December 2005

Teamwork and Leadership

by alec on December 31, 2005

We went to the Ottawa Senators vs  the NY Islanders last night at the Corel Center.  The Senators came back from being down 3-1 to win the game 4-3.  It was a remarkable display of teamwork, made all the more so by team Captain Daniel Alfredsson.  In the middle of the second period he took a slapshot from team mate Zdeno Chara in the ribs.  Chara has a powerful shot, and Alfredsson left the game winded, and with a bruised and cracked rib. 

This year’s Senators have grit.  Rather than let the loss of their captain affect their game negatively, they rallied and turned around a losing game.  This without Alfredsson, star center Spezza, and winger’s Havlat and Bochenski, all of whom are out with injuries. 

Alfredsson has always led by example.  Without him there, players like Shaefer, Fisher, and Neil stepped up and played a fabulous game. Afterward, following a trip to hospital confirming his cracked rib, Alfredsson had only this to say:

”That’s the way it goes,” said Alfredsson. ”Hopefully, Spezza is coming back soon and the good thing is we have guys stepping up and tonight was another big case of that, so we’ll find ways to win games.”

{ 0 comments }

Free Voice

by alec on December 30, 2005

Om Malik has published a prediction that in 2006, voice will be (nearly) free. As the likes of Yahoo, SipPhone, and Sun Rocket battle it out to be the low (or no?) cost leader, metered long distance and local calling will go the way of the dodo. That’s been my view for a long time. Andy echoes with "of course, nothing is free", which is absolutely true. We’re seeing a commoditization of basic voice, which necessitates the introduction of new models — both economic and technology models.

I’ll add a prediction of my own: 2006 will see the failure of multiple "telephony on IP" plays — the companies that simply replicated the PSTN on broadband. To survive in this new market you are going to have do do more than sell a near-zero commodity at a "better" price.

{ 1 comment }

Arnold: The State of IP Telephony in Canada

December 28, 2005

Two days ago Jon Arnold published some great data on the state IP telephony in Canada. This was part of a conversation he had with UBS analyst Jeff Fan. Standout data point: Videotron is adding 4,000 subscribers per week at the moment. I think this is a nationwide trend. Some months ago I had a conversation [...]

Read the full article →

IMS: Cute But Wrong

December 28, 2005

Paul Jardine his written a lovely anti-IMS rant this morning. He says: It seems that IMS is another stab at providing a sandpit for the IP kids to play in. But it is similarly doomed. (Hands up those of us who would willingly let our parents organise a party for us when we were 21?) [...]

Read the full article →

Google sued for VolP

December 27, 2005

Om Malik reports that unknown Rates Technology Inc is suing Google for patent infringement related to Google Talk. Om points to the suit, which includes the two patents Google is alleged to have infringed. One patent is for a least cost routing appliance, while the other is for the database technology required to implement a [...]

Read the full article →

VoIP Saves Money!

December 26, 2005

Consumer Reports has a comparison of VoIP providers plans this month. Amongst other findings: users are saving $20 to $50 per month. We use PhoneGnome. Our long distance bill for October and November was $8.

Read the full article →

Blog Rip-offs!

December 26, 2005

Sites that repost content are nothing new. However, this latest, reported by Om and Andy, is really over the top. A company called XB 90 media is lifting posts out of RSS Feeds, and reposting them whole without attribution. They’re monetizing the site with Google Adsense. It’s such a laughable job that they’ve even preserved the [...]

Read the full article →

Abramson recaps the year

December 24, 2005

Andy has done a recap of 2005. It’s an audio post, and works quite well. He’s still talking "me too, me also, me different ", but this time in the context of all the VoIM clients that are flooding into the market. A year ago, Skype had the space to themselves, today that is no [...]

Read the full article →

Tablet blogger!

December 24, 2005

Santa came early this year. I am blogging this using a COMPAQ TC 1100 tablet pc. The handwriting recognition is pretty good. Even so, I am not sure I could write long pieces using it.  Writing is easy enough, but I am really used to editing on a PC.  Still, this is a great addition to the [...]

Read the full article →

Agile Development

December 22, 2005

Agile development processes are a little different from the traditional approach.  They focus on iteration, feedback, and incremental feedback.  Todd Jefferson has written a great piece over on Simply Relevant describing how we use those processes at Iotum.  Recommended reading for job applicants.

Read the full article →
Alec on LinkedIn Alec on Twitter Alec on Facebook Calliflower on Youtube RSS Feed Contact me