CXTech Week 39 2020 News and Analysis

The purpose of this CXTech Week 39 2020 newsletter is to highlight, with commentary, some of the news stories in CXTech this week. What is CXTech?  The C stands for Connectivity, Communications, Collaboration, Conversation, Customer; X for Experience because that’s what matters; and Tech because the focus is enablers.

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Microsoft Azure launches CPaaS

Finally, Microsoft launched its CPaaS. Its a real CPaaS, not some APIs on a UCaaS offer (Microsoft Teams), that is you have to buy the UCaaS to get value from the ‘CPaaS’ in production.

Given MSDN (now part of Microsoft docs) there is a strong dev focus with SDKs in multiple languages and the documentation focused on the SDK rather than plain API.

Microsoft has a huge enterprise developer community, this crafted to communicate directly with them. You see those Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professional) in their Microsoft wear, carrying Microsoft swag and multiple Microsoft Surfaces as well as a gaming laptop in their bag, that jabber incessantly about Microsoft’s enterprise products being great. Well, that’s the community. But enough hating on those sad MVPs 😉

Some analysts talk about how Microsoft wants to become your telco with this CPaaS. Microsoft can do that with Microsoft Teams today. And why would MS chase after such a commoditized business as voice and messaging traffic.

It’s all about the enterprise communication services. Check out Twilio’s marketing these days, its Flex, Flex, Flex. With identity, intelligence, orchestration, and oh yes, those communication APIs. CPaaS is a the hook to reel enterprises into your employee communication and customer communication services. So Microsoft needs a defense against Twilio reeling more of its enterprises into their enterprise communication services. Its a $100B a year business!

TADHack Global is just over 2 weeks away – please register (if you’ve not already done so)

Congratulations to Centro de Desarrollo Tecnológico CreaTIC for adding new sponsors Microsoft Colombia, Agtools Inc., and Corporación Universitaria Comfacauca – Unicomfacauca for TADHack Popayán.

Well done Automat Berlin GmbH and VoIP Labs for adding hubraum (Deutsche Telekom’s tech incubator) as a sponsor of TADHack Berlin and Deutsche Telekom as a host.

And coming up next week is the Developer Resources Webinar on Tuesday 29th September. Where we run through all the fun stuff to hack on. BTW we added Avaya Cloud Office APIs as well.

People, Gossip, and Frivolous Stuff

Ryan Bolton is now Vice President of Product at Idelic, that helps fleets save time, money, and lives. Previously Ryan was with VoIP Innovations.

Kris Hopkins is now Chief Technology Officer at Perfecta. Another exit from communications into security.

Ben Tompkins is now Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp. I’ve known Ben throughout his time at Eden Ventures. One of the few telecom / communication focused VCs left is back in investment banking.

Edo Segal is now Cloud Platform Product Management Lead at Amdocs.

Vic Bozzo is now Chief Revenue Officer at SONOC.

Check out Storylation by Jean-Luc Nguyen, it’s a social network where people introduce their friends to each other by sharing positive stories about them. Jean-Luc and I met at TADHack-mini Paris back in 2015.

And speaking of TADHack-mini Paris, entertainment that evening was provided by Randy Resnick, vocals and guitar; Romain Dru, bass; and Farida Tadjene, drums. “The Woman in White” is from the CD “To Love” available on iTunes, Spotify and all of those trendy streaming things.

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