EMERGING COMMUNICATIONS (eCOMM) CONFERENCE 2008 SIGNALS ‘GOLD RUSH’ OF INNOVATION IN GLOBAL TELECOMS

Event at Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., March 12-14

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–Feb. 20, 2008—Discussions at the Emerging Communications (eComm) Conference 2008 here March 12-14 may leave the world’s established telecommunications carriers feeling left behind. That’s because conference organizers aim to help unleash a “gold rush” of innovation and democratization in the global telecom industry.

With a growing roster of speakers from among the world’s leading thinkers and innovators in telecoms, eComm2008—dubbed “The Trillion Dollar Industry Rethink”—promises to be an event promoting ideas that plant seeds to revolutionize the industry. 

For example, the theme of eComm2008’s premier session, a panel discussion including Google and Skype, is “What will drive wireless innovation?”—leaving no doubt innovators are prospecting for users with wireless applications that go far beyond the artificial boundaries erected by established mobile carriers.

“The wireless market is the world’s largest market and that is accelerating; every second the global population expands by one, and in the same second, 38 wireless devices are sold,” said Lee S. Dryburgh, conference organizer and chair. “The message of eComm2008 is that there is a seismic shift in power and money ahead, and it looks like the end user is coming out the winner. It's the gold rush and the conference signals the gold rush is on.

“Mobile carriers have tightly reined or even hobbled Internet innovation from blossoming on handsets; they’re perceived as a bottleneck,” said Dryburgh. “But many of the applications developers and handset manufacturers speaking at eComm2008 will describe new power they are putting into the hands of users. The carriers’ lock on innovation will be cracked.

“Think about it,” he added. “Already there are three times as many wireless handsets in the world as PCs, and handsets ‘know’ more about users because they are with them all the time.  They ‘know’ users’ locations and relationships, and increasingly they’re becoming the largest hub of users’ communications. There is clearly more potential around handsets than the PC.”

Speakers at eComm will include Rich Miner, group manager, mobile platforms at Google; Jonathan Christensen, general manager, audio and video at Skype; Brough Turner, chief technical officer and senior vice president at NMS Communications; and Christopher Allen, founder of the largest iPhone developer-support community.

Dryburgh noted that eComm2008 continues to attract sponsors and speakers. With the addition of more speakers in the last two weeks, eComm2008 now has three full days of sessions.  Sponsors so far include Voxbone, Ribbit, Six Apart, NMS Communications, IfByPhone, MIR3, Voxeo, Wireless Grids Corporation and VAPPS.

Attendees may register online at http://www.eCommMedia.com, where full details of the conference—including the roster of speakers—are available. 

The Advisory Board assisting Dryburgh in selecting content and speakers for eComm includes:
• Imran Ali, founding partner in Carbon Imagineering;
• Dean Bubley, founder of Disruptive Analysis;
• Michel Bauwens, founder of the Foundation for Peer to Peer Alternatives;
• Martin Geddes, chief analyst at technology consultancy STL Partners;
• Norman Lewis, chief strategy officer at Wireless Grids Corporation;
• Sheldon Renan, principal in technology consultancy Vision & Strategy, LLC;
• Brough Turner, senior VP, chief technology officer and co-founder of NMS Communications; and
• Phil Wolff, CEO of Reef9 Media and managing editor of Skype Journal.

#   #   #

About eComm™ 2008

eComm 2008—the inaugural Emerging Communications Conference—was born from the ashes of O'Reilly's ETel Conference to track and help drive the major disruption beginning to transform the multi-trillion dollar telecommunications industry. From industry visionaries to bleeding-edge technologies, cutting-edge academic projects to incumbent telecom players and garage-based hackers, eComm is designed as the only telecommunication forum to embrace and promote radical change.  eComm is poised to make history on March 12-14, 2008, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. For more information and conference registration, please visit www.ecommmedia.com.

Contact:
Sue Huss
Comunicano, Inc.
sue.huss@comunicano.com
619-379-4396