David Michels holds 20 years of telecom hands-on experience, starting with IVR systems to Fortune 100 operations. Currently President of Verge1 Consulting, specializing in PBX strategies for the end user and manufacturer as well as cloud services, SMB voice, channel development, unified communications, and social media. Dave has appeared at hundreds of industry trade shows, including VoiceCon, Interop, and TCA.He maintains a personal blog at www.pindropsoup.com, and contributes regularly to nojitter.com and ucstrategies.com.

The industry is in a perpetual state of change, and Dave articulates the impacts as well as identifiying what matters most to clients. Dave believes the telecom industry is currently going through its most significant disruptive phase. The change that was promised 10 years ago with the advent of VoIP is arriving now, but not due to VoIP. VoIP revolutionized transport, but the change now is around end user value and applications. The role of the PBX is rapidly changing, voice isn't as rigid and independent and now must deliver value in totally new interfaces. Communications are no longer voice centric, and even the notion of voice being a mission critical application doesn't resonate so clearly any more. The communications pie has more slices than ever, and how these slices interact and behave is what determines the value of unified communications.

Dave's background includes both entreprenurial startups as well as large enterprises with international networks. Dave has served time in technical and management positions at corporations including IBM, GE, and Coors as well as multiple start-ups. Dave enjoys music, skiing, and keeping current in the industry (really).