CXTech Week 23, News and Analysis

The purpose of this CXTech Week 23 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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Twilio Announces Launch of Offering of $750 Million of its Class A Common Stock

Twilio intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, which may include the acquisition of other companies or businesses, the refinancing or repayment of debt, capital expenditures, working capital and share repurchases.

I wonder where Twilio feels it’s behind the ball to warrant buy rather than build? It’s been thankfully pragmatic on AI, unlike many other BABS-based companies, but perhaps investor pressure is forcing their hand to stake their AI claim. I hope not, but finance types care about ticks in their excel spreadsheets showing a balanced technology portfolio. Even though half the portfolio is BS, and the rest is fashionable thinking.

 

Enghouse Interactive is on a video roll! Buys Espial, after just buying Vidyo

After buying Vidyo (video comms – enterprise / telco as discussed in CXTech Week 21) Enghouse just bought Espial (IPTV with a telco focus). Congrats to Jaison Dolvane and Michael McCluskey, proof being nice to work with pays dividends in the long run 🙂

 

We’re Back! TADHack Global 2019, 12-13 Oct

TADHack Global 2019 on 12-13 October is running across 12+ locations around the world. We have Global sponsors Telesign (Mobile Identity) and VoIP Innovations (Programmable Telecoms). With local sponsors across many locations: IdeaMart / hSenid Mobile, MTN, Inovo, IIT RTC Labs, Cluster Creatic, and many more to announce. We’re in the process of setting up additional locations in Mexico, Buenos Aires, and more to be announced.

Check what we’ve got up to over the years, and what people think about TADHack:

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Announcing TADSummit Americas (15-16 Oct) and TADSummit EMEA (19-20 Nov)

We’ve published the draft agenda for:

There are still sponsor, partner, and speaking slots available as we’re over 4 / 5 months away.

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Avaya: Leveraged Buyout Is A Short-Term Bullish Catalyst

The final comment in this analysis is insightful, “one of the major risks at the moment slower-than-expected transition into the UCaaS business model, especially when it comes down to the signing of new private cloud deals.” History has shown the enterprise market moves slowly, and Avaya’s customers move more slowly than others.

 

Who Will Your Next Contact Center Provider Be?

A nice article by Nicolas De Kouchkovsky. The only change I’d make is making the title plural, “Who Will Your Next Contact Center Providers Be?” As we’ll likely see different lines of business within an enterprise taking difference approaches. A call center can be a simple add on to a UCaaS deployment, or just a few seats from a CCaaS provider, not a multi-million dollar investment.

 

Early access available for Connect by Ottspott

Early access is available for Connect by Ottspott. It’s a simple Google Chrome extension to integrate CRM apps to existing phone systems. You’ll be able to meet the person behind Connect by Ottspott, Luis Borges Quina, at TADSummit EMEA19-20 Nov to learn about his experiences.

 

People, Gossip, and Frivolous Stuff

Fabrizio Bartolini is now the Salesforce Architect at Cloudgaia. I’ve known him since his time at Tropo, heading up their European business.

Congrats to Vincent Tang, a TADHack-mini Orlando winner, who made second place at Google’s Flutter Hackathon. Flutter is Googles portable UI development kit.

Victor Pascual Ávila is now Business Development & Pre-sales Global Lead at Nokia

Roque Versace is now Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Troops. I’ve known Roque since Mashery, and Troops just raised $12M series B.

Avi Dorfman is now VP R&D at ECI Telecom

Fernando Mendioroz is now Chief Operating Officer at PAiC Business Development

Telestax has made a couple of new hires, and appears to be concentrating the executive team in Austin TX.

David Freeman, previously General Manager-TelstraDev, has left Telstra. If you’re looking for API talent in Australia, David’s available 🙂 DeveloperSteve from Telstra moved onto IBM in April.  His predecessor, Frank Arrigo moved at the end of 2017 to Amazon Web Services. We can trace many such moves all the way back to James Parton joining Twilio from Telefonica in 2012. I’ll point again (sorry) to my weblog on the shift in telecoms and how telcos need to manage this change.

Ross Garrett is now Chief Product Officer at Cloud Elements. He was a presenter at the first TADSummit in Bangkok 2013. I’ve known him since Aepona. Which has some parallels to Telestax story in they were both API platform enablers with a diverse revenue mix.

Todd Freece, a supporter of TADHack-mini Orlando since its founding, has moved to be Program Manager, Government Programs at ATLAS Space Operations, Inc.

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