What was the big story this week? No doubt it was the inauguration of Barack Obama, as the 44^th President of the United States and the first African-American to hold that post. Truly a historic day for our nation: a day when many people put politics aside to welcome our newest leader to his job, and judging by the crowds in Washington, D.C. this past Tuesday it was quite a welcome indeed.

 

Rich is excited. Not so much from any overtly political stance, but he’s psyched that the Obama Administration appears to be well versed in technology and will likely raise the tech-level of the White House and the U.S. government in general to new heights.

 

In his recent post, Tech Change is Here, Rich notes that technology is not just a “nice to have” but a necessity that drives an organization’s ability to compete.

 

Of course, with ITEXPO just 9 days away, Rich has been hard at work writing about some of the big elements of the show that will take place Feb 2–4, in Miami Beach, FL.

 

Among many other things, Rich blogged about the open source educational opportunities (Asterisk Training Details; Asterisk, Trixbox, and Switchvox Training), and the temperature differential, and he also posted an entry highlighting the series of interviews he conducted with the thought leaders who will be participating at the event (Come Meet the Thought Leaders at ITEXPO).

 

Back on the political thread… Tom posted his thoughts regarding the reported $40 Billion Broadband stimulus that the Obama Administration was proposing: President-Elect Barack Obama's $40 billion Handout Bailout to Internet Providers

 

While that was technically last week, this week saw a tremendous amount of activity in the comments section of his blog. There was some really interesting back and forth, and if you have any thoughts on our government spending $40 Billion on broadband, it’s worth a look.

 

Peter Radizeski weighs in with details on the Broadband Stimulus Bill.

 

Tom also was busy doing what he does best, and that’s writing about and reviewing gadgets, such as the Verizon Hub (a Web browsing, VoIP phone gadget…), the TechCrunch Touchpad, the AT&T tl7610 headset, and the HTC Touch Cruise.

 

Tony Rybczynski opened the week with a simple message: Nortel is Open for Business, underscoring the message that “Nortel (News - Alert) plans to emerge more focused, financially sound and competitive.”

 

On his SIP and Serve by a Foodie blog, Broadvox’ David Byrd spoke of developments at his firm and some partnerships they announced this week ahead of their participation at ITEXPO.

 

In today’s installment, Byrd also discusses the latest adventures of IP Man:

 

 

In what’s fast becoming one of my favorite features in the TMCnet blogosphere, every Monday, Byrd dishes on what he’s been up to in the kitchen over the preceding weekend, in addition to providing insightful commentary on what’s happening in the market. This week it was beef short ribs. Yummy.

 

Over in the Convergence Corner, Erik Linask discussed the significance of Interactive Intelligence integrating with IBM for enterprise-wide unified communications.

 

Brendan Read offered a Readerboard post on Genesys’ double acquisition; Jessica Kostek covered Apple’s first quarter financials as well as the “Fall of Kennedy” — her take on Caroline Kennedy’s withdrawal from consideration for the open Senate seat in NY; and Scott Bouchard vented his frustration at being unable to watch the inauguration live on CNN.

 

Hunter Newby (News - Alert) had a pair of interesting posts this week on Skype and Internet-based VoIP Peering as well as the effects of broadband development on the economy.

 

Tsahi Levent-Levi has some great post-CES (News - Alert) follow-up on the video solutions on display at that event, and perhaps the funniest blog post of the week, entitled The Naked Truth About Video Conferencing.

 

The week also saw Michael Copps named as acting Commissioner of the FCC, Microsoft announcing job cuts, Polycom announcing their quarterly numbers, and a new service guarantee from Ifbyphone.