Blog: John Myers

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April 27, 2007

wVoIP hamstringing the iPhone Killer?

Richard Martin's recent review of the Nokia N95 was very interesting. It showed how the latest offering from Nokia has probably out "Apple-ed" Apple's iPhone and made the first move into high end smart phone space. From the review, it appears that all the N95 does not do is wash your car.... Too bad I'm only up to the E62... :)

However, it appears that not everyone is a fan of the capabilities of this product. It appears that European carriers are disabling the wireless VoIP (wVoIP) functionality on their subsidized N95 handsets. While I would not begrudge any firm from supporting (via subsidy) a technology that would undermine their core revenue stream; the statements from the European carriers about proper testing do not ring true. Perhaps this is an example of wireless providers getting a taste of what wireline providers have experienced for a while with VoIP via landline....

Technorati Tags: Richard Martin, wVoIP, wireless voice over IP, Nokia N95

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April 26, 2007

Live from the Windy City

Coming to you "live" from a rainy Chicago and the 2007 Billing World Conference. This year's conference theme is "orchestration". This orchestration can take the shape of:

• Migrating from voice to non-messaging data services for wireless providers


• Introducing/enhancing telephony services for cable providers


• Moving from a voice only provider to a triple or quad play organization for wireline

Technorati Tags: Billing World

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April 25, 2007

Knowledge at Work in Telecom?

An April article by Robert Hertzberg highlights an issue that I wrote about recently. Hertzberg looks at the Baseline Magazine Top 100 "Smartest" US Companies. These 100 companies are ranked by their value by employee. However, of these 100 companies, only two would be considered telecommunications service providers by my definition: Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. It is interesting that none of the traditional telecommunications service providers, large or small, were included on this list.

The article notes that the effective use of business intelligence is a key to the success of the firms on the Baseline Top 100. It appears that none of the traditional telecommunications firms are utilizing business intelligence to a sufficient extent to make the list.... Or the "knowledge value per employee" metric could be biased toward smaller, high market capitalization firms, like real estate investment firms. However, since the metric used attempts to mitigate forces that would favor a particular type of firm, telecommunication service providers should seriously consider benchmarking themselves against these firms to determine areas for improvement in their business intelligence efforts.

Technorati Tags: Robert Hertzberg, Baseline Magazine, Top 100 Smart List

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April 23, 2007

Vonage Hangover....

Vonage has taken a lot of lumps recently. And this post is not intended to continue the beating.... However, I found an interesting article from Cassimar Medford about how the Vonage legal decisions could have an adverse impact on venture capital funding for VoIP companies.

In an era where Wall Street dislikes, even discourages, investment in untested, new ideas; I found the concept that venture capital financing of VoIP improvements could "chill" the development of VoIP or at least the public development of VoIP. I would guess that Google and Skype will continue their developments, but VoIP's development could be slowed considerably if different forms of investment, and associated research, are not made available.

Technorati Tags: Cassimar Medford, VoIP, Vonage, Venture Capital Investment

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April 20, 2007

Sopranos taking a shot at Verizon?

This probably only interests me. However, as I was watching the Sopranos recently, I noticed an interesting shot across the bow of Verizon when Tim Daly's character was mocking the reliablity of his Verizon Wireless voicemail during last week's episode.

Now, as most people know, HBO Mobile and the Sopranos are only available from Cingular. However it seems odd that David Chase who produces the Sopranos would take such an obvious "Sprint Nextel"-esqe shot at a "sponsor's" competitor during a show.... Sell a book, CD, DVD, etc; that's all well within the HBO way of doing things, but not an on-air shot.

Then again, the Sam Adams logo was prominently displayed in Tony's "Bada Bing" office where I would swear I have never seen it before.... :) Perhaps there have been a lot of changes for the last season.

Technorati Tags: Sopranos, Verizon, Cingular, David Chase, HBO

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April 16, 2007

Cordless Power Cords

Now this is a good idea... No more power cords for cell phones, PDAs, etc.

With the development of Bluetooth technology to remove the cords from all sorts of devices relating to computers and wireless phones; Powercast's development of the cordless power adaptor is following a trend to remove the "complexity" from the connectivity associated with "gadgets".

However, do we really need another source of "focused" electromagnetic energy zooming around our bodies...? I'm not sure, but the new warning signs at the gas station will probably be interesting:

Do not use or charge your cell phone while filling up

Technorati Tags: Powercast, Cordless Power Cords, Bluetooth

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April 13, 2007

Lead Lifevests ???

I like the concept of maturity models. They provide great roadmaps for businesses to evaluate where they are and where they can be going. However, I do not alway like how people use them....

Paul Harmon has some quality observations regarding process maturity models like the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM).

The observation that I liked the best was how these two maturity models focused not on fixing the operational issues, but on correcting how management dealt with the operational issues. It reminded me of how you can make ISO-9000 compliant lifevests made of out lead.

Yep. We made them right, but we didn't make the right thing....

BAM and BPM efforts that use maturity models should not focus fixing either the operation or management. They should both be included in the improvement.

Technorati Tags: Paul Harmon, CMMI, BPMM, BAM, BPM

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April 12, 2007

Women a Force in Online Revenues

A recent study shows that telecom service providers need to take into account the tastes and interests of women when they create their content options. In both the world of video (mentioned in the article above) and the world of games, women have distinctly different tastes from their male counterparts. It's not just "Spiders on Drugs" videos or Halo tourneys....

While this does not seem to be a stretch of the imagination, these articles give the numbers that support business cases for including female targeted content in the menu of options for on-deck content and off-deck partnerships.

NOTE - This is not an isolated situation. American Airlines is now targeting female customers directly with a new website.

Technorati Tags: Women Targeted Marketing, Online Video, Online Games

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April 11, 2007

Pay for Play

In a recent article in the Seattle Times, Tricia Duryee writes about the potential for "pay for play" mobile advertising. Duryee writes about Virgin Mobile's "Sugar Mama" program. While I'm not sure that the future of mobile advertising will follow this particular business model, I found it rather interesting that by viewing or participating with mobile advertising you could get "something for nothing".

Also, I'm sure that Virgin Mobile appreciated the coverage in the Seattle Times. However, I'm sure that they didn't appreciate the Times publishing a rather large hole in their rewards program.... Or fraud, if you count watching someone else's "targeted" ads for them... :)

It's nice to see that mobile advertising is going to have the same issues that web advertising does. Perhaps telecom service providers can learn from those best practices when they implement their services.

Technorati Tags: Mobile Advertising, Virgin Mobile, Seattle Times, Tricia Duryee

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April 9, 2007

Be the change you want to see

During his life, Mahatma Gandhi led a life that just about anyone can admire. One of his most famous quotes was:

Be the change you want to see in the world

While we cannot all live the life of the Mahatma in our professional lives, Len Silverston asks the question:

What would happen if we starting sharing data instead of hoarding it?

In his article - Data "Mining" versus Data "Ours"ing, Silverston provides an interesting look at why business intelligence, and other types of projects, succeed or fail based on our ability to see beyond our own "backyard".

Check it out and see if you can do some "our-ing" instead of some "mining" with your data.

NOTE - Len would ask "why can't we all use Gandhi as an example in our professional lives?" And I really don't have a good answer for that... Other than to say often people take a different tack from John F Kennedy and do things "not because they are hard; but because they are easy..." :)

Technorati Tags: Len Silverston, Gandhi, Data Ouring, Data Mining

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April 5, 2007

On-deck vs off-deck

If you have been reading my articles, you know that I'm not a big fan of the concept of the "Walled Garden" content business model. I think that all you need to do is look at the long-term health of the AOL after people figured out that you didn't necessarily need to be 'spoon-fed' your content by AOL.

In the world of telecom, this is often referred to "on-deck" content. Again, it's great for the short-term interests of a wireless provider, or ultimately an IPTV provider. However, what happens when the subscribers start to use the "off-deck" content available to any network and realize that content is superior to the "on-deck" content?

A recent article by Fred Aun talks about a study that Americans are already more likely to spend time with "off-deck" content providers than their British counterparts. If this trend continues, wireless telecom providers will find themselves as "pipe providers" and not the "value-added content providers" of choice.

Technorati Tags: On-deck, Off-Deck, AOL, Fred Aun, Walled Garden

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April 2, 2007

Ring Rage

If you have ever listened to the "invented" news that is part of the NPR quiz show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, you know that the folks at NPR can come up with some convincing stuff (note - if the folks at npr read this, tell carl kasell i would love to have his voice on my voicemail...).

On April Fools, the folks at Weekend Edition came up with a great one about the regulation of ring-tones in New York City. Give it a shot. You'll probably laugh just as hard as I did.

Technorati Tags: NPR, April Fools, ring tones, ring rage

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