Inaugural 2nd generation FOX Blog 2.0 - February 2014
Thoughts from Fox Hollow - Update on Blog
Ten years ago we published our first blog titled "FOX FLASH". We then shifted over to producing our ezine Telecom Dispatch enewsletter. Due to pressure from our readers who want more timely comments and analysis, we are pleased to announce that we have brought back our blog, which is now titled "FOX Blog 2.0".
As always, we know you folks are not a shy group....so keep giving us your thoughts and feedback and we will keep analyzing and commenting on the ICT sector and what it means to customers.
New Primus Canada CEO interview
I recently had the chance to meet the new CEO for Primus Canada, Michael Nowlan, to discuss his vision for the company as they celebrate their 10th year anniversary of VoIP in Canada.
One of the more interesting responses was his answer to my question "What are you as the new CEO for Primus Canada going to do to change why Canadians have not embraced VoIP as much as other parts of the world"?
His reply was that Canadian businesses, particularly small businesses, have not been well served by the Canadian telcos (how true!). He also stated that traditionally telco services and products have not been easy for business customers to buy and install.
Primus Canada has continued to invested in using the web to help educate and inform Canadians about what VoIP can do. They have also developed automated sales, pricing and installation applications to enable customers to find out, buy and even configure their services without having to 'talk' to anyone. They do offer customer service staff for telephone sales and support if required.
We wish Mr. Nowlan success in his role and encourage SMBs to look at their various next generation communications offers. This would be particularly worthwhile for those firms that have an aging Nortel phone system, and want to move to not having any on-site telephony or contact center equipment or applications.
It is better to investigate and determine what your future choices are now, before you get hit with an expensive service bill or upgrade bills for your aging Nortel PBX!
Industry Events
Stephen, Susan and Eugenia have been attending various vendor education events since the last Telecom Dispatch issue.
The common themes from our internal briefings is that all of the vendors are 'getting into cloud' one way or another over the next year. They are all trying to figure out how to compensate their channels to deal with this trend. They are also analyzing who should be their channels in the future.
Industry Financials
In looking at the numerous financial results, the telecom sector is definitely in transition and has to re-invent itself once again in order to survive and succeed. Sounds like analogue to Digital, and Digital to VoIP all over again. The main difference this time is the extremely accelerated pace of technological evolutions, compared to the past.
Customer Views
In talking to customers, many continue to be confused and even overwhelmed by the pace of change and the many different paths that they can take. Their IT organizations (including telecom, if they still have folks left) are all working to the max with too many projects on their plates.
While some clients have been investigating moving to next generation telephony and contact center solutions to integrate with their IT apps, many have not moved past doing limited pilots to 'test things out'. We believe this is one of the primary reasons for the telecom revenue decline across traditional manufacturers.
Guidance to the Industry
When the telecom and IT industry truly comes together and develops real world business oriented communications solutions that successfully work across applications, devices, and networks, whether in the cloud, hybrid, or running at customer sites, we believe that telecom revenue will skyrocket, rather than continue to decline.
Upcoming Issues
We will be providing comments on the Olympics from a technology trends perspective. We will also be discussing the importance of calculating real world total cost of ownership when moving to cloud services, and more.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and opinions, even if you disagree!
