About this blog

News and analysis of developments in the enterprise communication industry and market with primary focus on Europe.

The author aims to tap into ideas, insights and thoughts of the readers to get varied perspectives.

Views expressed in this blog are solely the author's opinion and in no way reflect those of his employer.

Monday, December 22, 2008

My blackberry is giving me the jitters

Guys, have you faced continuity issues with Blackberry. Mine is 15 months old and it is giving me some problems.

1. The antenna doesn't work properly. It continuously searches for network in places where it didn't previously
2. The 'saved messages' folder seems to have lost a number of messages. For instance, a whole set of messages between certain dates have gone missing.
3. The IM chat sessions take ages to open these days. I haven't changed location nor have I changed what I used to do previously
4. The button that on pressing displays "Entering stand-by mode........" doesn't function all the time.
5. The call quality has deteriorated. The sound fidelity seems to have gone down.

Let me know if any of you guys are facing similar problems.

Monday, December 15, 2008

How is open source faring?

In the beginning of the year, I supervised a colleague's work on open source. I found that the movements in that space fascinating. Towards the end of the year, I wonder how have they performed in 2008 especially because-

a) a number of these companies have been start-ups. A large number of them are SI/VARs etc. How are they managing their working capital in a slowdown
b) How are they raising capital needed to bid for large projects where the client wants to reduce TCO? Are they displacing the big guys in a small number of deals in the SMB space?

In search of answers, I dig into the websites of some of these companies:

1. Fonality led by Chris Lyman seems to doing well. It launched some firmware for mobile and Google integration in September and went on to announce a relationship with salesforce.com last week.
2. Pingtel: I am not sure if I can mention but I had written something about in the report in relation to PingTel (or maybe I had not written!). As the case maybe, Nortel went on to acquire PingTel. I am not surprised.....great news for SIPfoundry guys.
http://www.os-voip.com/2008/08/nortel-buys-open-source-ip-pbx-company-pingtel/
3. Digium: They got a new headquarter. Tom Keating snapped it all up. Follow the link-
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/asterisk/digium-headquarters-tour.asp
Their battle with sipXecs seems to continue. It appears that Pingtel managed to get one up on them by becoming a part of Nortel.

Who else? There are a number of great players in the market from the large vendors who OEM open-source to small ones like ADDIX, ESCAUX, and Novacom. I wish there was an opportunity to connect and get to know how they have been doing.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

iPhone vs Blackberry: Consumer vs Corporate

Somebody asked me who will win the smartphone war- iPhone or Blackberry. I said, "depends on the turf". Blackberry is a robust, reliable e-mail centric smartphone that can handle voice, multimedia and entertainment (the new versions are better at it). Its primary place of use is in business. iPhone is a awesome looking media and entertainment device that can also communicate.

Can blackberry fight iPhone in the consumer space? Not today at least!
Can iPhone win against Blackberry in the corporate space? No!

However, recent efforts by Blackberry to emulate the iPhone is distressing. I have had only a brief look at the Storm (don't get invited to those parties anymore ever since I changed my job). I will have to say that I wasn't impressed. I wonder where does RIM want to position the storm? In the corporate space?! But typing is such a problem with Storm. I wish I was in the centre of action to know more of these stuff.