Top Voices of IP Communications

Gordon Payne, Citrix Gateways
Gordon Payne is vice president of marketing for Citrix Gateways. In that role, he provides marketing and product leadership for Citrix� customers and partners. Gordon joined Citrix in December 2004, through the $50M acquisition of Net6, Inc., a company that focused on SSL VPN Secure Remote Access and IP Telephony Application Solutions. With Net6, he held the positions of both Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer, establishing a strong position for the company leading up to the acquisition by Citrix. Previously with Nortel (News - Alert) Networks, he was vice president and general manager of the Call Center/CRM and Enterprise Wireless Business Units. Gordon subscribes to a theory that the editors of this publication have long held to be true, that saving money as a result of implementing IP Communications is just a starting point. The real benefits come later. According to Payne, �Although many of the initial benefits of IP Communications have been associated with cost savings, the benefit to users will come to pass as the true legacy of IP Communications.� Payne continues, �IP Communications enables users to do many things that are just not possible with legacy phone systems. IP Communications provides us with the foundation required for adapting technology around the user, instead of trying to adapt the user around technology. This subtle difference has a huge impact on how well users can, and will, take advantage of new capabilities. We will all be able to communicate more naturally, improving both our business productivity and personal quality of life.�

Henning Schulzrinne, Ph.D., Columbia University
Prof. Henning Schulzrinne received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass. He was a member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill and an associate department head at GMD-Fokus (Berlin), before joining the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering departments at Columbia University, New York. He is currently chair of the Department of Computer Science. He is a Fellow of the IEEE (News - Alert). Protocols co-developed by him are now Internet standards, used by almost all Internet telephony and multimedia applications. He is co-author of the Real-Time Protocol (RTP) for real-time Internet services, the signaling protocol for Internet multimedia conferences and telephony (SIP) and the stream control protocol for Internet media-on-demand (RTSP). Professor Schulzrinne spoke to us about the ability of IP to empower the mass creation of applications and services, and as we have often said, �it�s all about the applications.� According to Schulzrinne, �IP communications completes the conversion of communications from analog and circuit-switched to digital and packet-based. Since it uses Internet technologies, it can also empower end users or third parties to create services, rather than waiting for service providers to come up with killer applications. �For the first time, it is likely that global standards will increase customer choice, rather than encourage national technology islands.�



Neal H. Shact, CommuniTech Services
Neal Shact is the founder and CEO of CommuniTech Services (1983), a voice messaging company and CommuniTech (which was sold last year). He was also the founder of the International VoIP Council which later joined forces with the International Packet Communications (News - Alert) Consortium (IPCC). Regarding the significance of IP Communications, Shact shared his thoughts: �Prior to the advent of IP Communications, voice transmission was tightly coupled with traditional telephone systems. In the first stage of VoIP, voice could be transmitted by PC/Internet technology without using phone equipment. We are just now grappling with what it means when voice emerges as an application regardless of platform or even reside as a subset of other applications. Rich Presence and Unified Communications are ushering in revolutionary changes in the way people communicate that are only limited by our imagination and genuine customer needs. �I love this business.�

Grant Henderson, Convedia/Radisys
Grant Henderson is Vice President of Product Marketing at RadiSys, a leading provider of advanced solutions for the communications networking and commercial systems markets. RadiSys recently acquired Convedia, a global supplier of IP Media Servers, where Grant was co-founder and Executive Vice President of Marketing & Strategy. Grant has over 15 years of experience in the data and telecommunications industries, working with leaders such as Newbridge, Stentor and Bell Canada. Grant is also an industry expert in the areas of IP media processing, audio, and video conferencing.





Manuel Vexler, CopperCom
Manuel Vexler is still building on what by all accounts is an already successful career. Having served at Cisco, AMD, Newbridge (now Alcatel (News - Alert)), and Nortel, Vexler brings over 20 years of experience in networking and telecommunications to his role as CopperCom�s top technology strategist. Well known for his expertise in voice and multimedia over IP, he joined CopperCom from the International Packet Communications Consortium (IPCC), an industry organization dedicated to accelerating the deployment of IP communications and related technologies. As vice president of marketing and technology at IPCC, Vexler led strategy development, and, in 2002, he was appointed chair of the SIP Forum Service Providers Working Group. Vexler thinks that the history of IP-based communications is still in its nascent stages. �IP has enabled innovation at levels previously unimaginable,� he says. �IP technology has broken through borders and barriers, allowing individuals anywhere on the planet Earth to connect with one another. IP�s transformational power is just starting to show up in business models, regulatory rulings and legislative debates. And the gold rush is not over, as the rules of the new world of IP Communications are still being written.�

Charles Hoffman, Covad (News - Alert)
Charles Hoffman brings to Covad more than 30 years of telecom and broadband experience in the wireless, cable, local, and long-distance sectors. Since joining Covad in 2001, Mr. Hoffman has successfully transformed the firm into a leading nationwide provider of broadband voice and data communications. Prior to this current role, Mr. Hoffman was President and Chief Executive Officer of Rogers AT&T, Canada�s largest national wireless service provider, which under his leadership, grew from fourth to first place in a market of four national wireless providers. �IP communications services, particularly those like hosted VoIP, allow forward-looking businesses to focus on their customers � not their technology � and maintain an edge over the competition,� says Hoffman. �As more businesses adopt a VoIP solution, the incredible flexibility of the IP platform allows providers like us to continue to build VoIP applications that will make traditional phone service seem as dated as the telegraph,� he continued.

Gregory Giagnocavo, Dash 911 � E911 for VoIP
Gregory Giagnocavo is a serial entrepreneur, always on the forefront in new technologies. Although the Internet wasn�t yet invented when he was at the University of Western Ontario, he�s so far established his well-earned �15 minutes of fame� twice, having founded and sold Supernet.com, and Classroom.com for which he invented the first �live-web-on-CD� process for the education and research community. Gregory�s acute sense of The Next Big Thing a few years ago was VoIP and IP communications convergence: Gregory is the co-founder and CEO of, and leads a great team at, Dash911 � E911 for VoIP which provides nomadic E911 for VoIP providers. Giagnocavo gets excited when people suddenly realize what IP communications is all about. �Don�t you just love the moment you see the �Oh I get it now!� look when explaining the benefits of IP communications? The rewards are just starting to be tallied, especially in global communications environments,� he says.

Mark Spencer, Digium (News - Alert)
Mark Spencer founded Linux Support Services in 1999 while still a Computer Engineering student at Auburn University. When faced with the high cost of buying a PBX (News - Alert), Mark simply used his Linux PC and knowledge of C code to write his own. This was the beginning of the world-wide phenomenon known as Asterisk (News - Alert), the open source PBX, and caused Mark to shift his business focus from Linux support to supporting Asterisk and opening up the telecom market. Linux Support Services is now known as Digium, and is bringing open source to the telecom market while gaining a foothold in the telecom industry. Mark strongly believes that every technology he creates should be given back to the community. According to Spencer, �IP communications liberates communications from the limits of the traditional wire-line system, personally and professionally. IP has had a tremendous impact on the open source community as well, furthering tremendous innovation in the telephony world from unified messaging to collaborative communications and incomparable cost savings.�

Meg Whitman, eBay (News - Alert)
As president and CEO of eBay since March 1998, Meg Whitman has led the company to become an unparalleled global ecommerce engine. Meg�s expertise in brand building, combined with her consumer technology experience, has helped eBay evolve into a leading company that is reshaping online commerce, payments, and communications around the world. And under Whitman�s guidance, eBay�s purchase of Skype (News - Alert) for $4.1 Billion was one of the biggest VoIP stories of 2005 with repercussions still being felt today. Prior to eBay, Meg was general manager of Hasbro Inc.�s Preschool Division, responsible for global management and marketing of two of the world�s best-known children�s brands, Playskool and Mr. Potato Head. From 1995 to 1997, Meg was president and CEO of FTD, the world�s largest floral products company. Among Meg�s many accolades, The Wall Street Journal named her one of the 50 women to watch in 2005; Time named her one of the world�s 100 most influential people in 2004 and 2005; Fortune ranked her the most powerful woman in business in 2005 and the most powerful woman in American business in 2004; and BusinessWeek has included her on its list of the 25 most powerful business managers annually since 2000.

Niklas Zennstr�m, Skype/eBay
As the CEO and co-founder of Skype, Niklas Zennstr�m sets the strategy and oversees all aspects of Skype�s business internationally. Niklas reports to eBay CEO Meg Whitman, and also serves on eBay�s executive committee. Niklas co-founded Skype in 2003 to offer consumers worldwide free software for making superior-quality calls using their computer. Prior to Skype, Niklas founded and served as CEO at Joltid, a software company that develops and markets peer-to-peer (P2P) solutions and traffic optimization technologies for service providers. Niklas co-founded and served as CEO of KaZaA, the consumer file-sharing sensation that became the world�s most downloaded Internet software in 2003. Niklas also co-founded Altnet, the world�s first secure P2P network that promotes commercial content and integrates the full value chain of promotion, distribution, and payment for digital content. Altnet was the world�s largest issuer of DRM licenses.

Duane Sword, Empirix (News - Alert) Inc.
As Vice President, Product Management & Marketing for IP Communications test company Empirix, Duane is responsible for the Strategic Marketing, Product Policy and Outbound Marketing for the suite of Hammer test solutions spanning contact centers, labs, network operations and self service applications. Duane has worked extensively in the telecommunications industry, specifically with manufacturers and service providers of broadband switches and routers in Europe, North America and Japan and has a wide background in international product marketing and business development. Sword maintains a rather broad perspective on the significance of IP Communications. �Overall, the broadband communications industry has made tremendous contributions to the accessibility of knowledge, completely revolutionizing the way people around the world share information,� he says. �With the last decade focusing on the build-out and interoperability of the IP network infrastructure, the next decade ahead will be one to ensure seamless interworking and a richer offering of applications and services, to both consumers and enterprises.�

Mikael Stromquist, Ericsson (News - Alert) North America
Mikael Stromquist serves as Executive Vice President of Strategic Sales for Ericsson North America. His focus is on developing business in new market segments. In his role at Ericsson, Stromquist is very tuned in to the behavior of end users and how that behavior is affected by IP Communications. �Communication today is a melange of technology and devices,� he tells us. �What�s important is how people behave. User communication behavior today? We are:

� Mobile talkers, where people get and make calls anywhere;
� Users out for a bargain;
� Instant messengers � people live on IM;
� e-mailing and corporate IT-ing stuff;
� �MySpace-ing� & �YouTube-ing�
� Watching TV, surfing the �net...

�Most of all, we are instant gratification. All the Time. We want to see what we want, communicate with who we want, in the way we want. Immediately. With whatever is in our hands at the moment.� IP Communications makes that possible. �And that�s cool.�

Mike Ross, Acredo Technologies, Inc.
Mike Ross has seen the industry from a number of vantage points: COO of Esna Technologies. President/Owner/Partner of Aculab (News - Alert), USA. Vice President Sales and Marketing/Director/Owner/Partner of Rhetorex. Vice President of Sales and Marketing/Owner/Partner of Dialogic (News - Alert) Inc. These days Ross serves as the President and CEO of Acredo Technologies, a company whose mission is to �Build and manage a recognized brand in the hosted IP-Centrex space for small business in North America; Deliver highest content, best services, and most easily adopted product in the market;� and not insignificantly, �Change the way the world communicates, one business at a time.� Mike believes that the development of IP communications is truly revolutionary. �IP Communications should be viewed in this century as the equivalent to the internal combustion engine of the last century,� he says. �The invention and improvement of the internal combustion engine allowed for the development of not only the automobile for transportation, but changed factories, construction, and led to the development of aeronautics. �IP communications will have the same quantum effect by binding all communication and information technologies together. For the 21st century, it will form the backbone of all sociological activities and advancement on the planet and become the center of all technology evolution. It will become the single most important element in creating one global community.�

Brian Mahony, Espial (News - Alert) IPTV (News - Alert)
As Vice President of Marketing, Brian leads marketing and product management activities and is responsible for promoting Espial�s brand leadership for IPTV middleware and applications. His 14-year background in marketing, strategy, and business development spans IPTV, VoIP, edge routing, wireless, and TDM switching. Prior to Espial, Brian was Vice President of Marketing for market-leading VoIP and triple play vendor Netcentrex (News - Alert) until its $180M acquisition by Comverse. Brian�s tenure in the industry gives him a sense of perspective. �Ten years ago, we were heralding the disaggregation of communications services from the underlying network elements with the advent of what used to be called the �softswitch.� At the time, we dreamed up a lot of new IP services that network architectures really could not support. �Fast forward 10 years and we have finally realized this vision with an explosion of IP-based services. The fact that this former TDM guy who cut his teeth on Nortel�s DMS-100 is now working on cutting-edge IPTV solutions from Espial shows just how far we�ve come.�

Gregory O. Welch, GlobalTouch Telecom (News - Alert)
Mr. Welch is the Founder of GlobalTouch Telecom. Prior to founding GlobalTouch, Mr. Welch was Executive Vice President of Sirius Telecom, a switching services provider based in Los Angeles, and Executive Vice President of Q Telecom, an international wholesale carrier. Previously, he was Founder, President and CEO of AmeriCom Communications, Inc., a $36 million carrier specializing in international services. Mr. Welch was also Director of America�s Choice Long Distance, a subsidiary of General Electric, and helped build the West Coast operations for ALNET before it was sold to Frontier and ultimately to Global Crossing. According to Welch, �The future of communications will be driven by continued consumer adoption of VoIP and IP. Already, we are seeing a true paradigm shift towards this technology; IP telephony is continuing to gain momentum in European and Asian markets, and in fact, analysts predict that the number of residential U.S. VoIP subscribers will exceed 44 million in 2010.�

Vinton G. Cerf, Google (News - Alert)
Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies and applications on the Internet and other platforms for the company. Widely known as a �Father of the Internet,� Vint is the co-designer with Robert Kahn of TCP/IP protocols and basic architecture of the Internet. In 1997, President Clinton recognized their work with the U.S. National Medal of Technology. In 2005, Vint and Bob received the highest civilian honor bestowed in the U.S., the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes the fact that their work on the software code used to transmit data across the Internet has put them �at the forefront of a digital revolution that has transformed global commerce, communication, and entertainment.� Since 2000, Vint has served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and he has been a Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1998.

Ofer Gneezy and Gordon VanderBrug, iBasis (News - Alert)
Ofer Gneezy is President and Chief Executive Officer of iBasis, a leader in international long distance, VoIP, and prepaid calling cards. As co-founder, Executive Vice President and Assistant Secretary of iBasis, Gordon VanderBrug shares overall responsibility for the company�s financial performance with Ofer Gneezy and in addition, oversees the company�s marketing initiatives. Right around the time we decided to launch Internet Telephony magazine, Gneezy and VanderBrug stopped by our offices for a chat. Their company was still called VIP Calling, and the future looked bright. �Ten years ago, our commitment to VoIP was pioneering; today, it is clear that VoIP is the future of global communications for consumers, enterprises, and carriers. While the deregulation actions of the FCC (News - Alert) and the WTO in the 90s paved the way for global competition, the cost-efficiency of VoIP and the opportunity to use the Internet for transport enabled emerging providers to roll out services and expand network footprint quickly and at a fraction of the capital investment required by circuit switching.� IP has enabled iBasis to scale. The executives told us, �For example, IP has enabled iBasis to progress from a start-up to one of the largest carriers of international calls in the world in just 10 years. Our annual run-rate of 20 billion minutes of international traffic � after the merger of KPN Global Carrier Services into iBasis takes effect � will be second only to Verizon (News - Alert), according to Telegeography. The transformation of global telecommunications continues to be driven by the migration to All-IP networks.�

Howard S. Jonas, IDT
Howard S. Jonas founded IDT in August 1990 and has served as Chairman of the Board since its inception. Mr. Jonas served as Chief Executive Officer of the Company from December 1991 until July 2001, as President of the Company from December 1991 through September 1996, and as Treasurer of the Company from inception through 2002. Since December 1999, Mr. Jonas has also served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of IDT Telecom, Inc. and since November 2003 as Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of IDT Entertainment, Inc. Mr. Jonas has been a director of IDT Capital, Inc. since September 2004 and a director of IDT Spectrum, Inc. since January 2005. Mr. Jonas is also the founder and has been President of Jonas Publishing since its inception in 1979. Mr. Jonas was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Net2Phone from October 2001 to October 2004 and has since served as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Net2Phone. Mr. Jonas received a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University.

Olle Westerberg, Ingate
Olle Westerberg boasts more than twenty years of experience in the technology sector. His knowledge of telecommunications, networks and product development evolved from a wide range of roles in the industry, from hands-on software development to company leadership. Westerberg held senior management positions with Ericsson, DSC Communications, and Alcatel, and he gained first-hand experience with small business needs as the CEO of Sweden�s first dedicated e-service company, Buybridge. �The convergence of voice and data over IP is a revolutionary step in telecommunications. Imagine connecting people, information and processes in real time, regardless of location, as long as there�s a connection to the Internet,� he says. But Westerberg believes in standards, specifically the session initiation protocol (SIP). �SIP is speeding this transition to true global connectivity,� Westerberg tells us. �It levels the playing field for customers and developers alike, by providing a benchmark for interoperability. We look forward to the day when all SIP-based products adhere to the strict SIP standards as outlined by the IETF. Only then will customers truly be able to leverage all that IP communications has to offer.�

Michael Stanford, Intel (News - Alert)
Michael Stanford is an Intel Principal Engineer, and is Director of Voice over IP Strategy for Intel�s Digital Enterprise Group. In this role, Michael works with architects, engineers, and business managers inside and outside of Intel to develop long range plans for supporting real time communications on Intel platforms. Michael also works in a business development role, cooperating on several projects with the Intel Capital Group. Prior to this role, Michael was Vice President of Engineering at Picazo Communications, a VoIP PBX company acquired by Intel in 2000. Stanford has become a fixture at TMC�s VoIP Developer (News - Alert) Conference, delivering his insights and outlining his vision for the industry in his keynote addresses, which have become a much anticipated staple at the event. �Using IP makes communications cheaper, better and friendlier,� he says. �VoIP is cheaper than TDM because it runs over generic data networking equipment and uses bandwidth more efficiently. It makes voice communications sound better with wideband codecs. And IP makes it easier to combine voice with video and application sharing for more user-friendly communications. �Consequently, entire industries are being disrupted,� he continued. �Local governments are suddenly finding that tax revenue streams are evaporating, while national governments are scrambling to rescue universal service and wiretapping control. �Fasten your seatbelts � it�s going to be a wild ride.�

(page 1 2 3 4 5)

If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this article (in either print or PDF format), please visit Reprint Management Services online at www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 800-290-5460.