Telephony key trend at DEMO next week

I won't be going to the DEMO conference this coming week in Palm Desert, California. But it feels as if I already went and came back because I've had pre-DEMO briefings with top execs all week, plus access to many announcements.

I can't discuss the details of the briefings and announcements because they are held to a specific release date but I can tell you about some of the companies to watch for and about some of the trends that will emerge from the conference.

One key trend is telephony. And the hottest company in this area just has to be Ribbit. It wants to be "Silicon Valley's 1st Phone Company." Or, as Ted Griggs, CEO of Ribbit likes to put it, "If you were going create a phone company today, you would do it completely differently."

And he is right. Ribbit ,and others such as Jajah, and of course Skype, and a fast growing sector of telephony startups, have opened up voice as an innovative platform. And voice applications are increasingly important in the enterprise area, as a component of existing applications. Look for some very interesting announcements from Ribbit next week.

Also in the telephony arena is Toktumi which is using a "Skype" type approach to target the long tail part of the small office market. Super quick set up for small businesses. More next week....