If I Were Santa... 2010If I Were Santa... 2010

Christmas may be over, but there are still some presents left to give out in our industry.

Christmas may be over, but there are still some presents left to give out in our industry. Santa deals with the stuff we want but maybe not the stuff we need, so if I were Santa here's what I would give out for holiday gifts:

Acme Packet: What do you get a company that has everything? Acme entered 2010 with a stock price of $11 per share. They're currently trading at a staggering $56 now. The market for SIP trunking and session border controllers has been absolutely ripping this year and this is with most enterprises not having any idea what a SIP trunk really is. So, for Acme I'll give two presents--OEM relationships with at least three more mainstream UC vendors (they've already got Avaya), as this will help their enterprise penetration; and some real competition. Acme may not like any more competitors but, in general, competition keeps a company nimble and focused.

Alcatel-Lucent: Last year ALU released its "My IC phone" which may be the best, most state of the art IP phone on the market today. It has a 7" HD touch screen, HD audio and is capable of running high quality, multimedia applications. However, as state of the art as this device is, it's not clear what the anchor app for a device like this is. It's not voice because I don't think customers will pay 1200 Euros for a voice device. So, as Santa I would give ALU five golden anchor applications for MY IC phone.

Avaya: Tablets were all the range in 2010 and Avaya released its video desktop device with Flare experience, which Avaya insists isn’t a tablet. It's a very cool devices but I've had many buyers tell me the price point is too high. So, for Avaya I would give an actual name for the product and a market for a tablet that is 3x the price of an iPad.

Cisco: The bellweather for the industry has lost a little of its mojo over the past couple of years. Cisco's stock price has floundered while the likes of F5, Riverbed and Acme Packet have seen their stocks grow by leaps and bounds this year, and this trend seems like it will continue into 2011. For Cisco, the key is to sell customers on the concept of an "architecture" where the buyers will pay a premium because there’s inherent value in the end to end story. AVVID was an excellent example of this--and perhaps their last great architecture. So if I were Santa, Cisco would get a handful of great case studies to highlight the value of the Borderless Networks architecture. If they can get customers to fully understand BN, it can drive an end to end sale that includes tablets, video, VDI, UC, wireless, security and other technologies.

Microsoft: The monopoly that Microsoft enjoys with desktop operating systems has created the software giant that we know today. However, if you believe the future is in mobile, Microsoft's reign may be on the verge of coming to an end. Over the years Microsoft has had several versions of Windows Mobile and they all stunk. Meanwhile Apple and Android have grabbed a dominant position in the mobile O/S war. Microsoft's latest version, Windows Phone 7, is actually pretty good but many people I've interviewed won't even give it a look since previous versions of Windows Mobile were so poor. So, I really see Microsoft needing two things under the tree--customers that are willing to give Windows Phone 7 a shot and a slip up from Apple or Android.

Polycom: Video is the new voice--at least that's what Cisco tells us. If that's true, then Cisco will create a rising tide which will lift Polycom as well. However, I do think that as Cisco creates a better UC-video integration story, it will create a more difficult competitive environment for the video pure-play. Long term I think the best gift for Polycom would be to be acquired by HP, creating a significant challenger to Cisco in this area.

Service providers: Metcalfe's Law states something to the effect that the value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes on it. The more nodes, the bigger the network, the more value--seems logical. If that's the case then why are the network service providers moving so slowly when it comes to intercompany, intercarrier video? There are millions of video endpoints out in the market today but most are deployed in islands. The carriers should be doing everything they can to offer intercarrier services as fast as possible, raising the value of video services for everyone. For all network services providers, I'll leave as a gift an epiphany that cooperating with your competitors is actually a good thing long term.

There's one more gift I would give to the industry and that is for Enterprise Connect to be the venue that makes much of the vision we talk about a reality. I'm excited to see more content in the areas of social networking and cloud based services at the show and wish Fred, Eric and the rest of the team great success in 2011!