Telco 2.0 meets the consumerization of software and its cousin Web. 2.0.

The speculation has been on the wire and in the blogosphere for days but today (07/29) Allegis Capital confirmed today that its portfolio company Ribbit was acquired by BT in an all cash deal, for around $105 Million (not bad for a company that came out of stealth mode less than year ago). BT acquired the company to accelerate its Telco 2.0 strategy and commented that the acquisition would hasten its transformation to a "next-generation, platform-based, software-driven services company."

I used Ribbit to help illustrate the Innovation and Trends presentation I gave in Berlin in March this year. As a pure-play platform with a multi-protocol soft-switch that bridges telephony & next-gen networks and protocols, Ribbit’s open Flash/Flex-based API enables non-telephony developers to quickly build voice-centric applications or integrate voice into Rich Internet applications.

Some of its basics:

Manages mobile voicemail like email on a computer and on a mobile phone.

Turns voicemail into text to make voice messages sharable, searchable, and actionable.

Take and make mobile calls from any browser or web page - such as iGoogle, Facebook, others.

With Ribbit’s consumer service, Amphibian (released in Jan. 2008), users can link their mobile phones with the Ribbit service online where one manage/route mobile calls and voice mail, including voice-to-text and voice-to-mp3 conversions; take or make mobile calls from Web pages using Ribbit widget along with an enhanced caller id feature integrated into a social networking milieu.

In March 2008, Ribbit for Saleforce was in beta and provided “…mobile calls, voice messages and text transcriptions automatically flow into Salesforce where they can play, read, store, search, and act on voice communications. Take and make calls in Salesforce with an online clone of a mobile phone…”

Ribbit reports that it has around 5,000 app developers working with its platform and BT reports it will keep Ribbit as a separate entity.

uconnect: Detroit Autos as Wireless Hotspots

Some 2009 Chrysler vehicles will have a dealer installed option for wireless internet access which will work over the cellular infrastructure.

The system will link laptops to the internet and cellular phones and MP3 players to the car's onboard electronics, with the ability to control an Apple iPod with radio and steering wheel controls. The system also has navigation and real-time traffic features, controlled by voice recognition or a touch screen.

The car will have its own 30GB hard drive, with options for three-channel satellite TV and satellite radio service. The system will work while the car is in motion so that passengers can work on their email or surf.

From Dilbert to Dude: Web 2.0 in the Enterprise

...from the Churchill Club meeting June 17, 2008...just a note - most enterprise 2.0 social networking sites are restricted to the enterprise or the enterprise and its customers or trading partners. Instead of challenging the corporate hierarchy, it should be thought of as complementing it. It also increases collaboration, sometimes from employees who are geographically separated. Some enterprises see it as a marketplace of ideas.

Technologies customized sites with open-source platforms, blogging or wiki platforms, or the Facebook platform.

Incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into the enterprise offers great benefits...and great challenges.

Social networking in the enterprise, or Enterprise 2.0, increases collaboration and idea sharing among employees as well as customers and can even lower employee turnover. Risks include legal issues that could arise or what to do if inappropriate material gets posted on the site. Companies can set up posting guideline.

Best Buy has set up a social networking site for employees which has attracted 20,000 users. Employees can do activities such as using audio files or blogging and can post an idea and get funding for it. They have had to remove only 3 postings out of some 30,000 to 50,000 entries.

Oracle built its social networking site integrated with the company's LDAP directory system, with the ability to make contacts with people. About 10,000 people use it every week and share things like news articles, PowerPoint presentations, and budgets.

Bluetooth-enabled Devices Track Human Congestion

Researchers in the Civil Engineering department at Purdue University have devised a way to pick up the identifying addresses from Bluetooth devices in consumer electronics. Because each device has its own distinct digital signature, its travel time can be tracked by detectors installed at intersections or along highways and other locations.
One faculty member says "Now we have a way to measure how slow traffic is on a given stretch of road or how long it's taking people to get through airport security at a given concourse and time of day."

Innovation from the Edge: Consumerization of ICT

…SMS, WiFi, Bluetooth, Google Desktop, IM, VoIP, Flash Drive, Wiki, Skype, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life, Saleforce.com , Blogging, Web 2.0, Mashups, Ribbit, Social Networks, Google Apps,WebEx, iPhone, Social Search…

In recent years, many innovations in technology and communications have come from the consumer side, that is, from The Edge. From the PC to the iPhone, from YouTube to social search, innovation has been embraced by the individual and force fed into the enterprise.

Back in 2005 Gartner Group advised us that the practice of introducing new technologies into consumer markets and having them bleed into industry and the enterprise would be one of the most significant trends affecting information technology (IT) during the next 10 years. At the same time, they warned us of the new threats, security risks and organizational chaos posed by this trend.

But these consumer-led innovations filled corporate voids and out of the “chaos” emerged new forms of enriched communication and information flow, enhanced productivity and empowered corporate citizens, and led to the discovery of new ideas, the creation of new business models and the opening of new markets.

Many forward-looking companies have or are creating enterprise-ready versions of their consumer-oriented technologies—for example Google Search, 3G iPhones, the Facebook Platform or FaceForce (Salesforce+FaceBook) and Ribbit for Salesforce while MarCom departments use YouTube and MySpace to create novel customer touchpoints. With enterprise social networking enabling collaboration and idea sharing among employees, branded and white label social networking vendors are offering social networking platforms via an SaaS model.

In the past, military, industrial, and business markets steered R&D efforts; today, the individual, the consumer is also in the driver’s seat.

Now the security issues are real –from botnet infestations to cybercrime --but they can and must be managed—technology enables business—we’ve known that for a long time.

On June 4th, I attended a half day session here in Palo Alto on "The Consumerization of Software" sponsored by the SDForum and Accel Partners so I could hear first hand what some in the Silicon Valley community were thinking about the topic, mostly from the venture perspective, and how it plays on in the software industry:

The cutting edge of “software” is undergoing a structural change as new business models, and new strategies for customer acquisition have supplanted the Y2K era of enterprise software models. Centralized buying decisions driven by the CIO have given way to “democratic” or consumer-like adoption behavior within the enterprise. Open-source software, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and other “bottom-up” rather than “top-down” models are exploiting this trend. Some companies in this space include Salesforce.com, Facebook, Netsuite, Genius.com, Ribbit, Citrix Online, Parature, Hyperic, Zimbra, Qliktech and Echosign, many of which are in the Accel portfolio.

By way of introduction, Richard Wong from Accel said, “We are seeing a new generation of software companies that are beginning to disrupt the traditional incumbents. The rise of open-source and the growth of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies are creating a next generation of players that deliver value in a new go-to-market approach.”

Accel’s Kevin Efrusy welcomed the audience to talk about the shift in adopting new technologies and espoused his Consumerization Thesis:

A potential customer has to understand the value in less than 1 minute, and get the benefit in less than 1 hour – otherwise you have lost him/her.
New companies with products in the space need to ruthlessly limit scope, the number of account touch points required and configuration options – simplicity and focus are key. Understand viral marketing and keep in mind that a B2B viral cycle is longer than say a Facebook consumer cycle. Establish metrics that reflect customer success.
The panel discussion entitled A View on Software from Wall Street with Brendan Barnicle (Pacific Crest), Charles Carmel (Cisco) and Mike Maples (Maples Investments) posed the question:

How do you build a grassroots adoption of your technology, product, service?

• Solve the Day Zero problem –the end user grasps the initial value proposition in less than a minute and benefits from it less than an hour.
• Start with an easy to use tool addressing specific solution that doesn’t cost anything to adopt (the 1 minute, 1 hour thesis)
• Get enough users; add features they say they want. At some point they will start wanting to use it at work.
  
  Another panel discussed “Products for the end user instead of the manager” – for example, Siebel’s Salesforce management suite was focused on providing information at the executive management level; Saleforce.com came along and sales people found a productivity tool to manage information at their level and need. One takeaway is to build these new applications with the users in mind, not the managers.
  
  The representative from Cisco commented that WLAN technology was a bottoms-up effort as well; if one could be untethered at home or in a coffee shop, why not at the office?
  
  A third panel with Mike Ni (Netsuite), Duke Chung (Parature), Satish Dharmaraj (Zimbra) and Javier Soltero (Hyperic) spoke to “Beating the incumbents through bottom-up tactics” suggesting that a “try before you buy” and the ability to scale fast and cheaply were winning strategies.
  
  Consumerized software is paid for from op budgets, rather that capital outlays and “decisions” to use it most often bypasses the IT gatekeepers – removing the barrier between the customer and the product. This is a high velocity sales cycle – with a week to a month for implementation. Revenue models are mostly subscription-based or a similar hybrid mode—SaaS, subscription, pay-per-use, maybe per-person licensing. Price points are most often at low budget approval levels; requires no training, no change management, no consultants.
  
  Alliances for growth is important- put two good things together – examples Saleforce.com and Ribbit or Google Apps integration into Salesforce.com exposing their 1 million paid subscribers to Google Apps (and Salesforce CRM to users of Google Apps).

HD @ the Desktop from Intel

Intel announced its new chip set for PCs-the Intel 4 series which includes G45, G43, P45 and P43, will be used with the and Intel Core Duo 2 and Core 2 Quad processors.

Intel says it is there first chip set to integrate complete hardware high-definition pipelines for Blu-ray and other HD content playback. It's also their first to post-process HD content for improved visual quality. The chip set has Intel Clear Video Technology for HD playback and also has an enhanced 3-D graphics engine.

Cisco TrustSec @ Stanford Networking Seminar

On May 29th, Fabio Mano presented a session on Cisco's TrustSec at the Stanford Networking Seminar. He prefaced his talk by saying this was the first time Cisco has presented this topic without a nondisclosure.

TrustSec is a fundamental change in the way enterprise network security is implemented. architecture builds on top of a strong identity framework to provide authentication for each network device and a centralized Role Based Access Control. All network entities including switches and routers, in addition to users and hosts, are identified and strongly authenticated to build a trusted network infrastructure. Identities are then mapped onto topology-independent Security Groups by a centralized Attribute Based Access Control policy engine, and carried within each packet through the network. Access control policies are no longer expressed in term of IP addresses, but simply in term of Security Groups.

To protect the integrity of the Security Group Tag each frame is encrypted at the egress port of every network device and decrypted at the next ingress port using the IEEE 802.1AE standard frame format (draft standards 802.1af and 802.1AR will also be supported).

By encrypting packets at every hop of the network user-data are protected over the entire enterprise network, preserving the capability to provide added-value services in the network (such as netflow, quality of service, load balancing, application-level caching,intrusion prevention).

Essentially TrustSec adds a layer of indirection to accomplish its goals. When I get a moment I'll add a simple diagram that expresses the layer of indirection.