Russell Shaw has a good post about Skype and its domination of the North American VOIP market - from a minutes and bandwidth perspective. An interesting element are comments by Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron. Citron dismisses Skype as an "ancillary service", rather than a direct rival. His rationale is that Skype is not a replacement for your home phone, and “what Skype does is allow you to make a cheap telephone call using your PC -- so as an ancillary communications provider, who are they impacting? They are certainly not impacting Vonage." Citron's comments are a surprise given he's a classic salesman on an entrepreneurial mission towards an IPO or acquisition, but he seems to be conveniently overlooking the fact millions of people are using Skype, and Skype is starting to generate more revenue from premium services. For people on the cutting-edge, Skype could easily be a home phone and an alternative to Vonage if they use SkypeIn, SkypeOut and SkypeVoicemail.

Even though 5% of Canadian satellite-radio revenue will go to develop Canadian talent, and an exciting new technology will profile Canadian artists, Canada's music industry is troubled by the CRTC's decision to license three service providers because the regulator failed to stipulate that security measures must be used to ensure consumers don't steal music. The Canadian Recording Industry Association wants satellite-radio services to adopt content protection so digital signals can't be downloaded and shared through P2P networks. It calls the CRTC's decision "short-sighted. That's a strange comment because you could easily argue the music industry has been short-sighted about the Internet and its inability to capitalize on the digital distribution opportunity. It's been six years since Sean Fanning warned the music industry the Internet was going to change everything. Say what you want about the success of iTunes but the music industry has a long way to go before makes online music services a natural option.
For more comment on the satellite decision and the Canadian music industry, check out Michael Geist's blog.

In the wake of Jim Duffy's interview with Nortel CEO Bill Owens in which Owens claims Cisco is vulnerable because it has "no serious competition", Om Malik weighs in with his take. The highlight is this quote: “If I wasn’t American, I would be Chinese,” said Cisco CEO John Chambers, in an interview with the Xinhua Press Agency. Some might call it sucking up, but I call it the ultimate salesmanship from the consummate salesman. And as long as he is there, Cisco doesn’t have to worry about a thing."
You can also check out my posting on Owens' puzzling comment.
Om also points to a Banc of America investment comment that Cisco is taking market share from Avaya and Nortel. "Our positive view is reinforced by the company's dominant enterprise presence and IP experience, which we believe will enable the company to compete on a high percentage of VoIP deals," the invesment firm said. BoA's top data networking and wireline equipment picks are Cisco and Nokia. Its least favorites are Ciena and Lucent.