About 40 years ago, three men were launched into space on a mission to explore the moon.  Although explorations like this had become fairly routine by this time, an important lesson was to be learned during this journey – expect the unexpected.   Two days into their journey, an explosion seriously damaged their spacecraft and forced the crew to take drastic measures to ensure their survival. Despite overwhelming odds, the men were able to navigate the craft and eventually return home safely. One of the lessons of the Apollo 13 mission is that people matter. Even though unprecedented technology was able to send humans to the Moon, it was courage, creativity, perseverance and the ingenuity of the human spirit that allowed those three men to perform the miraculous feat of finding their way back to Earth.

This same idea applies to business, a fact which I am reminded of on a daily basis at GIPS. Andy Abramson recently blogged about the top 10 individuals he would recruit if he were starting his own company.  It points to the importance of recruiting talented individuals and the value they add to any business. To many it’s just about work product, but exceptional companies, and the companies where people want to work are based on more than just having great products or technology.  It is my philosophy that not only is it important to recruit talent, but also to make sure that people feel motivated so that you get the most out of them and they end up being a true asset to the company. People who feel like their work is valued, and that they have a stake in the company’s success will be much more likely to give their maximum and go above and beyond the call of duty.

 At GIPS, we have a long history of amazingly talented people- probably some of the best signal processing engineers in the world. But it is the effort that they have given and continue to give each and every day which helps make us successful.  We always try to anticipate the unexpected to provide our customers the best possible solution.  We have the best voice and video processing technology on the market, but without the dedication of our staff making sure that our customers’ needs are always met, we wouldn’t be in a position to offer our technology to the market.

I look forward to continuing to be a part of an organization filled with such dedicated, talented people, and to improving upon our award winning formula of innovation and customer support through creativity, perseverance and the ingenuity of the human spirit.

As 2008 comes to a close and I look forward to 2009, I am reminded of golf pro Harvey Penick. He once said, “Golf tips are like aspirin. One may do you good, but if you swallow the whole bottle you will be lucky to survive.” I think the same principle applies to IP communications and business in general. Focus is everything.

Over the past few years, we saw some great technological advances. The iPhone phenomenon, for instance, is an incredibly promising development for advanced mobile communications. The openness of the iPhone platform and the support for seamless multimedia capabilities is driving a host of innovative applications. The past year also represented a big step forward for Unified Communications, as established players like Microsoft, Cisco, and IBM gained significant traction in the enterprise communications space. Buy-in and competition from such heavy hitters can only mean that we can expect to see greater convergence among applications and devices. Finally, 2008 was a year in which video conferencing became legitimate. From full-fledged telepresence, to more flexible and accessible desktop video conferencing applications, vendors have overcome a host of technical and business issues to offer a wide range of video communications solutions.

I look forward to these trends to continuing in 2009, but am also excited about such emerging technology as real-time mobile video and flexible web applications. However, it is important to remember Penick’s lesson. Though there are sure to be new technological breakthroughs and innovative products coming to market, just because something looks good on paper doesn’t mean it will actually be successful. Focus is everything.  Successful companies focus on what they do well in combination with what the market is demanding, and execute accordingly.

Though I am a realist, I am also incredibly optimistic about the future of our industry, and believe GIPS is well positioned to take advantage of many of these emerging trends.  We will continue to focus on enabling ground-breaking voice and video processing technology and look forward to helping our customers remain successful in the coming year.

Focus in the New Year