I just got the Mercator Capital newsletter in email. If you want to read it yourself or subscribe, you can find it here. This newsletter is one of the real gems of the industry if you follow closely. There's almost always something really interesting inside. I like it because sometimes I strongly disagree, and sometimes I'm on the exact same wavelenght, but it's always well-written and insightful.

This month's issue has some expected stories, with the iPhone getting plenty of attention. I won't speak to the iPhone because I still see it as a non-event in enterprise and business communications. It's interesting, but has no impact on business at this stage of the game.

FWIW, I've heard a couple of interesting conversations of people who bought and iPhone and now want their corporate IT staff synch it to Outlook/Exchange. These queries seem to general be met with gales of laughter.

There are three points in the Mercator newsletter I do want to explore a bit. Everything in there's great stuff, but these I find particularly interesting for what they might mean down the road.

Google's $50M Acquisition of GrandCentral
Here's an excerpt from the newsletter

At first glance, it is easy to see how GrandCentral could complement
Gmail and even GoogleTalk. Gmail would serve an inbox for voicemail
across all your phone numbers, where messages can be played back (in
MP3), forwarded, prioritized, deleted, etc. This utility makes Google
much more interesting beyond Instant Messaging as a communications
platform, and more importantly, helps drive voice traffic on to their
network.

Perhaps more interestingly, here's something from Thomas Howe.

Walled Gardens... End of an Era?
The more I think about Google's acquisition of Grand Central,
the more I see it as a watershed moment in telephony.  Unlike Yahoo!,
AOL and nearly every other large telephony concern, Google now
supports, at the same time, open Internet standards and connections to
the PSTN.  This is truly valuable, and unique, and should be celebrated.
[Read Thomas' Full Post]

Thomas is one of those people I've never met or spoken to, but who I read closely. He cuts right through a lot of superficial fluff and gets straight to the heart of things. I confess I was somewhat nonplussed initially about Google acquiring GrandCentral, but if Thomas thinks it's a watershed moment, that's a clue for me to rethink my gut reaction.

After digesting Thomas' ppost, I have to agree. This is a watershed event. In the telecom industry, it's bigger than the iPhone. Google now represent a new major player in opening up telecommunications to the next generation of web services and Internet technologies. Thomas calls it the end of the era of walled gardens. I might not go that far, but but is going to be a formidable instigator of killing the walled garden mentality of the telecommuncations industry.

I'm toying with the idea of getting a panel together of a podcast discussion of just how this might change the face of telecom. I'd love to get Thomas Howe, Jon Arnold and one or two others on a conference call to talk about this. Timing and logisitics are issues, but it's something I'm thinking about ways to pull together. If we can't do it on a conference call, I'm going to see who else might be at the ITExpo in September, after we see how Google moves, to do a roundtable podcast.

ShoreTel's IPO
Here's a snip from the newsletter -

...One established vendor, ShoreTel,
has focused on SMB customers from day one, and was hoping that a
successful IPO would raise enough capital to allow them to keep pace
with their competitors, and secure their standing as a leading Tier 2
player.

This sets the stage
for our focus on ShoreTel’s rocky, yet ultimately successful, initial
public offering. The company originally set the terms of their IPO on
June 11, and indicated a pricing range of $8.50 to $10.50 per share. On
June 27, the company priced at $10.50, the top end of the range, with
the expectation to begin trading the next day on June 28. But that same
night they locked in the terms of the IPO, the company was slapped with
a patent infringement lawsuit by Mitel, an event that was not
previously disclosed as a potential risk factor, which subsequently
placed the IPO on hold. After a few more days of delay, the offering
was re-priced at $9.50 per share, and the shares began trading on July
3.

ShoreTel’s shares opened
at $9.80 on July 3, and closed at $12.15, for a 28% gain on Day 1.
Since then the stock has traded between $12.00-$13.00, giving the
company a market capitalization of over $500 million. The company’s
underwriters confirmed that the over-allotment was fully exercised,
resulting in about 9 million shares being sold, and netting the company
around $80 million in cash from the IPO. Clearly the Mitel lawsuit did
not provide too much of an overhang on the business to prevent it from
completing its offering.

Factual and on the mark. I think ShoreTel's market cap is now important as we watch what they do with it. My expectations are high, especially in the SMB space. I'll be watching ShoreTel closely.

FONAV Acquisition by Trolltech AS (amount undisclosed)
This was just mentioned on the list of acquisitions at the end of the newsletter. FONAV has some really interesting things in the hopper, but they've been in quiet mode for about a year now. I had the chance to look at their stuff last year, and frankly, if it had been on the market, even as a prototype, I'd have bought it then.

I've been asked not to talk about what they're doing in the mobility space, so I haven't, but this is enough of a signal to indicate things are going to start happening. I'm not sure if the FONAV name will continue, but I'll be watching closely. I'll see if I can't get in touch with Ram Fish or Jim Hudak and get an update that I can talk about.


Technorati Tags: Mercator, Google, GrandCentral, ShoreTel, FONAV, Trolltech AS, mobility, unified communications, VoIP