• How has your market segment evolved over the past year and what trends have fueled those changes? 
  
  VoIP Innovations is in the wholesale voice over IP origination and termination market.  We have seen many changes to the landscape over the past year.  The main change was the flood of new players into this space.  This high volume of new players has created a race to the bottom with pricing.  There seems to be a refocus towards targeting each other’s customers, whereas in the past this market space focused on the traditional PSTN customers.  It seems the market has turned their guns on each other.  I have seen some players join forces and others go toe to toe.  At the end of the day we will see an industry shakeup, which most likely will focus around taxes, recipcomp, and CABS.

• What do you see as the next disruptive force in technology and how will it impact your market or business? 
  
  I believe IP peering will be a disruptive force at some point in the future.  The idea of sending traffic from IP to IP and cutting out the traditional PSTN carriers will cause a disruption to many markets.  For the wholesale VoIP market this could be trouble, unless we can find a way to carve out a space in this food chain.  This idea has many hurdles to overcome before it becomes a reality.

• How has the acceptance and adoption of the cloud model influenced your development cycle and process? 
  
  The acceptance of cloud computing has influenced us more on an operational level than a product or service level.  If it’s not our core business we would rather put it in the cloud than have it in house.  Items like email, data storage, ticket system, development environment, etc all reside in the cloud.  I don’t want to waste resources maintaining, upgrading and repairing these items, it’s not our core business.  Cloud computing allows us to focus on why we are in business and what we do well and remove the distraction of non-revenue generating tasks.

• What is the most common request you are seeing from your customers? How is your company addressing these demands? 
  
  Lower prices.  We are constantly looking for new vendors and re-negotiating existing deals.  Now that we have a large amount of traffic, it has become easier to get great deals but we still operate on thin margins.  At some point the market needs to bottom out so that we all can start seeing acceptable margins again.     
  
  
• How is the continued growth of social media changing service and product development strategies?
  
  It has changed how we market our businesses.  With an effective social media effort you can dramatically increase your SEO while decreasing the amount you spend on marketing.  It is one of the best ways to increase your online organic presence.

• What are you most looking forward to at ITEXPO West in Austin? What do you see as being the biggest trends at the show? 
  
  I am most looking forward to seeing customers, vendors and other partners.  I really enjoy seeing the same people twice a year, talking about our world, and doing business together.  I think a trend we will see is more LCR SW providers attending and vending.  With the explosion of VoIP termination, a need for SW to manage this service has become apparent to many providers.  We started to see this trend at the Miami ITEXPO and I believe this trend will continue.

• Who should visit your booth at ITEXPO and why? 
  
  Anyone looking for wholesale voice over IP origination and termination.  We have one of the nation’s largest footprints, very aggressive pricing, and the industry’s top back office.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.