I am attending IT Expo in Miami this week and participating in three panel discussions. I know mostly what I will be talking about but I wonder what will be the leading topics of the show. Last year Nortel, SIP, Apple and a few other items drove the two shows. It will be interesting to see what will drive this show.

What then am I focused on for 2010?

1.       Selling SIP Trunks - in addition to being our primary retail product, it simply makes sense in a difficult economy to sell a product that reduces business expenses, improves productivity and positions the company to take advantage of future real time telecom applications.

2.       The FCC - two topics remain at top of mind. How will net neutrality be defined and new rules established in 2010? Second is USF. Will the rules change on who has to pay? Will the way the money is allocated be impacted? With the Democrats in charge, can the FCC avoid the Yen/Yang of political thought?

3.       Is this the year of Video Conferencing or will telecommuting workers insist on being able to work in less than business casual attire?

4.       Broadband, Broadband, Broadband

5.       Competition and Market shapers - who will have the greater impact? Will it be AT&T, Verizon, Google or Cisco? Will the action assist us in growing market share such as Avaya's announcement regarding Nortel? They are moving more strongly towards SIP related products. That accelerates market adoption and growth, which is good for Broadvox. Will it be Google Voice, which has the potential to devalue our offering accelerating the need to expand and develop new peering relationships?

These and more will be what I will evaluate over the next few days.

More on Friday.

The holidays were full of food, glorious food. While I apologize for the length of time without a blog or a recipe, I'll make up for in the weeks to come. First food...the holidays began with more homemade bacon, ham and Gravlax. I also felt that after last year's French Onion Soup misstep, I should make that in a proper fashion. For Christmas, there was herb crusted standing rib roast, lasagna and turkey soup. It was the first time I have ever made turkey soup without roasting a turkey. In brief, my wife and I saw a special on 22-pound fresh turkey the day after Christmas we could not refuse. We decided to give it to my stepdaughter. I roasted the back and one wing for our soup. I gave the rest an overnight brine and roasted it for delivery to her the next day. We celebrated New Years Eve with lobster. The opening course was lobster bisque, followed by lobster ravioli in a light curry corn sauce and the final course was butter-poached lobster with leeks and crispy fingerling potatoes. All of this was done using one whole lobster and a tail. Finally, yesterday, we had trout stuffed with Alaskan king crab and lobster butter. So with all of that, what is the recipe of the week? We go all the way back to the beginning with French Onion Soup. This time I remain true to the original concept with the only change being my use of Marsala wine instead of sherry. I find it less harsh and more to my palate. Enjoy!

2010 and Telecom

Broadvox is planning to announce several new products to enhance our SIP Trunking offering. I hope that they will be received well by our channel and customer markets. We will continue to innovate in order to maintain our position as a leading service provider of IP communications.

With regard to the industry or telecom as a whole, we should see the impact of Avaya's acquisition of Nortel's enterprise products, more action by the FCC on Net Neutrality and the USF, and additional allocation of the telecom stimulus funds for expanding broadband. I also want to spend some additional time reviewing the efforts of our OEM partners as they release new IP PBXs, IADs and phones. Early indications point towards a very exciting year.

Happy New Year! See you on Wednesday!