David Galbraith just dug out this video. It looks like somebody at Ernst and Young really thought this would motivate somebody. Were Dante Allegheri alive today, he would include elements of this video as one of his circles of hell, for sure. So, let me get this straight, if you want to work at Ernst and Young, you have to be between 30 and 45, white and you can’t be able to dance. Did I get that right?

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 12:03 pm | Filed Under david galbraith, thomas howe, video | Leave a Comment

Today in the Wall Street Journal, Comcast reports an 80% rise in profits due to the bundling of voice, video and data.. aka the Triple Play.

While I was at Netcentrex, this is the story we would continually tell our customers. Bundling these services creates a convenience for the customer, but it also radically reduces churn, a substantial cost for carriers. Netcentrex, under the capable direction of marketing Guru Brian Mahoney, captured and held the triple play position in Voice Over IP for the last five years. Now, Comcast has capitalized on this business model, proving Brian and the Netcentrex team correct. I hope all of the current Netcentrex customers are seeing similar returns, and that future clients will enjoy them too.

My emotional response is one of surprise, frankly. I’m not surprised we were right, I’m just surprised that we were THAT right. Gotta go buy some lottery tickets. Back in a bit.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 9:33 am | Filed Under brian mahoney, comcast, netcentrex, thomas howe | Leave a Comment

RocketBoom’s Earth Day episode was just perfect. You gotta check this one out.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 9:51 am | Filed Under Lead Stories | Leave a Comment

Thank you to Jack Ivers who put up this review and a link to my talk at Web 2.0.

My speech pathologist wife, who attended one of my talks for the first time said, “You didn’t swear once! Good job, honey. Now, let’s try to get you to slow down a little bit.”

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 10:20 am | Filed Under jack ivers, thomas howe, web 2.0 | Leave a Comment

Check out this latest post from Moshe. Thank you for dreaming that we might live in a world where we can actually provide some value to customers, and that they might pay for it. Honest to God, I sometimes think our whole industry has this collective self-esteem problem.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 10:12 am | Filed Under flat planet, moshe maeir, thomas howe | Leave a Comment

Interpid reporter Andy Abramson digs this one up… Perhaps there’s some movement in the Vonage patent matter, as 3Com apparently filed a patent in 1996 (patent number 6,529,501), which references the same approach, but might be considered prior art. I’m not a patent lawyer (don’t even play one on TV), but if it’s true that the Verizon patent’s don’t even list this one, it might mean trouble for the patent defense. It strikes me as a little odd though, as it was trivial for me to use google to figure out what patents it itself referenced, or those that mentioned internet telephony. Why didn’t the lawyers see this one coming a year ago?

Here’s an answer : it’s muddy. A few weeks ago, a blogger gave a quick history of Voice Over IP. Trouble is… it’s basically wrong. VocalTek no more invented voice over IP than Gutenburg invented books. (And that’s giving a lot of credit to VocalTek, whom I respect nonetheless.) Just like Ana Nicole’s baby, VoIP has many, many fathers - and it mucks up prior art big time. Let’s look at some of the happy fathers not mentioned by the bloggers, and probably not mentioned by the patent attorneys, either :

• H.323 was finalized in November 1996, written by many of my fellow employees at PictureTel, firmly establishing that nearly all of the ideas it contained were known in the community for at least two years prior, including naming conventions, gateways, etc.
• Of course, H.323 was not born in a vacuum. It’s father, H.320 was developed in the late 1980’s, introducing packetized media and call control over WAN networks. It’s where most of the G.7xx codecs come from. H.320 has gateways, and admission controls, conversions between synchronous networks…. sound familiar at all?
• And of course, H.320 wasn’t the first one either. How could it be? Px64 predated H.320 and was used as a major part of the spec, along with tight integration with Q.931. Yes, that SS7 spec. Anyone in Peabody at that time knew all about voice, video, packets, synchronous streams. I’m pretty sure that Regan was president.
• I remember listening to “geek of the week” in College around 1985-1986. Audio? Yup. Internet? Yup. Real time? Well, maybe not. I’ll give you that one.
• Who could forget the ATT PicturePhone in 1970?
• World’s Fair anyone?

I could go on all day, but I have this funny eating habit, and I need to go make some money to keep it going. Engineering and technology is much more like a Wiki than a Word document. No one person invented voice over IP, and it’s been here forever. If anyone tells me that the new thing with Voice Over IP is video, I’m going to barf. Literally. I’ve been at this since the early 90’s at PictureTel, and I know people who I think are the old timers - and they view me rightly as a newbie. Expect a patent lawyer to understand that one? Yeah, me neither.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 9:22 am | Filed Under andy abramson, patent, thomas howe, vonage | 3 Comments

Do you remember when VoIP companies actually had some sort of liquidity event? Well, if you DON’T work for Acme Packet, maybe you don’t! The Web 2.0 finance world continues to bubble with today’s news that StumbleUpon was snapped up by eBay for north of 40 million.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 8:28 pm | Filed Under programmable web, stumble upon, web 2.0 | Leave a Comment

Area code. I heard these guys ran around Manhattan dressed up as PacMan.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 7:42 pm | Filed Under area/code | 2 Comments

Well, the show is over, but the show head-spin hasn’t ended yet. Here’s some of my highlights I wanted to share with you.

Finally got to meet John Musser of Programmable Web fame. John runs (in our opinion) the premier site for finding state of the art mashups and APIs. Nice guy. Pat wanted to go to Seattle for another meeting, and we will, but I think Pat just wants to get a cup of coffee.

I think I scared the FatDoor people when I claimed to know my neighbors and be involved in my community. After a blank stare, the nice lady said, “Well, you can use FatDoor too!” And I will, right after I get back from the YMCA.

Finally met Andrew Turner and Mikel Maron, fellow Web 2.0 speakers and geo-location geeks. Brady Forrest put us together for my mashup, and it was good to meet them in person. If you’re looking for geo-location web applications, start with them. They rock.

I took a quick field trip to meet up with Jack Dorsey from Twitter and Narendra Rocherolle from 30 Boxes. I really appreciated the time they spent with me, and I plan to do podcasts and a profile of both companies. If you haven’t heard of Twitter, please press up with your hands to move the rock you’re living under. 30 Boxes is a personal favorite of mine, where I first came to admire the service, but now starting to admire the crew, too. If there are any social anthropologists out there, please go visit these guys, take a camera and start shooting. This is exactly what the 2.0 culture looks and feels like, right down to the floor. In 200 years, the geeks will thank you.

So much more to say, but it’s dinner time in old San Francisco, and there’s a trolley awaiting.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 7:25 pm | Filed Under 30boxes, Twitter, mashup, programmable web, thomas howe, web 2.0 | 1 Comment

Personal hero Om Malik has a new addition to the GigaOM family… found read. It’s a site for startup founders and stakeholders, to share ideas and advice. Check it out.

Here’s the the best advice I ever got on startups, from my boss Chuck Holland, the manager from the book “Soul of a New Machine” :

The only reward you should expect from doing a startup is that you’ll get to do it again. If that’s not good enough for you, don’t do them in the first place.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 9:11 pm | Filed Under chuck holland, om malik, thomas howe | Leave a Comment

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