Going Global

I have many conversations about Vadacom going global with customers, suppliers and others in our industry. After all, VadaXchange is now recognisably a world class VoIP PABX system.  We also already have VadaXchange systems running in the USA, China and Australia - those systems are deployed for our New Zealand customers with the global  offices.

We have the unique capability to deploy and support VadaXchange systems internationally. However, up until now, we don't have any sales presence outside of New Zealand.

However, this year we achieved something entirely new - we sold our first system that is deployed internationally where the customer resides outside of New Zealand - that system is in the Kingdom of Tonga.

So what is stopping us from increasing our international sales and how would we go about it?

To find out I went along to Ken Morse's seminar "Global Sales Strategies for Ambitious Kiwi Entrepreneurs"

Ken is the co-founder of 3Com Corporation, Aspen Technology and a number of other global tech companies. I felt if I wanted to grow a successful international tech business, I need to learn form the best!

Ken didn't disappoint. I loved Ken's American, straight-to-the-point style. You can tell Ken knows how to grow sales. His message - sales are harder than technology. And it is true. I'm a firm believer that the ratio of sales to technical staff in a tech company should be 1:1.

Being in a small market, we often find ourselves selling our technology to small companies. Certainly most Vadacom customers at the moment have less than 100 people. So we often sell to the boss, or one person within the organisation who makes the decision.

Ken explained what it takes to sell to larger corporations - places where each decision is made by a bunch of people rather than just one. He calls them "The Jury". He shared with us his good, timeless sales techniques - from the first 30 second elevator pitch, through to building relationships overcoming objections and running  sales presentations.

Ken's message about focusing on vertical, rather than horizontal market did strike an accord with me and focused me on what it will actually take to take VadaXchange to international markets. This helped me focus on what is important in formulating our international expansion strategy.

If you interested to learn more about going global from the master, I would definitely recommend Ken's workshop - you can find details by clicking on the link here.

If you interested to learn more about Vadacom international expansion strategy, please first visit our website to understand what we do then give me a call.

Igor.

iPhone vs. Android is Alien vs. Predator: whoever wins... we lose

Having had a number of discussions with my colleagues about iPhones and Androids recently I decided to write a follow up blog to the one I posted earlier with the same title

Much has changed in the last two years since my original post. Android platform is now much more widely used and is winning the market share. New entrants into the market, such as Windows Phone devices haven't really managed to take market or mind share and the dinosaurs such as Blackberry are slowly disappearing. So this is still very much a two-horse race. iPhone vs. Android.

Here at Vadacom we work with both the iPhone and the Android platform. We didn't back then. Here is my opinion on where the platforms are at from the business use point of view:

While Android is still lacking some critical integration features, it is certainly catching up to iPhone. The user interface on some of the newer devices feels as responsive as iPhone. The availability of the apps is certainly getting close. There are also some cool features that now exist in Android but not in the iPhone yet.

Much seems to be device and vendor dependant. Most Android phones are still falling behind because as they get older the vendor doesn't provide a timely update to the OS. So older iPhones hold up much better compared to the older Androids as the OS in those phones is usually more current.

Where is some of the new devices do now outshine the new iPhone 5 in features. The device to watch, in my opinion, is Nexus 4. One reason: apparently Google will keep this one up to date with the new releases. So, here are a couple of comparisons of Nexus 4 vs. iPhone 5:

10 Things the iPhone 5 Can't do that Nexus 4 Can

Google Nexus 4 vs iPhone 5 - Screen, Power and Software

Our clients are split fairly evenly in their business use of iPhones and Androids.

Here at Vadacom we turn your iPhone or Android into a Mobile Extension of VadaXchange VOIP PBX.

VadaXchange Mobile Extensions feature enables mobile phones to have the same features as other cordless phones attached to the VadaXchange PBX as an extension of the system. The call is made using a regular service, while it is billed to your VOIP account, so your business saves money which more than justifies getting a smartphone. After that you gain a lot in productivity.

While developing for iPhone using iOS SDK is still slightly faster, Android allows much better integration with the environment outside the VadaXchange App. With Android we are able to register VadaXchange as the default dialling application for contacts. We also put hold and transfer button right on the front of the standard phone app on the phone to allow call transfer of PBX based calls. This nicely and seamlessly turns the Android phone into the VadaXchange PBX extension.

I must confess that I believe iOS 6 and iPhone 5 made really underwhelming progress from the innovation view point. My personal view is that unless Apple is able to make a big leap with the next iOS version and the new range of the iOS based devices this year, we will see Android continuing dominating the market share to the point where iOS will become another niche player. That would be a shame as I am a great believer in having competition to fuel innovation.  Plus, I still love my iPhone.

One entrepreneur's experience of building a new website.

About six months ago I embarked on a new project. We, at Vadacom, decided to redesign our website.

Have you ever built a new site for your business? Are you planning to build the site, or commission building of the new site? I felt sharing my experience - mistakes and all - could be useful for you. Please read on and let me know what you think. But first, please take a moment to have a look at my finished work:

www.vadacom.co.nz

Our old website looked like the image here.

It looked good and for seven years it served us well. However, we found some limitations:

The site was running in the old version of Plone. A great, open source content management system (CMS). Unfortunately it was a few versions behind and we couldn't upgrade it without re-creating all of the content inside the new version.

Because the version was old, it wasn't easy to add new forms to it. We had to pay for developers creating forms to capture marketing data.

I also couldn't add meta tags or other meta data so it was impossible to optimise it for search engines (SEO). We ended up paying lots of money for google ads in order to just be found on the web.

So we decided if we are going to change to a more modern version of an open source CMS. This is where I embarked on a project that I thought would take me a few weeks.

In our business, I am responsible for marketing, so the website content, look and feel falls under my portfolio of things to do. Once or twice a year when we have a new product, or a new marketing strategy, I spend a weekend or a few weeknights refreshing the website look and content. So in my mind, I thought - a few weeks and I will migrate all the site's content from the old site into the new one. This was the first mistake I made in this project.

Next, we thought that we might as well re-design the website. Even though it worked for us, the site looked dated. So we set aside some budget for a graphics designer only to refresh the look and feel. Setting the budget low was the second mistake in this project.

Next, we commissioned Swaytech to help us with the design of the website. Now, this was the best decision we made in the whole project and it had saved us!

Swaytech suggested to run a workshop to discuss what we wanted out of our site. Having designed websites before, I gathered our executive team and ran a pre-workshop workshop. This was extremely useful and helped me focus on exactly what I thought the team wanted out of the website. Having the workshop with Swaytech afterwards was invaluable. While the workshop was important for them to understand what we wanted out of the website, they also offered a wealth of experience and plenty of food for thought to challenge our original thinking: we completely missed out SEO part and also the biggest part of our business - our customers! So after this workshop with Swaytech we embarked on a very important exercise - asking our customers how they viewed our company and our product. This was extremely useful not only for the website, but also for our product development road map.

Being very clear about what the team wanted out of the website also helped the project for me, as it helped me to communicate clearly to the designers what the requirements are and make the right choices between different design ideas.

One great thing about getting the website templates back from Swaytech was that there were no usual "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...." text in the templates - Mark from Swaytech went the extra mile and actually produced some fantastic content that we ended up using in the finished product. Mark also helped with more of the content later on and was extremely helpful. If I was to do this project again, I'd definitely get Mark to work on even more of our content. Swaytech also designed our website template such that it looks great on both the normal screens and smartphones small screens - the site design adopts dynamically towards the screen size.

Being a software development shop, we have some strict technical requirements so we had to implement and control our CMS in house. Vadacom development team implemented the website templates into our CMS. They did the excellent job of picking and implementing the site's content management system - I couldn't do this without having this great in-house expertise. We settled on Django Fiber - a simple, open-source, user-friendly CMS. Having easy drag-and-drop front-end CMS editing really helped.

Once the template and the content management were in, I started moving the content across. There I discovered another mistake - it wasn't all about copy and paste. I actually had to review content and re-create many of the images. This was starting to look like a bigger job than previously anticipated. However I felt I was up to the task.

Enthusiastically, I charged into the job and after a couple of weeks of having a go at it I decided to check on my progress. I calculated that I had over 50 pages of content to create, of which I managed so far ... a whooping 15! This was a shock to the system.

Clearly, it has taken a number of subsequent weeks, weekends and late nights to finish the project. Luckily, the team at Vadacom kept the business humming without me! (pays to have a great team). Having Django Fiber helped - I can't even imagine how many weeks it saved me.

So to my dear family, friends and work colleagues - if you felt like I disappeared off the face of the earth for a few months, this is why. And now I am back, and here is the result:

www.vadacom.co.nz

I had great feedback from our team so far. No wander they like it though - they helped me make all my decisions along the way. I'd like to get some feedback from people outside the business too.


So here are some key learnings for me from this experience:

1. Don't underestimate the task. Get help if you can't afford the time away from the business.
2. Do a workshop with the designers before setting your budgets!
3. Get your team to help you focus on what is important to your business. At the end of the day the way your business is presented affects all of the people working in it.
4. Make sure to pick a user-friendly content management system (let your web designers guide you if you don't have the in-house expertise)
5. Talk to your customers about who they think you are - this is a most valuable experience!
6. Get help with content from people who know how to create it
7. Don't forget about SEO - (this is actually the bit of the site I haven't finished yet - so, work in progress)

I hope sharing my experience has been helpful. Let me know what you think.

Will you Bring Your Own Device?

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend has become quite a popular one over the last few years.

Why?


It all started with the iPhone. People loved iPhones. Corporate IT departments didn't. Main reason is that until recently, at least, managing iPhones was hard for the IT departments. Or at least such is the perception.

Then came the Android. While Android platform is more open than iPhone, the corporate IT integration still wasn't quite readily available.

However, despite the IT departments resistance, iOS and Android based smart phones and tablets are making their way into corporate networks. People just want to use them. 

When we introduced iPhones internally at Vadacom, our productivity significantly increased. It has given us an edge over larger, slow moving competitors. In many corporate organizations, senior executives understand this. So they bring their own iPhones and Androids despite IT department's best wishes, thus creating a headache for the IT manager.

Personally, I don't believe that BYOD is necessarily a long term trend. I think it only exists because people want to bring their own iPhones and Androids to work. This issue, for example, doesn't exist at Vadacom as we provide our staff with a choice of smart phones - iPhones or Androids.

So the trend will only continue until the corporate mobile device management (MDM) software catches up to all the latest iPhones and Androids.

Recently Apple has stepped up the game by quietly releasing a free Apple Configurator utility for OS X in March 2012.

You can find this utility by clicking here.


You can find a review here.

There are also Multi-OS Mobile Device management platforms available, such as MobileIron.

I've been watching the adoption trends of iPhone and Android with keen interest. Vadacom was amongst the first in the world to release unified communication client integration for the iPhone. The equivalent Android software is now also available in beta version.

One great thing about VadaXchange iPhone and Android software is that all the settings and security is controlled from the VadaXchange server.

I would be keen to hear more views from people - is BYOD here to stay or is it a temporary blip trend only relevant until such time as the corporate IT departments figured out how to control iPhones and Androids?

Igor Portugal
CEO Vadacom.

Vadacom Cloud Strategy

At Vadacom we launched our VadaXchange phone system offering in the cloud.

This is a simple statement, yet it is so exciting. What never ceases to amaze me is that you have the whole phone system in a virtual world somewhere. You don't have to own or manage anything other than the physical phone on your desk, if you choose to own one.

The VadaXchange in the cloud offering is unique. It offers to businesses the same experience as owning a PABX together with an advanced unified communications system, while not having any of the old TDM systems or servers on your premises. You get to have and manage the whole phone system, with phone lines, ability to fully manage your business call flow, a full contact centre offering with ACD agents, calling queues and reports, as well as call recordings and quality control.

We can also integrate VadaXchange into each unique business IT environment – you are not restricted at all by the fact that it is in the cloud.

As with our on the premiss VadaXchange system, Vadacom remains agnostic as to which ISP or phone lines are used. We are a software development company. We are committed to developing world class open communication technology right here in New Zealand. However we are not an ISP or a telecommunications provider. We leave the job of providing and billing for phone lines and data to our partners

Vadacom's cloud strategy includes two offerings: One for the service providers, where the whole solution end-to-end is delivered through one provider. Another one is for the businesses wanting to manage different providers themselves, where VadaXchange can be deployed in an approved VPS (Virtual Private Server) environment and the phone lines and the WAN are delivered by other parties.

Orcon is the first business service provider to roll out the end-to-end VadaXchange experience. Vadacom is in discussion with others.

Vadacom developed an approval process for the individual data centers. To date virtual systems have been deployed at Maxnet to run VadaXchange inside VMWare. Vadacom in the process of approving a number of other data centers.

We are committed to continuing to develop this amazing technology. In the last year we've doubled our software development effort. In my opinion we are developing the best phone system available on the market.

See more at:

Vadacom kicks off in the cloud

Vadacom is selected Finalist in AUT Excellence in Business Support Awards

Dear customers, colleagues and friends

I am delighted to announce that Vadacom has been selected as a finalist in the 2012 AUT Excellence in Business Support Awards. 

Recognised for excellence in the technology category, Vadacom and 2 other finalists in our category will join a total of 49 finalists in this years’ AUT Excellence in Business Support Awards – a record number in the awards seven year history.

The robust entry and evaluation process of the awards enables finalists to reflect on how effectively their organisation achieves business excellence in all key areas including leadership and planning, customer and market focus, provision of business support, evaluation and improvement, and business results.

We wouldn't get to where we are without our customers believing in that not only we offer them the best technology available, but that we will also provide them with the excellent service. I would like to thank all of our customers for your trust in Vadacom's abilities and the opportunity you presented to us to provide support to your business. Thank you.

Vadacom would not achieve this excellence recognition without a top performing team of professionals working within the company. Our bigest strength is our people and we have the greatest team! I am proud of our team and our ability to deliver the best business telephony solution to our customers. Well done, guys, we are being recognized for our good work.


Having made it to the finals is an achievement. We will now wait in anticipation to find out if we won.


Finalists now have until 6 July to submit their final applications. The winners will then be announced in October at a black-tie gala dinner in Auckland. The Supreme Award will be chosen from the category winners.

Evaluation of all nominations will be overseen by The New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation, including evaluators for the management department of AUT Business School. Excellence will be assessed using the international Baldridge criteria.


Best Regards,

Igor Portugal
CEO, Vadacom Ltd.

Vadacom official press release here.

How much could PABX fraud cost your business?

I recently came across this article discussing PBX security issues:


http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1109/S00390/how-much-could-pabx-fraud-cost-your-business.htm

This is so true. Many of our customers constantly refer letters to me that they receive from their phone line providers that state the following:

"An unsecured PBX system can be compromised via an insecure voicemail system (or similar), that allows incoming callers to dial extensions directly and sometimes even outside lines. Hackers have targeted these systems, across the world, sometimes resulting in a large volume of international calls being charged to the PBX user’s account."

When I get alerted to this, my normal response to our customers is:

"VadaXchange PBX is configured with the best security measures in mind. The passwords generated on the system are secure. The system is patched against all known vulnerabilities as a part of your SLA with Vadacom.

The only step you need to ensure you follow is when creating new log-ins on the VadaXchange system to use "generate" button to generate secure passwords as opposed to make passwords up yourself."

I'd like to elaborate more here on security of telephone systems.

If you own or manage a phone system there are two types of attacks that you need to defend:

1. Attack from the telephone line that exploits the ability of phone system to relay calls via voicemail and interactive voice response systems.
2. Attack from the internet where computer based telephony is hacked in order to make calls.

The interesting thing is that both security risks affect both traditional TDM systems and the new IP systems.  This is contrary to many statements made by old-school telephone sales people, who don't often understand IP phone systems and have even less understanding of IT security. Last thing you want to do is seek IT security advise from a telephone sales person.

I need to establish my own credentials here. Although I would not call myself an IT security expert, I do have a background in IT security, having (a) a tertiary qualification in IT and (b) having run a business before who's principal product was a firewall and service was looking after business computer network security.

To defend yourself from both types of vulnerabilities you do need to follow the guidelines that were provided by Telecommunication Carriers' Forum:


1. CHOOSE A STRONG PASSWORD

Voicemail and Direct Inward Systems Access (DISA) passwords should be changed on a regular basis, avoiding factory defaults and obvious combinations such as 1234 or the extension number.

2. CHANGE IT

Make sure all security features – passwords, PINS etc – are changed following installation, upgrade and fault/maintenance. Don’t forget to reset password defaults.

3. KEEP IT CONFIDENTIAL

Keep all internal information such as directories, call logging reports and audit logs confidential. Destroy them appropriately if no longer required.

4. REVIEW REGULARLY

Review system security and configuration settings regularly. Follow up any vulnerabilities or irregularities.

5. VENDOR TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Make sure you have the right terms and conditions reflected in your contracts with your PBX, VoIP and/or voicemail maintainer in order to keep your system regularly maintained and serviced to stay safe.


At Vadacom we provide regular security patches to our customers. We monitor vulnerability advisories. We also provide tools for generating secure passwords.

VoIP: the state of play in New Zealand

Voice Over IP (VoIP) is probably not yet the most used way for people to call each other in New Zealand. But it will be - sooner rather than later.

I am often asked a number of questions about VoIP. What are the rates of adoption? Is the voice quality OK? Do you provide VoIP lines? Who else does?

This prompted me to put together this overview on the state of play of VoIP in New Zealand. The way I see it. No statistics or scientific method here - this is simply a report from the trenches.

Looking at the industry I split the telecommunication companies into three tiers. Telecom, TelstraClear and Vodafone are what I call first-tier telecommunication companies. The second-tier telecommunication companies are local internet service providers, now delivering phone services, such as CallPlus, Orcon, WorldXchange and Snap Internet. There are also many third-tier, smaller providers like 2Talk, Kiwi and others in the market today.

At Home

First, I will distinguish between the residential and business phone lines. The Plain, Old Telephone Service line (POTS line) is the type of line most people still use at home. Until recently this was the only option.

In the last few years some ISPs and third-tier telecommunication companies started offering a service where you could buy an IP phone and get a phone number from them. As this was not widely publicized and the set-up was quite technical, this service was only used by a few enthusiasts that knew what they were doing.


Now, with the arrival of Orcon's Genius product this home scene may change.


At Work

Now, to the business world.

Most businesses don't simply just rent a phone line. They normally use a phone system to connect to telecommunications companies phone lines and have company telephones connect to the telephone system.

VoIP is a method that can be used by the telephone to communicate with the telephone system, as well as the method that can be used by the telephone system to connect to the telecommunications network.

People often confuse the two. Lets split the two up. I will call the method of connecting telephones to the telephone system via VoIP as IP telephony; I will call the method of connecting telephone system to the telecommunications network via VoIP as VoIP phone lines.

When we talk about rates of adoption it is important to look at the two separately. IP Telephony has been steadily adopted in the enterprise since late 90's - early 2000's, while first VoIP phone lines only became available in New Zealand around 2005.

As such, the rate of adoption of IP telephony is much higher than the rate of adoption of VoIP phone lines. From my personal observations, both have now entered the mainstream business. While at home we still use POTS, at work both IP telephony and VoIP phone lines well passed the early adoption stage.

Despite this being the case, none of the first-tier telcos offer VoIP phone lines yet. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why second-tier telcos are fast gaining the market share.

One thing to say about the quality of VoIP phone lines in New Zealand is that it is excellent. New Zealanders are very much used to the best experience while using digital business phone lines. This means that in order to compete with the traditional phone lines, the second-tier telcos had to put together a service that would compete well. From my experience working with two of the major second-tier providers CallPlus and Orcon, their service is a good match to the Telecom's old ISDN service.

At Vadacom

Many people think that we provide VoIP phone lines. We don't. What we do, is develop world's best telephone system, called VadaXchange.

However, to make it work for our customers, we would partner with phone line providers do deliver a turn-key solution for business.

Our system would work in either just the IP Telephony mode, with the traditional phone lines (mostly ISDN), or it can do VoIP throughout, or a mixture.

We are amongst the most experienced in this area in New Zealand, as we started integrating VoIP phone lines back in 2005 when most other business phone system providers stayed well away from it.


So, talk to us, if you are investigating VoIP in New Zealand.

It is official:

Vadacom launches VadaXchange Buddy

Also, here is our new advertisement for Buddy, feedback welcome:

VadaXchange for iOS v2.0 has been released in the Apple App store

The long-awaited release of our VadaXchange iPhone app is finally here.

So, what's new?

1. Presence

Finally, your phone system presence is now easily changed from your iPhone:

...and you can see the presence of your peers:

In fact managing your presence is very easy with this application - the button is always there on the front screen, it is easily accessible.

2. Call Transfer

This is another big feature. You can see your call in your iPhone, either while you on the mobile call or on the desk phone call:

You can hold the call, or you can transfer it:

When transferring the call you have the choice of blind or attended transfer. You can also transfer straight to voicemail.

3. New Layout

All the same great features from v1.0, but now with a whole new layout:

It is much easier to follow as it is closer to the iPhone phone app layout. You can easily see and change your presence status. You have access to all the main features from the front screent with one tap.

I've been using this new layout for six months, and it is an absolute pleasure to use.

You will need VadaXchange Buddy to enjoy all the features of this brilliant app.

Enjoy!

Inquire today.

How mobile is your receptionist?

Does your company receptionist answers calls all day every day without leaving the desk, or is the role mixed with other tasks needed to be performed around the office?

I found that many of our customers order wireless headsets mainly for receptionist use precisely for the reason that reception task no longer means that receptionist must sit in front of the computer the whole day. Ability to answer the calls by pressing a button on a wireless headset, away from the computer, is quite valuable. However, how do you transfer the call? You couldn't until now...

VadaXchange Buddy is unique in that it is the first browser based user interface for the phone system that is built to work with touch-screen devices. This means it will work on an iPad, or an equivalent tablet device, giving your receptionist the mobility they require.

However, some of them may find the tablet too bulky. In this case, they can use the VadaXchange buddy iPhone app on an iPod Touch:

VadaXchange iOs interface places the full PABX reception switchboard into the palm of your hand. That is quite unique!

The mobile receptionists use a cordless headset connected to their desk phone in conjunction with an iPod Touch with VadaXchange iOS software installed on it. The iPod touch is connected to the phone system using the office WiFi connection.

The actual voice call uses the traditional DECT wireless method on the headset. This way the call quality is not compromised by the WiFi network.

This delivers the ultimate mobility around the office while not compromising reception call quality and features for the reception staff.

Inquire today.

Every business is a contact centre. Not every business could afford to be one. Until Now.

How does your business sell products or services? If you own a shop, probably you sell over the counter.

You have enough counters to satisfy enough people in the most demanding times, but not too many counters so it is not too expensive for you to run. So when you have more people in the shop than you have counters, you let them queue and wait to be served.

Many of my customers ask me to explain to them the concept of telephony queues and hunt groups. The explanation is simple: A hunt group is the row of counters. A queue is the place where people queue.

Hunt groups and queues are basic features of contact centre environments. The features to implement hunt groups and queues in traditional phone systems cost you extra and for many businesses are outside of their budget. Therefor traditionally many businesses have opted out of purchasing contact centre features from their telephony providers, siting that they don't need it for their business. This was the case until the arrival of software based telephone systems such as VadaXcahnge.

VadaXcahnge Buddy is the first browser based call control and instant messenger interface that is user friendly. VadaXchange Buddy enables you to have full contact centre features, where you can:

queue incoming phone calls

queue incoming instant messages
queue incoming faxes
queue incoming emails
queue any other incoming communications

Queueing communications enable you to service more people. It also enables you to measure and tune the performance of your team.

If you communicate with you clients and would like to service them more efficiently you need contact centre features. VadaXcahnge places contact centre features into the same price bracket as a regular telephone system. Further more, if you take into account the cost savings that VadaXchange offers on you running costs, you may end up not having to pay any extra to get those features at all.

Inquire today.

About time business phone system become user friendly

Businesses looking to lift their productivity and customer service require the tools necessary to achieve that. Unfortunately most telephony interfaces are complicated and cumbersome.

VadaXcahnge Buddy is the first browser based call control and instant messenger interface that is user friendly.

We spent considerable time developing this new software. I am very excited to see the first few of our customers actually using it.

With Buddy you don't need to learn how to use the phone. The call control interface is right there on the screen, guiding you through every step.

The system is easy to deploy and easy to use. Please request for one of our sales team to demonstrate this amazing new software to you and show you how it can assist your business growth.

Yahoo! connects over 8,000 employees to a distributed Asterisk PABX system

If you have any more doubts about the scalability of Asterisk PABX, here is a proof that Asterisk PABX is one of the most scalable telephone system in the world.

According to Yahoo!, it has 8,477 employees on a distributed Asterisk system today, and we'll double that before they are done deploying the system. This has been shared in a discussion here:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=64049&type=member&item=51807149&qid=061542b2-a645-425d-896e-50d08f43c452&goback=%2Egmp_64049


And in a TMC keynote address here:

http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=1976


I've always maintained that VadaXchange, based on Asterisk, can scale to as larger deployment as is necessary.

Well, Yahoo! deployment is the best proof.

Why Linked IN is an important business tool

Linked In and Twitter are great business tools for staying in touch.

I found this very interesting resource on Linked IN about people using it. The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Linkedin Members

It inspired me to write this post.

People have all sorts of theories about Linked IN. Some believe you should only connect with colleagues that you've worked with. Some think that you should know people that you connect with well.

I run a policy that if it is good enough for me to give you my business card, it is good enough for me to connect with you on Linked IN.

When you connected to someone on linked in you have much greater control over the access they have to you than if they have your business card. So it is better to just link than exchange business cards.

So what happens if you get a stranger connected to you on linked in? Nothing bad does. I've been asked for references for people that are connected to me. I declined to give a reference if I don't know them. I had some people email me newsletters I didn't request. I politely asked them to stop. You can't ask a true spammer to stop spamming you, can you? You can on Linked IN!

People tell me that if you have too many connections you can't keep up with all the updates. I find that I get all the updates just fine. Most people a reasonably inactive on Linked IN. I, myself, also find myself too busy to bother at times.

So if there are no negatives, are there benefits? Here are the benefits:

1. People that would normally fall off your radar will pop up in Linked IN every now and again and remind you of their existence. That can be very useful.
2. People will move jobs - you will be able to keep in touch
3. Linked IN is a great tool to find and profile organisations that you want to sell to, buy from or partner with
4. People's updates will keep you on top of the news in the industry 

Most of the time I am reasonably active on Linked IN through Twitter. So, if you don't know me, Linked IN is a very good tool for you to get to now me. I can promise you, getting to know me will only benefit your business.

So, if you already haven't, please, link up http://nz.linkedin.com/in/igorportugal or follow me on twitter @igorportugal

We will be building in some of the social media links into our VoIP phone system

If you are using social media every day, I'd love to hear what features you are looking for from integrating social media into your communications system.

Is the desk phone dead?

Some of our customers ask me about the possibility of doing away with the desk phones and having the whole phone communications managed by mobile phones.


I came across this article, which is a very good analysis of the subject


From personal experience, even though I love my iPhone, I still prefer using desk phone when I have a chance. My personal reasons are:

• The effects of holding a mobile phone to you ear are still unclear. A mobile phone has a number of radios transmitting at the same time. When talking on the phone I try and minimize the radios that are active - turn Bluetooth and WIFI off. If I have them handy, I use corded headphones. If I have an option to transfer the conversation to the desk phone, I do.
• The coverage is not always 100%. Cell cites can "breath", depending on the amount of people using the site. A perfectly clear call can turn into a patchy one at any time. We've learned to accept this when using mobile phones but are less tolerant when using desk phones

I believe the desk phone will live for a number of years yet. 

Good VoIP phones do make all the difference!

Wired telecommunications in decline

People are still asking me every now and again about the rates of adoption of VoIP technology in the market. When this question is asked, to the person asking the question VoIP seems new as opposed to the mainstream technology.

Here is another bit of evidence that VoIP is much more widely accepted than many people think.


IBISWorld.com Identifies Key Sectors Set to Decline Even after the Economy Revives. As per the this report, the top of the list is Wired Telecommunications Carriers.

According to this analysis by FierceMarkets, VoIP cited as one factor in staggering decline of wired telecom industry

From my own observation, most businesses are now deploying IP based systems. I believe there are two reasons many people in New Zealand are still under the impression that VoIP is a new technology:

1. Most of us still have a Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) phone line at home, and
2. You still need to remember and dial a phone number in order to reach someone

The first reason is simply in my view a deficiency in our New Zealand infrastructure. This will be remedied when the government's fiber to the home initiative is implemented. 

The second is something our industry is yet to tacke. 

What is in store for the New Year in Technology?

Happy New Year everyone!

This is already looking to be a great year.

The year started with:

• Skype releasing video calling for the iPhone http://blogs.skype.com/en/2009/03/skype_for_iphone_yes_its_here.html.
  I've been waiting for this feature for the last six months. I downloaded the update over 3G data connection while over in Australia and made my first video call from my mobile using 3G. The voice and picture quality was fantastic. Having a video call in the middle of nowhere in Australian outback produced lots of excitement.
• The fantastic consumer electronics show http://www.cesweb.org/ 
• Rumors about iOS 4.3 http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20110113/tc_pcworld/top5discoveriesinapplesios43beta_1

Here is what I believe we will see this year in technology:

• There will be more competition of iOS vs. Android. Both iOS and Android will continue to grab headlines, market share and mind share. All other mobile and tablet platforms will move into the background and get confined to their niche markets.
• There will be more VoIP. More Voice and more Video. I don't believe video calling will gain prominence this year  in the same way audio calling does, but it will certainly make more inroads into the enterprise. Voice over IP will continue to grab market share, mind share and revenues.
• Social media will become more important as a tool for every day communication. Business IT departments will start treating social media as another technology to integrate with and manage. Blanket bans on social media in business will no longer be viable. 

What do you think the focus will be this year in information and communications technologies?

Comments welcome.

Demolish roaming charges when traveling overseas.

When I travel, I typically turn my phone to the "airplane" mode when I step on the plane in New Zealand, and turn it off the "airplane" mode when I step off the plane... back in New Zealand.

The reason I do that is roaming fees are huge. Anybody who travels knows the meaning of bill shock.

To avoid the bill shock I restrict data use to WIFI. You can turn on your WIFI on the iPhone while the phone is in the "airplane" mode and still get the data connection.

However, if you are a business traveler, turning your phone off is a hard thing to ask for. Also, looking for WIFI hot spots is time consuming. So, what do you do?

I was asked exactly that question by one of our customers about six months ago. I went looking and found an answer with iPhoneTrip.com

My customer went away to Europe for a month. He was able to make calls and receive in most places using SIP soft phone connected to the VadaXchange back in New Zealand. Unlimited data connection also meant he could communicate via email, browse the web, get navigation tips etc... He was quite happy not having to pay thousands of dollars upon his return.

I was so impressed with the service, I pursued the goal of bringing this service to our part of the world. And now it is here:

Vadacom now distributes iPhoneTrip.com SIM cards!

Being Mobile

In todays wireless world being locked to a desk in an office is no longer good enough for many people.

We want to enjoy work and enjoy life. We want to be able to socialise with our co-workers away from our desk. We want to be able to get away from the office.

We need to stay productive while we are not at our desk.

I spend a good chunk of my day away from the computer screen and away from the desk phone. Being able to be fully productive while away from my desk has made a huge difference to my working day:

• I am always available in case someone needs to call me (unless I am on another call or in a meeting). This means our customers appreciate that they can always contact us, and get a human on the other end of the phone.
• I can respond to most email queries and assign tasks to other members of my team. This means our customers get timely response to their requests.
• I can attend to most emails and little tasks before I get back to my desk. This means that when I actually sit down in front of my computer I can concentrate on things I need to do at my desk, making me much more productive.

What does mobility mean to you? Does it make any difference to your day? Are you at your desk most of the time, or out and about? If you are at your desk more often than you would like to be, what stops you from being mobile?

Comments welcome.