Last year the O’Reilly ETel event
was perhaps the most exciting conference venue in the industry.
O’Reilly wasn’t able to continue the event, but that’s not enough to
let something so exciting and powerful fade away. Thanks to the
tireless efforts of Lee Dryburgh, this year we’ll see the kickoff of eComm2008.
It’s what we believe will be the first of a revitalized, high-energy
conference that will set the industry aflame with passion and
innovation.

The conference takes place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA from March 12th-14th.
Established in 1996, the Computer History Museum
is a public benefit organization dedicated to the preservation and
celebration of computing history. It is home to one of the largest
collections of computing artifacts in the world, a collection
comprising over 13,000 objects, 20,000 images, 5,000 moving images,
4,000 linear feet of cataloged documentation and 5,000 titles or
several hundred gigabytes of software. The mission of the Computer
History Museum is to preserve and present for posterity the artifacts
and stories of the information age. As such, the Museum plays a unique
role in the history of the computing revolution and its worldwide
impact on the human experience.
Here’s just a small sampling of speakers on the agenda. These are just a few that are my personal highlights. Check the
speakers page for a complete list.
Bob Frankston

Bob Frankston may be best known for writing VisiCalc. He has
been working on online services and networks since 1966 and while at
Microsoft initiated the home networking effort. Since then he’s focus
his attention on a post-telecom model that builds on the Internet
dynamic to achieve connectivity from the edge rather than the center.
Brough Turner

Brough Turner is SVP, CTO and co-founder of NMS
Communications wherehe oversees evolution of technology and product
architectures andworks on business strategy and new market development.
Brough writesand is quoted widely on telecommunications topics in trade
and generalbusiness publications and he is a frequent speaker at
telecom industryevents around the world. His current interests include
mobilewireless access, broadband policy, mobile video, and user
createdcontent and communities. Brough blogs
athttp://blogs.nmss.com/communications/ on the technology, economic
andsocial issues of communications at the intersection of
telecom,mobility and the Internet.
David Isenberg

David S. Isenberg spent 12 years at AT&T Bell Labs until
his 1997 essay,”The Rise of the Stupid Network,” was received with
acclaim everywhere in the global telecommunications community with one
exception — at AT&T itself! So Isenberg left AT&T in 1998 to
found isen.com, LLC (an independent telecom analysis firm based in Cos
Cob, Connecticut) and to publish The SMART Letter, an open-minded
commentary on the communications revolution and its enemies.
Jeff Bonforte
Yahoo! Inc., Vice President, Product Management

Jeff has founded a few startups including i-drive, an online
storage pioneer, in 1998. He served as President for SIPphone, where he
lead the development and release of Gizmo Project (www.gizmo5.com). He
began working at Yahoo! in 2005, where he initially lead Voice. Shortly
after, he was promoted to run Messenger, Voice and Chat. He was
promoted to Vice President in 2007. Today he works in early product
development in Search.
Lee S Dryburgh

Lee S. Dryburgh is a person-to-person communications
technologist. He is an engineering doctoral candidate at UCL (with
sponsorship from Cisco), SS7 consulting engineer via his company SS7
Networks and the initiator of the Emerging Communications (eComm)
conference. He has performed work for numerous operators including
British Telecom, O2, Sprint, T-Mobile, Orange, Verisign, Hutchinson, as
well as vendors including Marconi, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, and
Cisco. He is an acknowledged expert in the telecommunication protocol
suite Signaling System #7 and lead-authored the bestselling book on the
topic. His research focus is the future of telephony and enabling
conversation between relevant strangers.
Martin Geddes
STL, Chief Analyst

Martin Geddes is author of the popular telecom strategy blog
Telepocalypse, as well as chief analyst at STL and co-instigator of the
Telco 2.0 initiative (www.telco2.net) — helping network operators and
vendors make money in an all-IP world.
Thomas McCarthy-Howe

Thomas McCarthy-Howe has nineteen years of experience in
telecommunications product development. He is currently an independent
consultant to service providers, enterprises and equipment vendors in
the design and development of next generation communications equipment
and services. Thomas has held senior management and engineering
positions at industry leaders such as Comverse, Versatel Networks,
PictureTel and Aware. As a member of the PictureTel engineering team,
Mr. Howe designed audio and video software of the first PC-based video
conferencing system, as well as software for the original version of
NetMeeting, and as Aware Inc.’s software architect for the first
commercially available ADSL chipset. In 2007, Thomas won the O’Reilly
Emerging Telephony Mashup Contest. In addition to his writing and
teaching, he currently serves on several technical advisory boards and
boards of directors.
That list is just a few of the fabulous speakers on the eComm
agenda. Yes, those were chosen because they represent some personal
friends we look foward to spending time with, but they’re also trusted
colleagues who represent the voice of wisdom in the industry. The
speaker’s list for this event is incomparable with that of many
conferences.
Looking over the agenda yields such a depth and breadth of
conversations that this is truly an even not to be missed.My partner Ken and I are making sure we won’t miss it. We’ll be there, and
expect to be presenting one of the lightning talks on the last day.
We’ll be talking about why enabling a hyperconnected state with voice
and data services is one of the most vital competitive differentiators
in the industry.
We’re also lined up to speak should schedules change or anyone’s
travel plans go awry. We will definitely be there blogging,
interviewing, podcasting, doing video, and sharing the excitement and
frenzy of action from the conference.

We hope you’ll look for us and come say hello. We want to meet and talk with as many of you as possible.
Special BonusThe cost of this
conference is already low, one of the lowest cost conferences in the
industry. Early bird registration is still in effect right now, for
another $300 off.
As a special bonus if you email either Sheryl or Ken,
we’ll provide a special discount code that will get an additional 15%
discount. The early bird registration will end soon, so make your plans
now.
Drop us an email to let us know if you’re going to be there so we can set aside time to meet in person.
Technorati Tags: eComm, Lee Dryburgh, Ken Camp, Sheryl Breuker