Ten Wonderful More Days

Broadvox began the year by acquiring Cypress Communications and ended the year integrating most of its organizational business units. It has been an interesting time as the two cultures mix. Nevertheless, we are not alone in addressing growth through acquisition. Our industry has seen moves by large and small players with most results for all that uncertain. MegaPath, Windstream, CenturyLink and Level 3 each made moves to either expand their product offerings, customer base or network footprint. Google’s acquisition of Motorola Wireless is maybe the least understood. If the acquisition was purely defensive with Google wanting the Motorola patents, at the time what becomes of the tens of thousands of people and an anemic product line? Similarly, what will Microsoft do with Skype?

The telecom industry will as well face the new rules establish by the FCC for funding the USF and InterCarrier Compensation. This will be challenging for many service providers as most will see a negative impact on earnings. On the positive side, we should an improvement in the delivery of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) from third parties as a result of the new rules regarding Net Neutrality. These rules changes did not meet the high standard Julius Genachowski set forth when he assumed the role of FCC Chairman. Nevertheless, it was good to taking everything into account get beyond the talking which only led to uncertainty.

Interestingly, search interest for SIP Trunks, SIP Trunking and Unified communications fell during sales rose. The same held true for video conferencing which was more surprising given the renewed interest in the innovation. In short, this may be the year when video conferencing is considered to have arrived by many CIOs and analysts.

The top business story of the year

The top business story of the year was a tie between the world’s financial crisis and the rise of Apple. And one cannot think of Apple without being reminded of the death of Steve Jobs. He will be missed. Though the Apple’s dominance of certain consumer products is the lead story for most, I find their acceptance into major enterprise IT shops most interesting.