and pay you through service credits for giving up some, or all of it it, or you can simply keep paying what you pay today for devices, apps and services, and remain unknown, and void of advertising.

This is all pure speculation on my part, but....and it's a big but...I've been right before.

 

Dilemma of Being Early

I've been on WhatsApp for so long, I can't remember my first message or call on it. As someone who was traveling the globe on a regular basis from 2004 until early this year, overtime I found more and more people I was coming into contact with outside the USA were on the free app that did the basics better than just about anything on the planet. For the past few years I've been using Signal, which is just about the best encrypted app for text, voice and video around. I've dabbled with Silent Circle, only to find that not too many of my friends use it. On the other hand, WhatsApp and Signal are loaded with friends of mine. The same with Telegram. 

The trio of Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp, plus iMessage/Facetime and Duo/Hangouts have all become phone alternatives for me, and every service bypasses the traditional PSTN, and is FREE.  Heck, even Slack calling has taken a large chunk of my calling life too. 

But three apps that I was also using back in the 00's were RocketTalk by San Diego's Rajiv Kumar and James Tagg's Truphone's mobile app. We started working with both in the 00's. RockeTalk had everything that WhatsApp eventually had years later, but fits and starts, funding challenges, and being from San Diego held it back, all the while it was gaining traction in India. I'm convinced that had RT been in the Valley it would have been the winner. The third was TalkPlus, a pioneer in second lines on mobile phones.

Of the three, Truphone had the best success, and was the biggest threat to Skype in the 00's also. Its last versions of the mobile app, that combined on-net and PSTN calling originally pioneered on Nokia's N series, based on the Symbian OS were on all the OS'. iOS, Android and Blackberry by 2010. The arrival of the iPhone in 2007 and the development of apps for iOS in 2008 had Truphone on a path of converged calling between WiFi and 3G/4G/LTE.

Clearly the London upstart was shaking up the telecom world. A 2007 attempt by T-Mobile in the UK to block calls to and from Truphone failed, as Truphone won in court. Truphone also had secure calling way before any service other than Skype even considered it. Truphone was also a media darling, and had users all over the globe. It's SIMless calling on devices gave people a second line and features that weren't available from the mobile operators.  But a shift in leadership twice between 2009 and 2014 led to its eventual pivot and Tagg's departure. The benefits the company is seeing today are a result of James Tagg's relentless inventing, and patent filings. Tagg's vision of converged WiFi and 3G/4G/LTE calling wasn't wrong. Nor was his dream of data roaming on the fly. He was just too early.

TalkPlus in the mix of being too early. They did second line on the Motorola Razr and Nokia phones, and eventually on the iPhone. They did this before Line2 and Jaxter, integraing with the dialer and receiving calls to the second number using VoIP and DIDs to redirect to the primary line. 

All three companies were born in 2005/2006 and suffered though from one common factor. They were too early. Truphone, with Russian investment, has survived, pivoted to the eSIM space and is doing well. RockeTalk's found Rajiv Kumar secured his IP back a few years back but it's too little too late.  Both companies were way ahead of WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, but were just too early. TalkPlus was an enigma. Great idea, tech that worked, but challenges on direction led to it withering away.

Sometimes the dilemma of being early is the right idea.  But as they say, timing is everything.