Lingo claims to be the first VoIP provider to offer unlimited calling to
May 2005 Archives
I received this comment (see below) on a past JibJab post I made a while ago. Apparently the blogger community is up in arms about JibJab selling out to Budweiser. Apparently JibJab promised not to.
My take? So they did. Good for them. They are profiting from excellent creativity and they had a change of heart. Maybe they had kids or someone told them how much college will cost. Perhaps the creators of This Land decided to buy a new house and had sticker shock. People change.
If there is something bloggers should be upset about is how bad this Bud episode is. It isn't creative or funny. But that is just one man's opinion.
Here is the comment on my blog:
Blogging Community outraged by Jib Jab's Budweiser piece! Jib Jab, which became a popular site during the past presidential election has now received a corporate sponsorship from Budweiser.
The blogsphere is upset that they owners of Jib Jab, who clearly stated they would never "sell out" are now working for Bud. Bloggers lash back with the following anti-Jib Jab clip and a slew of online chatter:
Anti-Jib Jab clip: http://www.Jibjaber.com
I recently had a chance to interview Ramesh Bhimarao the VoIP product Line Manager at LSI Logic on the future of VoIP development. LSI Logic is a leader in VoIP processors for wireless and wired applications and their products form the foundation of many of the next generation VoIP killer devices I am looking forward to seeing.
What trends are you seeing in VoIP development?
Voice over WiFi and VoIP integration with CPE devices such as routers and broadband modems are the definite trends we are seeing in the marketplace.
Is 2005 the best year for VoIP? 2006, etc?
Deployment will accelerate from now until 2008. Best years are 2006/2007.
What are the hottest areas in VoIP development?
The hottest area is VoWiFi integration with GSM/CDMA Mobile phones.
Why do you think now is the time for developers to get into VoIP?
Developers need to understand the opportunity VoIP presents and its evolution to video phones.
Are there still opportunities that will generate revenue in the VoIP space?
Yes. The VoIP market is still nascent and will be embedded into cell phones, IADs, routers, cordless phones, PDAs.
Where do you see WiFi telephony going in the future? WiMAX, 3G?
VoWiFi will move to unlicensed bands like 802.11G and Mobile WiMax.
Do you have an opinion on hybrid cellular/WiFi devices?
Dual mode "Cellular/WiFi" devices are the format for the emerging single phone scenario for home, mobile and enterprise telephony.
What are your feelings on SIP?
SIP will basically tie all real time services over the packet network and will be signaling of choice for the mass market.
How do you see IMS changing the landscape of telecom?
IMS as a peer-to-peer free service will be part of the solution towards free telephony in the coming years.
If you would like to learn more about VoIP development or you would like to meet with LSI Logic in the exhibit hall, be sure to come to TMC’s VoIP Developer show August 2-4, 2005 in
TMC’s International correspondent David Sims writes a witty piece each AM on the state of CRM, contact centers and technology/ Aptly named First Coffee the blog illustrates how much news you can amass and post before anyone on in the US wakes up. Sims writes about technology from all over the world and his humor never fails to delight – unless you happen to be Newsweek magazine and you read the post on May 19, 2005 assuring readers that Newsweek magazine was not used as a source for Dave’s column!
Lots of great stuff in the latest communications and technology podcast. I had to bow out but am upset that I did as this one seemed quite good. Hopefully I can participate in next week’s edition.
Cisco Galileo
Announced at Speech-World is Galileo from Cisco is a really cool product that allows speech access to e-mail and calendaring. For those of you that remember Wildfire, it is a similar concept but having the Cisco brand behind it should allow it to be more widely purchased and deployed. You can listen to e-mail, respond, check your schedule and do lots of things you can do with you computer but now you can do them remotely with your voice in traffic.
Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com may be installing as many as 20,000 seats at Merrill Lynch. Even though this is a big deal for the CRM hosting company it will be less than 1% of total revenue – as quarterly sales are around 60-70 million dollars. There is a battle of wills forming between Salesforce.com and Siebel on demand. There is a rumor that Genesys may be porting its technology to the Salesforce.com platform as well. This would put Salesforce.com more into the call center space.
Microsoft Speech Server
This is more of ASP.Net play announcement where Genesys will port its solution to the Microsoft Speech platform. This will be an opportunity for Microsoft to push more hardware to software. Open platforms and software switching are the future according to Genesys.
Nokia 770
The Nokia 770 has VoIP capabilities because of a third party company that enables this Internet tablet to be SIP enabled. This is not a Tablet computer as it is ARM based not Intel based. It can browse the web do e-mail and some minor office tasks. It costs $350 and is a consumer device. It is Linux based and has 800x600 resolution. The downside to the device is that devices need to have Linux drivers.
Teltel Has Audio
I blogged the fact that Teltel now has audio channels on their soft client (teltel photo) but there is an interesting discussion here. Any service provider can be a broadcast partner.
iTunes
Podcasts will now be organized by category thanks to a new release from Apple. Great news for us podcast broadcasters and the listening community. Tune in next week for more news on communications and technology!
With all the deaths of humans in the world I sometimes find it hard to worry about animals. Ethically I am torn to donating to human causes before animal ones. Still, I am a nature lover. I am certainly not someone you would consider green but I love all sorts of animals from fish to big cats. I just learned that the Iberian Lynx is in danger of extinction. The cat is found in
Dave Hattey who has done a great job leading 3COM’s VoIP initiatives for years – and has spoken at TMC events in the past, has made the switch to SIPquest. The two companies are partners so they were familiar with each other before Hattey moved. I am not sure who may be taking his spot but Brian Allain just joined 3COM and could be the person who fills Hattey’s shoes. Allain has been in VoIP since the mid nineties and launched Avaya’s (Lucent at the time) foray into the IP PBX market . This is speculation so far and I am looking into the details now.
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OTTAWA, ON-May 27, 2005: SIPquest, a leading developer of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based IP Telephony software applications and technology, announced today that David Hattey will join the company June 1st as President, Chief Executive Officer, and member of the Board. Co-founder and current CEO, Alain Mouttham, stepped down for personal reasons and will continue to serve on the board and as Chief Technology Officer, mandated with delivering the company’s converged client strategy.
Jim Laird, board member and Vice President Investments at Covington Capital noted, “SIPquest is gaining significant traction in the industry, and we are seeing demand for converged multimedia clients rapidly growing. Alain has the vision and technical expertise to propel SIPquest to the position of market leader and bringing David on board allows him to do just that.” States Peter Diedrich, partner at Skypoint Capital, “With David’s business experience and Alain’s technology direction, we have the right team in place to seize both near and long-term business opportunities, driving our business plan forward.”
David has 24 years of telecom industry experience delivering strong business results. Prior to joining SIPquest, David served as Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Voice Solutions at 3Com, overseeing the defining, marketing, and implementation of 3Com’s voice solutions to Enterprises of all sizes. He served as President of EFJohnson Company, a provider of wireless communications systems for public safety, commercial, and government customers, leading a turnaround of the company that resulted in the first profitable year since going public 5 years earlier. Previously, David held executive and managerial positions in RACOM Corporation (privately held mobile operator), Ericsson, the Ericsson/GE joint venture, and General Electric.
About SIPquest
SIPquest (www.sipquest.com) is a technology pioneer with specific expertise in Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). By embedding or bundling SIPquest SIP-based software products with their own products, telecom and datacom equipment vendors are able to take advantage of the growing demand for VoIP services and capabilities. IP Telephony is the superset encompassing more than just VoIP. SIPquest's application and component suite also includes IP-based audio conferencing, video conferencing, data conferencing, application sharing, instant messaging, presence, a multimedia collaboration agent, voice mail, auto attendant, a SIP to H.323 signaling converter, an extensible SIP server and mobile WiFi roaming and collaboration capabilities. SIPquest is committed to expanding the use of SIP technologies through an exclusive licensing agreement with
Once you have a community of Internet telephony users the next step is to see what sorts of interesting things you can do with them like offer music and other audio content. TelTel, has done just this with their network of one million users – which they claim is the largest worldwide community of SIP p2p users. Similar to Skype, the company has software that works in a p2p fashion but where the two differ is that TelTel is SIP compatible meaning it is easily used with dozens if not hundreds of devices and third-party software endpoints.
Any media content provider can become a TelTel partner if they support SIP. Obviously there is huge competition from companies like the Microsoft and their Media Player, Real Networks and Apple QuickTime. But where this service can get interesting is in SIP device support allowing streaming to any device on the Net that is SIP compatible.
Will SIP become a conduit for audio programming? We’ll have to wait and see.
WiMAX seems to be alive and well according to this Airspan WiMAX article from
I have decided I am better off staying with IE and not switching to Firefox (news) for good. I was thinking of switching for security reasons. .I already have tabbed browser access with Avant Browser so security seems the real reason to switch. In my informal tests Firefox renders much faster than IE as well.
What made me write this entry is that there are e-mails circulating around my office with Firefox fixes. The whole point of switching was to avoid what the e-mails mention is a nasty security hole in the browser. The latest release is 1.04 by the way.
What to do when your mistress is busy? Get out your mobile virtual girlfriend. I often write about how Asia is so far ahead of the
Still the story reminds me of an editor we had at TMC years ago. He was quite intellectual and a great colleague. One day in a meeting he took out a plastic gadget. Now this is seven years ago before PDAs were really popular and before iPods. Curious, we asked what it was. Turns out it was a virtual pet he was taking care of for his daughter. He had to feed it from time to time or it would die and his daughter would be upset.
One wonders if a virtual girlfriend (or boyfriend -- don't want to be politically incorrect) would need to be bought purses (or wallets, tickets to the game, etc). Well you get the point.
I have read about this tablet product -- one of the first non-cell products from Nokia in fact, in the mainstream press. It wasn't until I caught up on TMCnet articles that I realized there is an article detailing the Nokia 770's SIP support. Cool.
Nokia 770
Additional features of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet include an Internet Radio, RSS News reader, Image viewer and Media players for selected types of media. The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is planned to start shipping in the third quarter of 2005 in selected countries in the
I just came upon this site savemuniwireless.org that focuses on furthering municipal wireless networks. There are lots of entries and analysis. The point of the site is to allow states/cities/municipalities to have their own wireless networks. As you may know LECs are fighting this trend as they consider states offering WiFi service -- often for free, as a competitive threat. Currently the debate is centered on Texas.
A month or so ago it was centered around Philadelphia and TMCnet's Bob Liu has an in-depth story on the happenings in the home of "cheese steak" and the "liberty bell" titled Philadelphia Unveils Citywide Wireless Business Plan and Intense Planning, Indoor CPEs Required of Wireless Philadelphia Bidders. (The author acknowledges that most people would probably list "liberty bell" first).
I am heading back today and am on an American flight bound for NY at the moment (I am looking forward to the day that we have high-speed internet on flights). The show went well. Exhibitors told me the quality of attendees was great and the quantity was good for a first-time event. Last night was the 20th annual Top 50 award where we celebrate the largest outsourcers in the world. The dinner went well and it also included winners of the MVP quality awards.
I learned a great deal at the show. I met with old friends, made new ones and met the people implementing speech in their companies.
One thing that stuck in my mind was the tail end of a technology session to the Top 50 group where one of the largest outsourcers in the world with I believe 60 locations spread throughout the world asked me a question. The told me they are using VoIP heavily and sometimes their calls drop for hours on end.
Although I couldn't do network diagnosis at the show I mentioned that we in the VoIP world are at the mercy of service providers just like we were in the PSTN world. The difference is that broadband "uptime" is not nearly as good as the PSTN. Redundant circuits, SONET rings ad other technologies can help those of the leading edge though.
Then there is the issue of third world country broadband connections. If VoIP has an Achilles heel it is that it relies on broadband providers. Eventually service providers will provide better broadband service but in the mean time companies need to protect themselves by having redundant systems in place so when there is an internet problem with one connection, switching over to another is seamless.
The next telecom gold rush it seems is affiliate programs and Vonage and all other VoIP companies have them. Except Skype of course. Well then again, Skype isnt a phone company… Or are they?. Well of course they are and as Tom Keating reports Skype now has an affiliate program meaning you can earn money and a lot of it in fact, if you can get more people to sign up and pay for Skype service. You get 10% of the revenue so some simple math shows that a $20/month customer could get you $24 /year. Multiply that by a few thousand and you now you’ve got a reason to quit your day job, start blogging and let Skype pay your bills.
Who would of thought that VoIP would be the soap of the 21st century. (This obscure reference is to Amway and their method of selling soap and other products through affiliate programs, pyramid marketing or whatever they call it.)
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