Consumer VoIP at Retail: What It Takes to Overcome Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt on the Retail Selling Floor
Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 5:00pm - 6:00pm
The first 3 million VoIP Early Adopters were easy - now comes the hard part. Come hear why the retail selling floor is uniquely prepared to overcome the top barriers to VoIP adoption by the Early Majority consumer that retailers will be targeting in 2006.
David Beckemeyer, CEO, TelEvolution
As CEO, David sets corporate strategy and oversees all operations. Prior to founding TelEvolution, David was co-founder of EarthLink, where he served as VP of Engineering and CTO. At EarthLink, David was
responsible for EarthLink's technology infrastructure and R&D efforts. David was instrumental to private placement funding efforts, the company's initial public offering in 1997 as well as EarthLink's technical growth from a handful of modems and a single server, to a multi-billion dollar company with state-of-the-art data centers in Pasadena and Atlanta. David founded BDT.COM, an early pioneering Internet company in the San Francisco bay area, in 1985. David has served on technology the advisory boards of Network Appliance, Packeteer, and Ascend.
Diana Braun-Csutak, Business Development Manager, Retail, Skype
Diana Braun-Csutak joined Skype in October as Business Development Manager Retail. She has spent over 10 years working with the major retailers while working at Linksys, Memorex, and Western Digital. Working together with retailers to ensure a successful launch of new categories has been her specialty. Previous speaking would include: the launch of the Intel Centrino tour, was a speaker representing Linksys and wireless networking on a 12 city tour. She has given formal presentations to General Managers of: CompUSA, Circuit City and Good Guys on wireless networking and voice over IP and how to sell it in their stores.
Bryan Martin, Chairman & CEO, 8x8
Bryan R. Martin is Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of 8x8, Inc. A seasoned 8x8 executive with more than 15 years of service to the Company, Mr. Martin has served in a variety of corporate and engineering capacities including President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Technical Officer and Senior Vice President, Engineering Operations. Mr. Martin holds 32 United States Patents in the fields of semiconductors, computer architecture, video processing algorithms, videophones and communications. In addition to his technical knowledge and expertise, Mr. Martin is well versed in industry and business affairs and has spoken before at numerous events. He is a member of the IEEE and Tau Beta Pi and received a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Charles Meyers, Group Vice President, Marketing, Level 3 Communications
Charles Meyers is a Group Vice President of Marketing for Level 3 Communications, Inc., with responsibility of extending the company's marketing capability and developing an institutional marketing competence for the company that will further position Level 3 to be market and customer driven. Previously, Mr. Meyers led Level 3's IP/Data Services organization. He has also served as Level 3's Senior Vice President of Global Softswitch Services, overseeing Level 3's managed modem business and voice services. Prior, Mr. Meyers was a partner with Kinetic Ventures, an Atlanta-based venture capital firm. Prior to that, he served on the senior executive team at Internet Security Systems, a software company in Atlanta, and as President of BellSouth.net, BellSouth's Internet services subsidiary.
Steve Stewart, Consultant, The Ryan Partnership
Most recently, Steve has served as Vice President of Partner Marketing for Level 3 Communications where he co-created, developed, and launched the Level 3 Enabled Partner Program. While at Level 3, Steve was responsible for the Go to Market program, partner communications, demand generation programs, and sales and marketing tools. Steve also was responsible for relationship management of PR and Marketing agencies. Steve has the ability to deliver a comprehensive solutions to Telco Services resale. Some include in store merchandising and key consumer value proposition messages to package design, promotional offer development, business case analysis, competitive positioning, and innovative ideas around the economics of Consumer and SMB services resale. Steve brings almost 20 years of IT channels sales and account management experience to the table.
