Interview with Fred Knight: The Man Behind VoiceCon

I had a great opportunity to sit down with Fred Knight at VoiceCon San Francisco this week. In case you don't know Fred, he's the man behind VoiceCon and publisher of NoJitter. Here's what he had to say about VoiceCon San Francisco this year.

In VoiceCon's fourth year on the west coast it's continuing to grow and evolve despite the economy. Fred sees unified communications as part of the natural evolution of the VoiceCon event. "It's always been about communication. Communication used to be voice, but now it's so many other things".

So, as the leader of VoiceCon I asked what Fred was most excited about this year. He mentioned a few things but perked up when talking about Microsoft OCS 2007 R2, which was announced at VoiceCon Amsterdam just a few weeks ago. At this event Microsoft added to the vision citing case studies in key reference accounts like GE Healthcare. We discussed how Microsoft has ramped up on the voice front quicker than anyone expected and how that level of competition is good for the industry.

Like the emergence of MSFT, Fred talked a bit about the types of people attending VoiceCon. In the past he said it was strictly a telecom event. However, "communications" is changing and he's now seeing everyone from CIOs to email administrators in attendance. In my opinion the job description of "telecom guy" is going away as convergence takes over.

Finally, Fred mentioned Thursday was not to be missed at VoiceCon. I'll be sure to check it out and post up whatever happens tomorrow!

• Microsoft
• VoIP / Convergence
• Conference
• IPT
• PBX
• UC
• unified communications
• VoiceCon
• VoIP