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December 22, 2006
Carl Ford / Kfir Pravda pt. 2
Carl Ford and Kfir Pravda spent some time together in our studios. Kfir is the VP of Marketing for the IMTC. His email is kpravda -at- gmail -dot- com. This is the latter half of a two part conversation.
Posted at 01:25 PM • Comments (0)
Carl Ford / Kfir Pravda
Carl Ford and Kfir Pravda spent some time together in our studios. Kfir is the VP of Marketing for the IMTC. His email is kpravda -at- gmail -dot- com. This is part one of a two part conversation.
Posted at 01:22 PM • Comments (0)
December 20, 2006
Jon Arnold / Dan York - VoIP Security
On this week's podcast, Jon spoke with Dan York, who will be familiar to many in the Pulvermedia world. By day, Dan is the Director of IP Technology for Ottawa-based Mitel, but he's also a thought leader in the emerging area of VoIP security. At Mitel, he's the Chair of their Product Security Team, but he's also the Chair of Best Practices for VOIPSA, the VoIP Security Alliance. He's also quite active on the podcast front, producing a steady stream of audio content on this topic via his Blue Box initiative.
With that background in mind, Jon and Dan talked about the state of VoIP security, and the role that VOIPSA is playing in trying to bring vendors and carriers together. Dan addressed some of the key issues and knowledge gaps facing carriers, as well as the various flavors of security that are being offered by vendors. Attention was also focused on the good work that Canadian vendors are doing in VoIP security, namely specialists VoIPShield and Borderware, as well as larger vendors like Mitel and Nortel.
Time only allowed for a high level discusssion, and we hope to revisit this topic in the near future. And for those who want a steady flow of content on VoIP security, we urge you to subscribe to the Blue Box podcasts.
Dan York, CISSP, is Director of IP Technology reporting to the CTO of Mitel Corporation and focused on emerging VoIP technology and VoIP security. As Chair of Mitel's Product Security Team, he coordinates the efforts of a cross-functional group to communicate both externally and internally on VoIP security issues, respond to customer inquiries related to security, investigate security vulnerability reports and monitor security standards and trends. Previously, Dan served in Mitel Product Management bringing multiple products to market including Mitel's secure VoIP Teleworker Solution in 2003.
As Best Practices Chair for VOIPSA - the VoIP Security Alliances - Dan will be leading the project to develop and document a concise set of industry-wide best practices for security VoIP systems. He is also heading up VOIPSA's move into "social media" with the launch of VOIPSA's group weblog. Additionally, Dan is the producer of "Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast" where each week he and co-host Jonathan Zar discuss VOIP security news and interview people involved in the field.
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December 14, 2006
Hjalmar Winbladh, Chief Executive Officer at Rebtel / Carl Ford
We're a group of mobile technology experts based in Sweden and Luxembourg. Rebtel is an innovative company focused on bringing you the future of mobile telephony. We’re here to help you make cheaper, better, and easier calls to the world – global calls at local rates. Our ethos is that we won’t promise what we can’t deliver, and that we’ll always deliver what we promise.
Carl Ford spoke with Hjalmar Winbladh, the Chief Executive Officer at Rebtel.
Hjalmar is a highly successful serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Rebtel because he wanted to use his wealth of mobile Internet expertise to start a revolution in international mobile calling.
Prior to co-founding Rebtel, Hjalmar was a strategy consultant and entrepreneur-in-residence at Investor AB, providing counsel for investments in the mobile/fixed convergence arena. Hjalmar’s stint at Investor was his way to ease back into the corporate life after three years spent with his family, including two years sailing across the Pacific and Indian oceans in 2003–2004.
What precipitated Hjalmar’s sabbatical was his seven years of co-founding Sendit AB, a company based on a vision to bring new, disruptive mobile Internet software platform technologies to the projected convergence market between mobility and the Internet. Hjalmar served as president and chief executive officer of Sendit, and successfully took it public before being aquired by Microsoft for $150 million USD. Following the Microsoft acquisition, Hjalmar remained for two years as general manager of Microsoft’s Mobile Internet Business Unit. A highlight during his Microsoft tenure was playing a central role in creating telecom alliances for Microsoft with Ericsson and Vodafone.
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December 11, 2006
Jon Arnold / James Wanless - Talkster and the Mobile Market
On today's podcast, Jon spoke with James Wanless. He's the President/COO of Toronto-based Talkster, a startup focused on the enterprise mobility market. They have a solution that not only saves money on mobile long distance, but provides tracking and control capability to help companies manage mobility usage.
This is an emerging space, and John spoke in more detail about nature of the problem facing enterprises with extended mobililty usage. There are many new solutions out there that provide cheaper mobile calling, but primarily for the consumer market. Enterprises have a similar need, but also more complex back office issues, and John talked further about this, along with how he envisions the solution. He also compared Canada and U.S., noting how the challenge is greater in Canada, given how long distance is usually included in calling plans.
James Wanless, President and Chief Operating Officer, Talkster
As Talkster president and COO, James Wanless is focused on transforming the fractured, multi-platform voice communications marketplace by consolidating the myriad services people use to speak to family, friends and colleagues onto a single familiar device: the common mobile phone. James is leading Talkster to bring to market a simple, free or low-cost service that lets people place carrier-grade telephone calls to any phone, voice over Internet (VoIP) or voice over instant messaging (VoIM) service worldwide. As president and COO, James oversees product management, research and development, engineering as well as business development.
James has spent nearly twenty years in voice communications and is a pioneer in interactive voice response (IVR) technology, beginning in 1988, when the nascent technology was little more than glorified tape-based answering machines. At Phoneworks, James managed global operations and production for the groundbreaking IVR company that served Fortune 500 companies such as American Express. Seeing the opportunity to expand IVR capabilities utilizing computerized telephony, James co-founded Solvware in 1993 to develop commercial IVR applications for a broad marketplace. Solvware has since grown to include operations in ten countries and Solvware’s IVR-based services, which James expanded to include web-based and mobile content, are in use across three continents.
Posted at 03:22 PM • Comments (0)
December 06, 2006
Jon Arnold / Michael Weening - Microsoft's Connected Services Sandbox
On this week's podcast, Jon spoke with Michael Weening, who is Director of the Communications Sector for Microsoft Canada. Jon and Michael had been planning a podcast for some time, with the intent to talk about the Canadian market. With the timeliness of Microsoft's Connected Services Sandbox announcement, the focus was shifted somewhat, and the Canadian market was discussed in the broader context of this initiative. Michael outlined the thinking behind the sandbox as an enabler for service providers to develop new and creative services for subscribers.
The Canadian context was quite strong actually, as Jon and John discussed Bell Canada's role as one of the founding participants. On the vendor side, John also cited Nortel, Mitel and Ubiquity as active participants, and touched on some points regarding the broader Microsoft/Nortel alliance which was recently launched.
Michael Weening, Director, Communications Sector, Microsoft Canada
As the Director of the Communications Sector for Microsoft Canada, Michael Weening leads a national team which is responsible for developing software solutions and innovative partnerships with Canadian telecommunications, media and entertainment, and mobile operators.
Joining Microsoft in 2001, Michael spent his first four years at the company managing the financial services team which drove significant growth for the group through innovative solutions, including the delivery of the first .NET-based teller platform in Canada. Prior to Microsoft, Michael was the Canadian District manager for IXOS Software and held senior positions at Dell Canada and Canon OE Canada.
Posted at 03:35 PM • Comments (0)
December 04, 2006
Mikko Ju Salminen - Nokia, with Bob Emmerson
This podcast with Mikko Ju Salminen, Director of Fixed Mobile Convergence Marketing at Nokia, is a companion to the VON Magazine web exclusive announcing Nokia's entry into the FMC space with the Nokia Communication Suite.
Mikko J. Salminen, Director, Fixed-Mobile Convergence Marketing, Nokia
Mikko J. Salminen is currently responsible for Nokia's Fixed-Mobile Convergence Marketing.
He has broad experience in the telecommunications industry and was earlier Director of Strategy and Business Development for Nokia Networks (2001-2003) and Vice President, Technology, at Radiolinja, the world's first GSM operator (1999-2001).
Mr Salminen has also held positions in various R&D, program management and product line management programs at Nokia in 1989-1997.
1985-1989 he was in charge of R&D for OTA-2000 smart card project and Product Line Manager in Vaisala in 1997-1999.
He was listed as one of the 100 Information Technology Forerunners in Finland by Kauppalehti (a Finnish financial newspaper) in 1998.
During his studies, he was Project Manager for the implementation of the Otaniemi Campus Network, the first high speed IP campus network in Finland.
He holds a Master of Science (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science) from the Helsinki University of Technology.
Posted at 12:55 PM • Comments (0)
Quality Concerns: Einar Aaland - CTO and founder of Owera, with Bob Emmerson
Owera focuses on generic provisioning tools for multiprotocol provisioning of IP devices (including TR-069) and market-ready product designs for SIP based CPEs, including a SIP Software Development Kit. Owera is an Oslo, Norway, based company with North American office in Cambridge Massachusetts. The company was founded in 2000.
Owera’s xAPS, eXtended Automatic Provisioning System, provides full automation of deployment and operation of IP devices and their services. The xAPS system features automatic install, automatic firmware upgrade, remote configuration, remote diagnostics and service monitoring. Owera’s xAPS is flexible for new products, and services, and scalable to millions of deployed devices. The xAPS system tracks retail/sign-up channels and keep separation of services where the
users are organized in groups for ease of operation. Updates provided by xAPS are transparent to the end user with no service interruption and are virtually hands-free for the ISP. Owera's xAPS
The Owera CPE Solution are ready-made product designs, including hardware and firmware for high-end, high-quality, cost-efficient CPEs with state-of-the-art Quality of Service (QoS). These designs enable a manufacturer to enter the market in a very short time. Owera has already performed interoperability, performance, functionality and security testing for these product designs. This will further shorten the time-to-market. The OEM only needs to finalise the product by selecting housing and packaging. These designs are included in the Owera SDK. A wide variety of product solution designs for CPEs is available. Among these are designs for Analog Terminal Adapters (ATA), VoIP Routers, Residential Gateways (RGW) and Integrated Access Devices (IAD).
Bob Emmerson, European Editor of VON Magazine, spoke with Einar Aaland, the CTO and founder of Owera.
Einar has extensive experience in the international electronics and telecommunication industry, with providing VoIP solutions to OEM/ODMs worldwide and automatic provisioning systems to telecommunication operators, ISPs and OEMs. He is a regular speaker at conferences and forums, addressing the opportunities and challenges assoiciated with delivering high quality IP services over low cost best-effort networks.
(To hear other podcasts in Bob Emmerson's Quality Concerns series click here.)
Posted at 10:51 AM • Comments (0)
December 01, 2006
Dan Hoffman, M5 Networks, with Carl Ford
M5 Networks is one of the country's leading outsourced IP phone system providers. Trustworthiness is at the heart of M5's philosophy and business model. By outsourcing to M5 instead of buying another phone system and signing more local and long distance contracts, businesses save valuable time and hard dollars. M5 was founded in 2000, and since inception has been entirely focused on delivering the most reliable business phone system service in the industry.
M5 is continually innovating to improve our outsourced phone system solution. M5’s core technology partners include Cisco, Verizon, Sun, AboveNet, Sprint, Qwest, Focal Communications and VocalData. M5 has been named to the Pulver 100 list for four consecutive years (2002-2005), VoIP Magazine’s 20 Companies to Watch in 2006, and FierceVoIP's Fierce 15 list in 2005 and has received Frost & Sullivan's 2004 Entrepreneurial Company Award and the 2004 & 2005 VoIP Service Provider Award and Best SMB Provider Award from INTERNET TELEPHONY Magazine. In addition, the strong demand for M5 services has enabled M5’s management team to run the business conservatively, regularly reinvesting profits and maintaining financial stability.
Carl Ford spoke with Daniel Hoffman, President & CEO of M5 Networks.
As President and CEO of M5, one of America's leading Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers for small and midsized businesses, Hoffman has redefined the business phone system market by replacing traditional phone systems and phone company arrangements with an outsourced VOIP solution that businesses truly trust.
Personable, approachable and a true visionary, Hoffman was named one of 18 nationwide winners of the 2006 Best Bosses Award by Winning Workplaces, a nationally known clearinghouse for best practices in workplace excellence and innovative people practices, and FORTUNE Small Business. This national honor recognizes the most dedicated, passionate, innovative, inspirational and driven leaders of small and midsize businesses nationwide for creating tightly knit workplaces and inspiring intensely loyal workers.
Dan will be at Von Enterprise:
Hosted Voice Solutions
Wednesday, December 6, 2006, 2:30pm - 3:30pm
There is a clear trend for many companies to outsource, especially technologies and infrastructure they believe can be more efficiently managed elsewhere.
• What is the best model to determine if outsourcing is the right approach?
• Which technologies lend themselves best to this approach?
• What are the ramifications if outsourcing fails?
Posted at 04:19 PM • Comments (0)
Stephen Saber, President of Exgenex with Glenn Gaudet
Exgenex employs over fifty employees with more than 20 developers and programmers. Our commitment to our client’s success means we are constantly exploring new and better ways to provide excellent customer service along with our relentless desire to utilize existing technology in a way that will enhance our clients events.
Exgenex was the first organization to introduce self-registration onsite, web-based self-registration onsite, web-based registration services, web-based reporting capabilities, and many other technologies that have improved the level of customer service Exgenex provides to its clients.
Glenn Gaudet, Chief Marketing Officer of Pulvermedia spoke with Stephen Saber - President of Exgenex.
Posted at 10:54 AM • Comments (0)
