Hello, and welcome to the September edition of Endeavoring – the monthly newsletter from Endeavor Telecom! The “back-to-school,” fall season has begun, with the trade show circuit in full swing and business activity in high gear.

Last month, we featured our August new items, along with an overview of the upcoming trade show schedule. We also included a Q&A discussion with Endeavor CEO, Justin McLain. As we move into fall, industry pundits are all talking about the future of the telecom and IT industries, so we thought it appropriate to offer a few more opinions from our perspective. This month, we wrap up our Q&A with Justin, including his thoughts on industry trends and the road ahead for Endeavor Telecom.

We’re off to New Jersey today for the Fall Channel Partners event, then to COMPTEL in early October and Fall VON in late October.

Fall Channel Partners
(Register onsite at the Meadowlands Exposition Center)
Secaucus, NJ - Booth #321
September 26-28, 2007

Fall VON
(Click here for free admission)
Boston, MA, Booth # 1062
October 29-November 1

Thanks again for reading and for your interest in Endeavor. As always, send your feedback to editor@endeavortelecom.com.

TALKSWITCH® AND ENDEAVOR TELECOM TEAM UP TO OFFER INSTALLATION AND SUPPORT SERVICES TO CHANNEL

September 10, 2007 - TalkSwitch®, a leader in the design and manufacture of innovative telephone systems for small and multi-location businesses, and Endeavor Telecom, the Telecom Truck Roll Company of Choice for carriers, service providers, systems integrators, VARs, and equipment manufacturers, today announced a partnership that will see Endeavor offer its suite of installation and support services to TalkSwitch channel partners across Canada, the United States and Mexico.

"Endeavor's ability to service customers across Canada, the US and Mexico is a great benefit to our channel partners," said Jan Scheeren, President and CEO, TalkSwitch. "It gives our partners access to multiple resources within a geographic area and makes for easy bundling of equipment with installation and training services. Its quality service and commitment to customer satisfaction makes Endeavor an ideal service partner for our channel."

Click here to read the full press release

ENDEAVOR TELECOM ELEVATES ROBERT VON SPRECKEN TO VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Atlanta, GA, September 26, 2007 – Endeavor, The Telecom Truck Roll Company of Choice for carriers, service providers, VARs, and equipment manufacturers, today announced that Robert von Sprecken has been promoted to Vice President of Business Development.  Von Sprecken joined Endeavor in January of this year as Director of Business Development, and since that time, he has been responsible for creating and managing relationships with key partners and customers throughout the telecommunications ecosystem. 

“Bob has played an important role in helping to grow our business, from adding significant new customers to overseeing the expansion of our sales team; his appointment today to vice president reflects his contributions to our ongoing success,” said Justin McLain, CEO for Endeavor Telecom. 

Click here to read the full press release

Q. How has SIP changed communications?

As a whole, SIP has been publicly disruptive to traditional voice service offerings, yet that level of disruption appears to be more media hype than reality.  While it is spawning a variety of new products and has quite a few Senior Executives scratching their heads on how to respond, to date, it has produced minimal impact on market share. As the leading company that actually installs services sold within the telecom industry, I am a bit disappointed to see relatively little activity in the field.  We anticipate this to change as the technology is adopted by companies capable of bundling SIP-based services with access services. Once that happens, the TDM and analog PBX and key-system manufacturers who target SMBs (and the rest of that ecosystem) will find their legacy business in decline.

Q. What do you think the future of the market is?

The future is in bundling broadband access and applications (voice, data, video and much more), then content, and ultimately software. In the near-term, the market will continue to be serviced by the facilities-based carriers and MSOs (or companies who via special agreements can best emulate the offerings of such companies); there’s no question - they have the current advantage. In the longer term, as the never-ending array of wireless technologies mature and proliferate, the facilities advantage will become less significant.  Ultimately, wireless stands to move competition out of the regulatory environment and into the market, which is where it belongs.

Q. What do you think of Google and Apple entering the telecom market?

This is a natural evolution of the Internet and a logical evolution of their business models.  Google’s search engine and email services, as well as Apple’s iTunes, are not significantly different than VoIP – they are all essentially applications transported over IP. Moving into telecom is a way to extend their reach, minimize future disruptions, thwart competitors, and assure future revenue by asserting more control over access to their users. This is a requirement should they want to maintain any non-regulatory leverage over the carriers in regard to Net neutrality.

Q. How about Microsoft?

Whether you like them or not, you have to realize that not much happens in the technology sphere that Microsoft didn’t either initiate or get in early and drive. Don’t let yourself think that they are in some bunker in Washington state working out the bugs in Windows 2010, they are brilliant strategists and they know exactly what’s happening out there. As more applications become hosted, they will increasingly compete with traditional installation-based software. It is not unreasonable to think that in the next five years, your PC or laptop’s desktop will not be as important as your virtual (remotely hosted) desktop - you would use web applications for spreadsheet calculations and word processing in much the same way you would use Excel or Word. This forces Microsoft to follow a similar strategic path as Google, otherwise their market would evaporate if they do not keep up with innovation.

Q. How will wireless technologies change our market?

Whenever a new technology comes along that completely dominates over the old model, eventually, everything migrates to the new platform. It may take another 10 years, but eventually, everything will move to wireless – it just has too may advantages or wired services.  In the big picture though, it’s just another form of transport, and there’s still a ton of infrastructure and equipment needed to make the magic happen. As mentioned before, as wireless methods of access broadband become more robust- supporting greater speeds and more available applications, the traditional facilities-based infrastructure will become less of an advantage. Additionally, as broadband becomes more mobile, there will be a decreased dependence on the end-user computing hardware and traditional installation-based software applications. Personally, I see nothing but opportunity coming as a result of the wireless transformation.

Q. Please make one surprising prediction we will see in 5 years

I’ll cheat and go with 10 years. Ten years from now, nearly every application will be hosted and delivered over IP (most likely wireless IP), to the end-user. Each of these technologies is so far superior to competitive technologies that they will completely supplant the legacy approach in that timeframe. It’s a bit of a scary prediction, but on the other hand, I believe that standardizing on a few key infrastructure elements make life simpler in that most of the industry can now start focusing on leveraging those technologies to build the really compelling, end-to-end solutions that end-users want.

Look for Endeavor Telecom at the following Industry Events:
 
Channel Partners, September 26-28, in Secaucus, NJ, Booth # 321
COMPTEL, October 7-10, in Dallas, TX , Booth # 726
Fall VON, October 29-November 1, in Boston, MA, Booth # 1062