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February 25, 2002
The Pulver Report - February 25, 2002
THE PULVER REPORT(TM)
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In this Issue:
- Heard on the Net
People on the Move
Companies on the Move
- IP Telephony Jobs
- Positive signs of Life within the IP Communications Industry
- Congrats to Sarah Hughes - Bringing the Gold to Great Neck
- 2002: The Year of Survival
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Revolution
- Watching Visions become Reality: Introduction to the Cellsocket
- Spring 2002 VON: Time to book your hotel room
- Recap: 2002 IP Communication Industry Executive Summit
- The RIAA's attempt to join the Luddite Movement
- Jeff's Question: Where do you do your thinking?
- Reader feedback on January 2002 Kids on the Net Story
- Carl's Corner: Layers upon layers
- New: Pulver Report Readers' Mailing List
- Web Change Agents: Websites which make Living Easier
- Connectivity 2002: Presenting leading Indepedent Internet Commentators
- Call for Speakers: VON Europe 2002 and VON Asia 2002
- pulver.com 2002 Conference Calendar
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Heard on the Net
========================
People on the Move:
- Adam Roach left Ericsson and joined dynamicsoft.
- Herbert Molina left Network Associates Latin America and
joined Sybari Software as Vice President and General Manager.
Companies on the Move:
After almost a year long drought, the venture markets are starting to
open up. A number of companies are in the process of closing new
albeit mostly down rounds. Look for announcements over the next 4-6 weeks.
- Cedar Point Communications recently raised $19 million in private
equity financing.
(Please email: people@pulver.com to report a change in your
position. Please refer to: "People on the Move" in the subject)
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IP Telephony Jobs from: ( http://pulver.com/jobs )
As the recovery inside the IP Communications Industry continues, when
your company has job opening, please consider posting them with
pulver.com. Please email: jobs@pulver.com for job posting information.
Recent job postings (as of February 25, 2002):
- Software Engineer, iTopia Inc.
- Lead Software Engineer, Media Gateway Development, iTopia Inc.
- Sales Engineer for VoIP Network, Telverse Communications
- Senior Network Technical Support Engineer
for VoIP Network, Telverse Communications
If you are interested in pursuing any of these positions, please visit
( http://pulver.com/jobs ) for full details.
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Positive signs of Life within the IP Communications Industry
Based on the activity which I've recently observed, I'm seeing signs that
a recovery is currently taking place within the IP Communications
Industry. Reports of a "radioactive Spring" following this "nuclear
Winter" are just false. :-)
While my own internal indicators come from the signs of a relatively
strong Spring 2002 VON, I believe this will become evident later this
year when people realize the level of business which took place in Q1 and
Q2 of 2002.
Note: The dust was taken off last year's House bill HR 1542 and it
is currently slated for vote on February 27th.
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Congrats to Sarah Hughes - Bringing the Gold to Great Neck
Being a long time Great Neck resident, it was with amazement that I, along
with millions of others, watched Sarah Hughes win the gold medal for
figure skating in the 2002 Winter Olympics.
It was my kids who are in the 2nd grade who first brought my attention to
Sarah and I thought it was very cool that an 11th grader who is currently
attending my former high school - Great Neck North was competing in this
year's Olympics. I had no idea she was an honors student or represented
such a great role model for our kids.
Dylan and Jake have taken Sarah's success pretty much in stride, as it
seems they would rather focus on visiting cartoonnetwork.com, visiting
Cartoon Orbit and collecting their cToons than on watching figure skating.
If I was still 7, I think I would might act the same way, so I can't
blame them...
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2002: The Year of Survival
"go as slow as you need to"
"go as fast as you have to"
These are the words I heard when I was at an off-road driving school
but they seem so relevant with respect to guiding your company in
uncertain times.
In these times, even those who can execute will be challenged. Nothing
is easy and all bets are off. Now is the time for your team to
put in that 150% effort to help get things done. And it might
be difficult if you are resource challenged due to a recent
downsizing.
I've heard that for some, sales cycles have been pushed out
to 18 months. If this is the case for you, now more than ever you
should engage your customers and re-establish your relationships.
Now is the time to be there for your customers so they can be there
for you when their budgets open up.
The biggest challenge may just be keeping your focus and not allow
yourself to get distracted. Those who manage to get through this
storm should be in great shape once the recovery starts to fully set
in.
While we may be starting to see positive signs of a recovery
happening with business starting to get better, better to
focus on s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g each and every dollar now so
that your company's survival in 2002 is ensured. If you end up
with extra dollars at the end of the year, you can always share
them as a special bonus with those responsible for getting you there.
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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Revolution
Six years ago, during the winter of 1996 there was a lot of talk about the
near term future of the wired telecom industry and the potential threat
which VoIP over the public Internet represented.
Six years later, while a lot has been accomplished and a lot has changed,
my prediction that the nextgen telecos of tomorrow would be the incumbent
phone companies of today also came true mostly at the expense of startup
CLECs which had the vision but just didn't make it.
One of the observations we had at this year's IP Communication Industry
Executive Summit in Maui was that most of the vendors were now focusing on
selling the equipment to the incumbent LECs and Cable MSOs and that
selling products to the Enterprise was an attractive business. In fact,
most companies from the IP Communications Industry who didn't wake up one
morning and decide that they were now wireless players, have focused on
delivering products and services to the Enterprise.
And I agree, the Enterprise marketplace represents a great opportunity.
In fact this is why at Spring 2002 VON I am introducing our Enterprise
Forum. The idea of the forum is to provide a summit enviornment for
Enterprise customers to talk about the state of IP Communications within
the Enterprise as well as a channel for the vendors and the service
providers who serve them.
Now where some of the logic starts to fail is the belief that just because
somebody wants to become a vendor to a large enterprise it can easily
happen. It turns out that it is still access to the channel which is the
limiting factor for most of early Enterprise sales. Knowing and focusing
on the kind of Enterprise customer also matters. Targeting the Small
Medium Enterprise (SME) marketplace is a lot different than selling into
the Fortune 500. And yes, size matters. Typically the large Enterprise
customers will show similar buying characteristic as some of the ILECs.
Big companies buy from big companies. If you are a small company without
any connections, good luck, because you are going to need it.
On the front of the IP Communications revolution, it is my belief that the
best has yet to come and those who have the "Been There Done That"
attitude about our space and our industry will be missing the next great
wave of opportunity in Enterprise Communication Services.
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Watching Visions become Reality: Introduction to the Cellsocket
During the summer of 2000 I spent some time observing how much extra money
pulver.com was paying the wireless carriers because we didn't manage the
breakage of our pre-paid cellular minutes that well. After speaking to my
uncle, Fred Pulver, we decided to do something about it and as a result,
we formed WHP Wireless, in honor of my late dad, W. Howard Pulver.
The other trend which we started to observe was the one of "wireless
conversion" where consumers have started to reduce their dependence on
POTS circuits for their homes and their conversion of using their cell
phone as their primary phone. We thought being in the business of
providing the accessories for the wireless conversion revolution would be
a good move.
Not knowing much about product engineering other than the
features/functionality I wanted to see in such a product, I left all of
the hard work to my uncle and his team of engineers. While I truly
believed in the concept, seeing the product born and become real was a
pretty cool reward. The Cellsocket ( http://www.cellsocket.com ) was first
introduced at the 2001 CES show and is it's been a fun ride so far. Stay
tuned.
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Spring 2002 VON: Time to book your hotel room
If you are planning on attending Spring 2002 VON, now would be a great
time to book your hotel room. I'm told that there are just a limited
number of hotel rooms available, so if you are planning on attending,
please visit: ( http://www.pkghlrss.com/events/6461/6461.html ) sometime
soon.
You can also take care of your hotel room for VON by
contacting Par Avion in Los Angeles at +1.310.590.4702.
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Recap: 2002 IP Communication Industry Executive Summit
This year our annual IP Communication Industry Executive Summit took place
in Maui during February 5-7th. I'd like to personally thank everyone who
participated on the roundtables and those who contributed during the
sessions each day.
The warm and fuzzy I got out of the event was that business was happening
and that by bringing together a cross-section of industry executives, we
all had the opportunity to meet, talk, challenge and strategize about the
near-term and long term issues facing our industry. I was told that "if
I only knew how good this was I would have started attending years ago." I
take the blame for almost intentionally under marketing this event.
To get an idea of the scope of this year's presentations, please
visit: ( http://slides.pulver.com ) and download the presentations.
The 2003 Executive Summit has already been planned and we will be
returning to the Ritz-Carlton in Maui during the same week next year. I
will be sending out invitations in September so if you would like to be
invited, please let me know and I will place you on the invitation list.
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The RIAA's attempt to join the Luddite Movement
Last week the US Copyright Office published their proposal for Rates and
Terms for Statutory License for "Eligible Nonsubscription Services" at
( http://www.loc.gov/copyright/carp/webcasting_rates.html ).
The current proposal as it stands would drive most Indie Internet Radio
stations to stop playing commercial music and would most likely result in
seeing Internet Radio become a fad of the past. Working out the numbers
and the scenarios, this would also represent a pretty significant burden
on those commercial radio stations which chose to webcast their station on
the Internet. This proposal could add $100,000+ a year to the cost of
running an Internet radio station, at a time when most stations
are already financially challenged and when their business models are
already under pressure.
If the proposal as stated becomes the law, pulverRadio will most likely
need to go to a 24x7 Talk Radio format and the only music we end up
playing will be the music of the RevUp Record artists. (Owning your
own record label sometimes has it advantages.). We would also consider
playing unsigned artists who waive their webcasting royalties.
While I appreciate and respect the need to protect the copyright of the
music, there has to be a better solution than to effectively penalize
those who wish to be early adopters of streaming media technologies and
those who invested in creating their own stand alone radio stations.
When faced with being disrupted, some carriers may look to regulatory
relief. When the music industry faces disruption they just like to sue
and put in place penalties which are onerous. I'd like to see some
level of compromise such that the fees paid are based on the revenue of
the station involved, rather than the fierce fees the copyright office is
trying to get put in place.
While it might not be fair to suggest that if Hillary Rosen were an
advocate on behalf of the farming industry that farmers would still be
using horses and not tractors, it certainly feels that way when looking
at the ways which the music industry collectively likes to try to avoid
embracing new technologies whenever one may emerge which places challenges
on the status quo.
The same "hands off the Internet" policies that the US Gov't followed in
the late 90's should be considered with relation to the way webcasters of
today should be treated with regard to payments for webcasting
royalties.
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Jeff's Question: Where do you do your thinking?
For me, it seems I do most of my thinking for the day while I'm in the
shower. Maybe I come up with an idea when I'm driving to work and on a
rare occasion, maybe while I'm supposedly sleeping. I'd appreciate knowing
where the readers of the Pulver Report do their best thinking.
The reason I mention this is that while I spend the majority of my time
either at the office or offsite at events, these commercial environments
are not conducive for thinking and this just seems like an oxymoron to me.
What am I missing?
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Reader feedback on January 2002 Kids on the Net Story
>Our home jury is still out as to which game system is the best.
>While I've chosen XBox, my kids still seem to favor their Gamecube
>and the dust continues to grow on the Playstation 2, each product
>seems to cater to a different strength. Personally I'm looking forward
>to see how each gaming system takes advantage of multiplayer gaming
>over IP networks.
Greg Costikyan writes:
XBox is far better positioned for online play, with built-in networking
support and a hard-drive. The importance of the latter may not be
immediately obvious, but every massively multiplayer game updates its
software frequently to deal with hacker exploits as well as ad new stuff to
the game--can't do that unless you have local storage on the client end.
Hard drives are less important for "small group" online play (ala Quake or
StarCraft), but still useful in terms of updating software to deal with
bugs as well as hacker exploits.
Also, note that online play almost doesn't exist in Japan, a legacy of the
fact that the computer (as opposed to console) gaming market has been small
there, as well as high Japanese local phone access charges. Consequently,
the Japanese manufacturers have been slow to understand the importance of
online play. That's changing quickly, now, largely because they've seen the
success of wireless games on Japanese carriers--but neither GameCube nor PS
II is particularly well designed to support online play. You really need to
buy add-on peripherals--both connectivity and hard-drive--to make either a
good online gaming box.
A last note: One of the major draws for online play is inter-player
communication. Traditionally, consoles lack keyboards, which enable text
chat. Microsoft is planning to emphasize broadband connectivity for XBox
(unlike Dreamcast, which uses a dialup modem)--and plans to implement VoIP
communication for its online console titles (maybe not the first few, but
it's part of their roadmap for the future). To my mind, that's key--to make
online console play attractive, you EITHER need text OR voice
communication, and given that console players generally don't like
keyboards, VoIP is the way to go.
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Carl's Corner: Layers upon layers
In the musical 1776, John Adams sings "Is anybody there? Does anybody
care?". While I felt I related to the musical just fine before last year,
a CEO friend has said, "Its like everybody, left and forgot to tell me
where to go." Telecom is traditionally a laggard in economic recovery. It
requires people to have a reason to talk to each other. But the real
issue is the market has expanded and taking to someone now can also mean
communicating with them with various forms of rich media besides just
the PSTN. In fact I know I am in more contact with people now then ever
before due to Instant Messaging, e-mail as well my wireless phone...except
for the office when I do use a landline.
So when I think of the layers of copper, fiber, switches, hubs, routers,
servers, and antennas connecting me to the world, I ask two simple
questions. "Why should I care?" and "Is this the best I can do?"
My question about caring is that the phone network is a mess. My cable
operator comes to my house and smudges my clean walls, looks like a extra
in one of Redford's prison movies and uses my house as a practice run for
his staple gun. The phone guys can't think out of the box, due to all
the rules and forms they have to fill out. If customer care is important,
it sure does not reveal itself in my experience. Can anyone give me an
analysis of taking five more minutes to understand the customer versus
the multimillion dollar CRM system?
So I believe I am ripe for the taking. So who can do better for me? I
think it is a fully IP oriented company. A company that leaves the layers
behind when it thinks of how to provide me services.
Lambda switching (ooooooooooooh), QoS tagging (aaaaaaaaaaaaaah). Why do I
care? I have yet to experience service delivery that was not full of
problems. Most of the problems come from a very partitioned world. When
the CEO of AT&T was promising the grand unifying theory, I was so
there. Yes take my cable, land-line, wireless and make them work
together. Don't make me do systems integration on your behalf (if i am
the customer, just do it).
While some of our friends are running to 3G, I am looking to 802.11x as
the technology of choice. Because I believe it can bundle everything I
want and start to give me the experience of a complete application. I
also think, the Internet has been underhyped. It is the network of the
future. Most service providers deliver the Internet but are still stuck
in the layers. My ideal carrier or connection is straight IP.
It could be that others are right, and as we get through SIPs growing
pains, that I will start to use services that don't constantly require
self-service. Personally, like SIP, I want to stay at the application
layer and not dwell on other issues. Listening to the big pipe carriers,
it sounds like we grow past most of the problems. We will see.
If anyone wants to join me in my quest, (no pun intended) I will be happy
to listen.
Anyone? Comments? Please email: carl@pulver.com.
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New: Pulver Report Readers' Mailing List
I just setup a new interactive mailing list for the readers of
the Pulver Report. The purpose of this list is to provide
community and a forum for discussion for the readers of
the Pulver Report.
To subscribe to the mailing list, visit:
( http://listserv.pulver.com/archives/pulver-rpt.html )
or via email:
send email to listserv@listserv.pulver.com
with the line "subscribe pulver-rpt" in your message body.
No subject line is required.
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Web Change Agents: Websites which make Living Easier
Thinking about net based change agents which have had a
positive effect on my family living in New York,
below is the short list of websites which have had a positive
effect on me and my family. I'm sure just about everyone
has their own favorite list and I'd appreciate hearing
from the Pulver Report readership about this.
1. Priceline
priceline.com has become a great tool which is used just about
all the time when we host visitors at pulver.com or when we
go on the road for short trips and need a hotel room.
It turns out that while our local Hilton and Marriott
hotels have refused to give us discounted corporate rates
because we were not willing to commit to at least 150 room
nights a year. By visiting priceline.com we have always been
able to help get a room for a business guest for less than
half the cost of their published rates.
2. Google
My kids have discovered Goggle and use it very effectively
as their source for getting answers to their own
"How", "What" "where" "why" questions as they pertain to
the video games they play or the cartoon characters they
like to draw. Where was Google when I had to write term
papers for Social studies?
3. eBay
My wife may be able to survive a few days off of email but
when she gains net access, the first place she visits is
eBay. While flea markets may have existed for centuries,
having access to worldwide channels at an instant has
helped create a marketplace like no other. Just about
anything and everything can be found on eBay and is
available...for a price.
4. Moviefone
I'm now hooked at moviefone.com for their streaming videos
of movie previews. But before that I was a frequent user
on weekends when I tried to figure out what movie to see
and where to see it. Being able to preorder the movie
tickets is just an added bonus.
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Connectivity 2002: Presenting leading Indepedent Internet Commentators
Connectivity 2002 taking place May 21-23 at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel
in Boston, MA is the first communications industry conference to
break "convergence" montra from the last century. Connectivity 2002 arises
from the observation that corporate backed Internet "gurus" and independent
Internet "gurus" reside on opposite sides of a basic issue - who should
control the Internet?
Lead by our Program Chair Bob Frankston, Connectivity 2002 provides a
forum for the people who think users should remain in control including:
Jeff Pulver, David Reed, Dave Farber, Dave Burstein, Ken Rutkowski,
Gordon Cook, David Isenberg, Kevin Werbach, Jenny Toomey, Ray
Everett-Church, Erik Moeller, and Miles Fidelman. This event is starting
to get the feeling of becoming the "Woodstock for Telecom" event.
For more information, please visit:
( http://pulver.com/connectivity2002 )
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Call for Speakers: VON Europe 2002 and VON Asia 2002
VON Europe 2002 ( http://pulver.com/europe2002 ) will be
taking place June 10-13 in Helsinki.
VON Asia 2002 ( http://pulver.com/asia2002 ) will be taking
place July 22-24 in Hong Kong.
We are currently looking for ideas for speakers and content
to be discussed at these upcoming events. The deadline for
VON Europe submissions is February 28th and for VON Asia
is March 28th.
Please visit: ( http://pulver.com/speak/submit.html ) to
submit your speaking proposal.
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pulver.com 2002 Conference Calendar
( http://pulver.com/conference )
"Events for the IP Communications Industry" (tm)
April 8-11 - Spring 2002 VON, Seattle, WA
( http://pulver.com/von )
April 8th - Spring 2002 VON Enterprise Forum, Seattle, WA
( http://pulver.com/von/vonentforum_vonspr02.html )
April 8-10 - Spring 2002 Location Based Services Summit, Seattle, WA
( http://pulver.com/lbs )
May 7-9 - Spring 2002 SIP Summit, Las Vegas, NV
( http://pulver.com/sip )
May 21-23 - Connectivity 2002 - Boston, MA
( http://pulver.com/connetivity2002 )
May 29-31 - EAT'M 2002, Las Vegas, NV
( http://www.eat-m.com )
June 10-13 - VON Europe 2002, Helsinki, Finland
( http://pulver.com/europe2002 )
June 12-13 - VON Europe Developers Conference 2002
Helsinki, Finland
( http://pulver.com/developers )
June 11-13 - Spring 2002 Presence and Instant Messaging
Helsinki, Finland
( http://pulver.com/pim )
July 22-24 - VON Asia 2002, Hong Kong, CHINA
( http://pulver.com/asia2002 )
October 7-10 - Fall 2002 VON, Atlanta, GA
October 8-9 - Fall 2002 VON Enterprise Forum, Atanta, GA
October 9-11 - Fall 2002 VON Developers Conference, Atlanta, GA
October 7-9 - Fall 2002 Location Based Services Summit, Atlanta, GA
October 8-10 - Fall 2002 Presence and Instant Messaging, Atlanta, GA
November 6-8 - VON Europe Summit 2002 (at N+I Paris), Paris, France
November 19-21 - Fall 2002 SIP Summit #, Las Vegas, NV
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February 25, 2002 http://pulver.com/reports
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