IN THIS ISSUE
Innovation and growth were the hallmarks of the Metaswitch Forum 2009, where the
Metaswitch Innovators Community was announced.
The Innovators Community will help foster the development of third party software-based
applications for the Metaswitch product line, and is open to all Metaswitch customers
and partners.
The community features an online portal providing sample code, open source projects,
application programming interface tools, help and documentation, a sandbox test
environment, discussion groups and blogs.
Preparations for growth were another key theme. Metaswitch announced that John Lazar,
formerly President and COO of the company's Carrier Division, has been promoted
to the role of Chief Executive Officer, taking over executive responsibility for
the entire company from founder Ian Ferguson, who continues as Chairman.
The move also consolidates all of the company's business activities under the Metaswitch
brand.
Metaswitch also announced that Kevin A. DeNuccio has joined the Metaswitch Board
of Directors, a move intended to enhance the company's ability to grow its business
among Tier 1 service providers.
Gary Kim
The sixth annual Metaswitch Forum 2009 in Las Vegas was a huge success with a record-setting
637 attendees! With a Vegas-styled theme of "No Limits", the event was
created specifically for Metaswitch's customers and partners to come together to
discuss and solve industry challenges, and meet and network with Metaswitch executives.
Attendees packed 30 educational sessions, including "Getting All Mashed Up
in Vegas", "Dealin' with the Feds", "The Final Cut: Behind the
Scenes of a Major Switch Migration", and "Roadmap for Geeks, Nerds and
Propeller-heads". Also offered for the first time was the Pre-Conference Workshop
which offered training courses on "Deploying the Small-Medium Business (SMB)
Solution", "Managing Your IP Network for VoIP", and "Interactive
Workshop: Winning the SMB Market".
The Expo continued to be a Forum favorite and the crowded expo hall featured 35
partner exhibits. Exhibitors and event sponsors included Aastra Telecom, Acme Packet,
ADTRAN, Calix, Cisco, Cordell, NeuStar, Occam Networks, Polycom and Varaha Systems.
Read more about the Metaswitch Forum 2009
Metaswitch announced the formation of the Metaswitch Innovators Community, a collaborative
online social business networking group focused on the creation of third party software-based
applications for the Metaswitch product line. Formed to foster the exchange of ideas
among Metaswitch's large group of active and energetic customers and partners, as
well as third party developers, the Metaswitch Innovators Community is designed
to spark true innovation in terms of how new applications are developed.
The Metaswitch Innovators Community
is open to all Metaswitch customers and partners and is an online portal which provides
sample code, open source projects, API help and documentation, a sandbox test environment,
discussion groups, blogs, and the ability to communicate and network with other
innovators.
To kick off the community efforts, Metaswitch is contributing its CommPortal Widgets
for Google, Vista and Mac environments, delivered as part of its V7.0 release this
month, under an open source license. The site also includes resources for branding
and re-using the features of CommPortal, Metaswitch's powerful web UI, along with
help on the existing JSON interface and new JavaScript samples. Utility tools on
the portal will include a billing file formatting tool and a tool for converting
exported user data to Excel format.
Read more about the Metaswitch Innovators Community
Metaswitch announced that John Lazar, formerly President and COO of the company's
Carrier Division, has been promoted to the role of Chief Executive Officer, taking
over executive responsibility for the entire company from founder Ian Ferguson,
who continues as Chairman.
In his new role, John Lazar will oversee the company's Network Protocols and Carrier
Divisions, while Phil McConnell and Graeme MacArthur, respectively, continue as
General Managers of the two divisions. Over the coming months, the company plans
to consolidate all its products and business operations, including the Network Protocols
Division, under the Metaswitch brand. Until that transition is complete, the network
protocols business will continue to operate as Metaswitch (DCL).
"It is an honor to lead the organization to which I have dedicated the last
22 years of my career. The opportunities ahead of us are truly exciting, and I am
indebted to Ian Ferguson for building the culture, management team and strategy
that have put us in such a strong position today," said John Lazar.
Read more about John Lazar's appointment as CEO
Metaswitch announced the appointment of Kevin A. DeNuccio to its Board of Directors.
Mr DeNuccio brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in service provider operations
and support to the company.
Currently, Mr DeNuccio is Vice Chairman of Redback Networks, an Ericsson Company,
and he also serves as a director on the board of JDS Uniphase Corp. Formerly, he
was President and CEO of Redback for eight years, and oversaw that company's successful
transformation and ultimate acquisition by Ericsson.
"We are honored to have Kevin as part of our team. His knowledge and extensive
experience in managing global service provider operations and corporate strategy
will be invaluable as we look to continue Metaswitch's position as a leader in carrier
IP solutions," said Ian Ferguson, Chairman of the Board for Metaswitch. "Kevin
is a dynamic, results-driven, hands-on executive with a proven track record of managing
successful domestic and international service provider solutions companies. We will
look to Kevin for advice and guidance as we scale our operations to serve our global
customer base."
Read more about Kevin A. DeNuccio
User ability to use third-party, over-the-top VoIP services is always a key business
issue for service providers. T-Mobile's decision to block Skype use on its 3G network,
plus Nokia's decision to pre-load Skype on the new Nokia N97 handsets are examples,
says Martin Taylor, Metaswitch VP.
On that score, users should be happy when Verizon Wireless rolls out its LTE service,
possibly as early as 2010 in some markets. Verizon says subscribers with a data-only
plan from Verizon Wireless may then be able to choose mobile VoIP services from
a wide variety of over-the-top providers, says Taylor.
Read Martin Taylor's blog
Martin's musings are mirrored in Andy Randall's discussion of whether Google Voice
and Skype might represent the future of "telephone service." Both developments
provide "potentially worrying early signs of a new generation of telephony
provider," says Randall, Metaswitch marketing VP.
The issue? Both Google Voice and Skype represent "a generation of providers
that are not bogged down by legacy networks and historical views of what 'telephone
service' means," Randall says.
What's the big difference? Not just new business models, deep pockets or speed of
innovation, though those clearly are challenges these new providers provide for
traditional service providers.
The big difference is how each of these new services relies so heavily on the Web
and appear to be "in tune with a generation of consumers that has grown up
with the Internet."
Read Andy Randall's blog
Metaswitch also has learned a thing or two from the way human beings use search
engines to find answers to questions. "Searching is key in documentation and
this chimes very nicely with some documentation improvements we're about to launch
on the Metaswitch Support Portal," says Neil Collins, Metaswitch Innovators
Coordinator.
"For some time now we've had the manuals available to download as PDFs,"
says Collins. "With the manuals online feature, you will be able to search
and view them within the support portal itself."
"As well as integrating the manuals with the online searching, we're also adding
what we're calling WISs (Web Information Signposts)," says Collins. "These
are simple pointers for common search terms but hopefully they'll speed up getting
you where you want to go."
Most of the application programming interface documents developers will need can
be found on the Metaswitch Innovators site, but Collins says broader information
about Metaswitch can be gotten from the portal.
To find out more about how Metaswitch is improving searching in documentation, visit
the Metaswitch Innovators Community
and read Neil's blog post "Support Portal Documentation Improvements - Finding
What You Want".