Tandberg c60

So... question for all of you... anyone out there own a c90? I'm curious if much of any of them have been shipped. Last I talked to a wide group of people I had not even heard that anyone had received one. Curious...

But..this seems interesting. Where is TAA going with their products? Sure, the c60 is smaller and a bit cheaper than the C90..but its not even in the same ballpark as products from Polycom and certainly from Lifesize. I truly believe that the market is expanding in the "value" segment. And LS certainly has hit the mark. And especially in a down economy, I'd rather be gaining market share than gaining margin....with the goal of erupting out of the economic slump ready to move up stream.

TAA certainly risks not selling many of either the C60 or C90 and not being able to position themselves for lower prices in the market with what I assume might be a C30 or C10 in the future. I say its a risky bet on their part to not put out a product that the market can afford to buy. I haven't technically evaluated either... I'm sure its a good product. I honestly like the UI and the OS of TAA systems. Clean, simple, easy to use. But...when you have a budget, you buy what you can buy. My guess is that if you're a TAA shop, you're either sticking with MXP or you're considering Lifesize for new purchases.

LS has greater than life size results

They are kicking but and claim 150% y/y growth which is phenomenal..especially with the economy the way it is.

As I've said before in posts and in conversations with some of you... Lifesize's value pricing of HD is brining in lots of greenfield customers and really rings true in this economic landscape.

http://www.lifesize.com/pr.php?prid=129

PLCM results

Not really much to say about the PLCM results. For those of you who read my blog or know me... this was all expected.

But... couple of interesting tidbits...

Of the 6% or 150 laid off, 40 were in Petach Tikva. The other 110 were mostly in Boulder. Boulder is where Spectralink used to hq'd out of. Now... at first blush you might think, well... voice is doing terrible. And that is part of the truth. Wireless phones are mostly used in distribution and retail which is a battered sector. And...maybe Spectralink had way too many sales/sales engineers chasing too little revenue. I really think that is true too. And lastly... what is PLCM good at? Well...they unfortunatley buy a company and they seem to lose the human capital fairly quickly. If you look at the current PLCM employee base... the amount of original Accord employee has dwindled, the amount of PCTL employees is minor fraction, the ViaVideo execs all disappeared (and went to form Lifesize), and there's almost no-one left over from Voyant.

On another note... did you notice that PLCM dropped pricing on the HDX 7001? Its down to $5995 and the EagleEye is down to $3499. Why did they do this? One reason...one company... Lifesize. Even though PLCM announced bad numbers.... LS seems to be doing fine based on the channel checks I've done. And they're doing it based on value pricing. Get a HD Lifesize for the same price that PLCM was selling VSX 7000 (note...CIF based system). Now, with the lower priced HDX 7001, they can now compete on price. The market has really turned and it seems that LS is calling the shots.

Nothing interesting

Well...its q1 and its nose to the grindstone time. So, not much time to blog..but I did get a url emailed to me just yesterday that I wanted to share. Its not really interesting unless you're a CCIE.

SO...here's to self-glorification... lol...

http://cciehof.wordpress.com/

John wants more video in 2009

In Chamber's speech at CES he says he expects to make a "stream of acquisitions" with a particular focus on video.


http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/breakingnews/article.php/3795026

So..the question comes, will this be video conferencing orientated? or more consumer orientated. or both? not sure...but I do know from talking to folks at CSCO that they have a LOT of staff focused on telepresence. And we all know that the true telepresence market is really not that big. Cisco claims 500 systems.... but I know that most of those are at customer sites. I also know that PLCM has sold just 150 of their RPX. So..really... CSCO has a ton of people selling a very expensive product that few will buy at a time when few are going to spend the money. So... they are going to need lower cost products. They need to move into the bread and butter of the market which is normal video conferencing rooms. And...I'm sure...and they've said they will move into the consumer market. With Linksys, they definitely have the maufacturing and channel knowledge to create a consumer hardware based VTC product and be successful at it.

We'll see...

But... in the back of my head..I'm still trying to see if there was any deeper meaning to Mike & Bob @ PLCM making changes to the golden parachutes. Could CSCO be at play for PLCM? They had wanted to buy them prior... and if PLCM dumps their NSD products and becomes an endpoint only company (phones + vtc), i think the marriage could be pretty good. (at least from a product perspective)

PLCM lays off 150 & preannounces earnings

I love 8Ks...

http://phoenix.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=112660&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2NjYm4uMTBrd2l6YXJkLmNvbS94bWwvZmlsaW5nLnhtbD9yZXBvPXRlbmsmaXBhZ2U9NjA1OTg3OSZhdHRhY2g9T04mc1hCUkw9MQ%3d%3d

Essentially PLCM is laying off 150 or 6% of its workforce and has pre-announced earnings. I'm not sure what they had led analysts to before so I'm not sure if this is above or below the previous range. My guess is that it is below.

Most PLCM employees took a 2 week leave of absence at the end of year in 2008. (this never happened in the 5 years I was there). You know things are bad when sales and systems engineers take off for two weeks at the close of the fiscal year.

1/2 the answer

Well...this provides one half of the answer to the previous question:

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7b2A5765B7-4EF5-46A5-8618-B4988BFA5BB0%7d&siteid=nbkh

PLCM in Israel

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000413446&fid=942

Quote

"I cant tell you the formula for success.. but I can tell you the formula for failure... try to please everyone."