People Behind VoIP

Mark Spencer

Mark Spencer (born April 8, 1977) is a computer engineer and is the original author of the GTK+-based instant messaging client Gaim (which has since been renamed to Pidgin), the L2TP daemon l2tpd and the Cheops Network User Interface.

Mark Spencer is also the creator of Asterisk, a Linux-based open-sourced PBX in software. He is the founder, chairman and CTO of Digium, an open-source telecommunications supplier most notable for its development and sponsorship of Asterisk. Spencer shifted from CEO to Chairman and CTO in early 2007.

While attending Auburn University, Spencer co-oped at Adtran when he wrote l2tpd. He went on to start a Linux technical support business. Spencer did not have enough money to buy a PBX (private branch exchange) for his company so he decided to write Asterisk and later founded Digium.

Don Proctor

As Senior Vice President of the Voice Technology Group (VTG) at Cisco Systems, was born in Waurika. Okla., Don Proctor leads a team of world-class voice industry executives who manage Cisco's enterprise voice business units. The VTG business units are responsible for developing the company’s IP telephony systems, IP phones, customer contact solutions, and unified communications products, including messaging, video and audio conferencing, and collaboration applications.
Under Don's leadership, Cisco's voice business became the second of the company’s six initial advanced technology areas to surpass the US$1B annual revenue milestone, moving Cisco from an early innovator in the VoIP market to one of the top three global suppliers of enterprise voice solutions.
Don joined Cisco in 1995 and has held a variety of leadership positions in the company’s enterprise, service provider, and commercial businesses. Early in his tenure at Cisco, Don led the product team that developed the Cisco 2600 Series, the first router to combine voice and data services on a single platform.
Later, Don served as vice president and general manager of Cisco's multiservice carrier switching and voice gateway business units. Since joining VTG early in 2002, Don has been responsible for setting strategy, leading operations, and building the organization for Cisco's enterprise and service provider voice businesses.
Prior to joining Cisco, Don led data communications for software maker Sybase, Inc., where he deployed one of the world's first global IP networks based on a commercial Frame Relay service.
In addition to his responsibilities as senior vice president of VTG, Don serves as executive sponsor for a number of key Cisco customers and is a member of the Cisco Enterprise Business Council, Engineering Quality Council, and Women's Initiatives Steering Committee.
A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Don has been an instructor in the Telecommunications Engineering program at UC Berkeley Extension since 1994, and is a regular guest lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer was born March 24, 1956, to a Swiss father and a Jewish-American mother whose family came from the Eastern European city of Pinsk (today in Belarus). He grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1973, he graduated from Detroit Country Day School, a high school, and now sits on its board of directors. In 1977, he graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked on The Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the Harvard Advocate, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. He then worked for two years as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, who would later become CEO of General Electric. In 1980, he dropped out from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft's 24th employee, the first business manager hired by Gates. He was initially offered a salary of $50,000 as well as a percentage of ownership of the company. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8 percent of the company. He has headed several divisions within Microsoft including "Operating Systems Development", "Operations", and "Sales and Support." In January 2000, he was officially named chief executive officer. As CEO Ballmer handled company finances, however Gates still retained control of the "technological vision." In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company. The same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program. In 2009, and for the first time ever, he made the opening keynote at CES, since Bill Gates left Microsoft.

Phil Edholm

Phil Edholm is the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Network Architecture for Nortel Networks Enterprise Networks. Phil focuses on the enterprise portfolio and drives enterprise edge solutions to service providers and enterprise customers, and he is responsible for defining the vision and architecture in the enterprise and next generation edge networks.

Phil's background includes extensive LAN and data communications experience. In addition, Phil was a member of the IEEE 802.3 standards committee during the definition of broadband Ethernet and 10BaseT and developed the first multi-protocol network interfaces. Phil has 4 patents with over 10 patent applications pending. He holds a BSME/EE from GMI/Kettering University.

Serge Tchuruk

Serge Tchurukdichian (born 13 November 1937), known as Serge Tchuruk, is a French businessman of Armenian descent. He was the Chief Executive Officer and chairman of Alcatel (a global telecommunications company) until the end of November 2006 and was the chairman of Alcatel-Lucent until his resignation in October 2008.
Serge Tchuruk is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique in 1962
Serge Tchuruk, a graduate of the Paris Ecole polytechnique and of the Ecole nationale superieure de l'armement, Mr. Tchuruk began his career within the Mobil group in a number of positions before taking up management appointments in France and the USA (1964-1979). In 1979, he became President of Mobil in the Benelux. He then joined Rhone Poulenc, the international chemical and pharmaceuticals group (1980-1986) and held several senior executive positions in the chemicals sector before becoming the company's Managing Director in 1983. He moved on to become President and CEO of Orkem (formerly CDF-Chimie), a European chemicals company working in the area of special chemicals and petrochemicals (1986-1990). He was then Chairman and CEO of Total, one of the world's leading oil companies (1990-1995). From June 1995 to November 2006 Mr. Tchuruk was Chairman and CEO of Alcatel. On November 30, 2006 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of directors of Alcatel-Lucent. Expertise: 45 years in the industrial sector. Current Directorships and professional positions: In France: Chairman of the Board of directors of Alcatel-Lucent, Director of Total SA and of Thales, Member of the Board of directors of Ecole polytechnique. Directorships over the last 5 years: In France: Chairman and CEO of Alcatel, Director of Societe Generale and the Institut Pasteur. Abroad: Chairman of the Board of Alcatel USA Holdings Corp, member of the Supervisory Board of Alcatel-Lucent Holding GmbH*.

Harald J. Braun

Mr. Braun serves as president and chief executive officer of Harris Stratex Networks, Inc. and is a member of its Board of Directors. Prior to joining Harris Stratex, he served as president and CEO of Siemens Networks LLC and most recently as a senior executive in Nokia Siemens Networks North America. In 2002, Mr. Braun became president, Siemens Carrier Networks Division, focused on next-generation technologies and services. From 2000-2002, he served as Siemens senior vice president and the head of Siemens Ltd. in Thailand, with responsibility for sales of the company’s next-generation network products. Before this assignment, Mr. Braun served as Siemens vice president, IP and ATM/TDM Broadband Components in Development and vice president, ATM System Integration and System Test. Mr. Braun currently serves as treasurer of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), and sits on the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) board. He earned an engineering degree in Telecommunication from the University of Aachen in Germany.

Philip Zimmermann Jr.

Philip R. "Phil" Zimmermann Jr. (born February 12, 1954) is the creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the most widely used email encryption software in the world[citation needed]. He is also known for his work in VoIP encryption protocols, notably ZRTP and Zfone.
He was born in Camden, New Jersey. His father was a concrete mixer truck driver. Zimmermann received a B.S. degree in computer science from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton in 1978, and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 1991, he wrote the popular Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program, and made it available (together with its source code) through public FTP for download, the first widely available program implementing public-key cryptography. Shortly thereafter, it became available overseas via the Internet, though Zimmermann has said he had no part in its distribution outside the US.
After a report from RSA Data Security, Inc., who were in a licensing dispute with regard to use of the RSA algorithm in PGP, the Customs Service started a criminal investigation of Zimmermann, for allegedly violating the Arms Export Control Act. The US Government had long regarded cryptographic software as a munition, and thus subject to arms trafficking export controls. At that time, the boundary between permitted ("low strength") cryptography and impermissible ("high strength") cryptography placed PGP well on the too-strong-to-export side (this boundary has since been relaxed). The investigation lasted three years, but was finally dropped without filing charges.
After the government dropped its case without indictment in early 1996, Zimmermann founded PGP Inc. and released an updated version of PGP and some additional related products. That company was acquired by Network Associates (NAI) in December 1997, and Zimmermann stayed on for three years as a Senior Fellow. NAI decided to drop the product line and in 2002, PGP was acquired from NAI by a new company called PGP Corporation. Zimmermann now serves as a special advisor and consultant to that firm. Zimmermann is also a fellow at the Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. He was a principal designer of the cryptographic key agreement protocol (the "association model") for the Wireless USB standard.
In the very first version of PGP, an encryption algorithm was given the humorous name BassOmatic (after a skit on Saturday Night Live) and Pretty Good Privacy itself is named after a Lake Wobegon fictional grocery store named "Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery".

Tim O'Reilley

Tim O'Reilly (Irish: Tadhg Ó Raghallaigh), born ( June 6, 1954) in Cork, Ireland; is the founder of O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) and a supporter of the free software and open source movements. He is widely credited with coining the term Web 2.0.
O'Reilly was initially interested in literature upon graduating from high school, but after graduating from Harvard College in 1975 with a B.A. cum laude in Classics he became involved in the field of computer manuals. He defines his company not as a book or online publisher, or as a conference producer (though the company does all three), but as a technology transfer company, "changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators." O'Reilly is on the board of CollabNet, and was on the board of Macromedia until its 2005 merger with Adobe Systems. In March 2007, he joined MySQL AB’s Board of Directors.
In 2001, O'Reilly was involved in a dispute with Amazon.com, leading a protest against Amazon's one-click patent, and specifically, Amazon's assertion of that patent against rival barnesandnoble.com. The protest ended with O'Reilly and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos visiting Washington D.C. to lobby for patent reform.

Jeff Pulver

Jeff Pulver is the Chairman and Founder of pulver.com, and one of the true pioneers of the VoIP industry and a leader in the emerging TV on the Net industry. Leveraging well over a decade of hands-on experience in Internet/IP communications and innovation, Mr. Pulver is a globally renowned thought leader, author and entrepreneur. His blog is well read within the IP Communications Industry and in high-tech communities around the world. He is the publisher of The Pulver Report and and creator of the industry standard Voice on the Net (VON) events. Additionally, Mr. Pulver is the founder of FWD, the VON Coalition, PrimeTimeRewind.TV, Vivox and is the co-founder of VoIP provider, Vonage.
Pulver is the chief writer of what's referred to as "the Pulver Order", which was adopted in 2004 by the Federal Communications Commission as the first FCC ruling regarding internet protocol communications. The order ruled that computer-to-computer VoIP is not a telecommunications service. He coined the term purple minutes to describe value-added IP network traffic.
Today he concentrates on the field of Internet Video or IP Video. He was profiled in 2006 by The Wall Street Journal, discussing his visions about both voice and video over the Internet, and was listed as a BusinessWeek "Tech Guru" in 2003.

Kerry Garrison

Kerry attended his college days at Irvine College and Scottsdale Community College.
Kerry has been in the computer industry for over 20 years and over the past 11 have specialized more in the internet segment. He has been technical sales consultant, technical manager, web developer, network engineer, and on his own consulting business.
He is the VP Strategic Initiatives at 888VoipStore, also a publisher at Camera Dojo (Sole Proprietor), and owner of Kerry Garrison Photography
.These days he is at Fonality as the Senior Product Manager for the trixbox project, an open source IP PBX system (http://www.trixbox.org). He is also the Product Development Manager at XO Communications, Inc. (www.xo.com), and a Publisher at Wild Hobbies.
Kerry Garrison’s specialties are PC Service, Networking, Network Security, Web Hosting/Design, Custom Applications, Technical Management,VOIP Telephony.
With the rapidly growing VOIP PBX Market, Tech Data Pros is positioning itself to take advantage of this trend. Kerry Garrison has recently appeared on several talk radio programs talking about the benefits of VOIP solutions.