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Chril Pirillo on GoogleTalk, eBay/Skype and other IM stuff

September 14, 2005

Eric Lagerway, formerly of Xten emailed me with an interesting podcast/interview he had with Chris Pirillo.

Eric writes:
I wanted to get Chris Pirillo's feedback on some recent events including GoogleTalk, eBay/Skype and the proprietary IM scene. We had some great (uncensored) conversation about the problems with Instant Messaging today and what Chris is doing to make it right. Chris also talks about lining up the big IM vendors on a panel at Gnomedex, a very cool technocrat convention he puts on in Seattle each year.

I had a listed to the podcast and it is indeed interesting and worth checking out. You can listen to the "uncensored" podcast here (be prepared for some profanity):
http://sipthat.com/mp3/Chris-Pirillo-Google-Skype-IM.mp3

Posted in Google, Skype

Verso Technologies blocks Skype

September 14, 2005

Verso Technologies, Inc. today announced the introduction of its new carrier-grade application filter, which enables carriers to restrict peer-to-peer traffic, including Skype calls, P2P messaging, streaming media and instant messaging. Sound familiar?

Packeteer is another company offering the capability to not only identify and classify Skype traffic, but they can also "throttle" Skype packets by assigning them low priority or even block Skype packets. So while Verso Technologies is not the first or even the only company to offer "application-level" filtering and blocking of Skype packets, what really makes this news interesting is that China Telecom is a customer of Verso Technology.

Posted in Skype

Jabber SimpleAE and myJabberAE softphones

September 12, 2005

Some news to share confirming TMCnet's scoop on Jabber offering a softphone client and now we have a face to go with the name Actually, we now have a name to go with the product - Jabber's VoIP client is going to be called myJabberAE. In addition, this news release below talks about SimpleAE which is also part of the myJabberAE softphone family with one difference - it's targetted at service providers and third-party content products. Sounds eerily similar to Skype's recently announced Voice Services Program for third party content providers, don't you think?

At least they both companies seem to have their priorities straight - VoIP isn't about cheap minutes - not anymore. If you want to win in the VoIP game you've got to provide enhanced services and content.

Here's the release.

Jabber announces SimpleAE, the latest addition to the myJabberAE(Softphone) product family.

Posted in Skype, VoIP

eBay and Skype a done deal

September 12, 2005

Rumors were laid to rest when eBay announced that it plans to acquire Skype by paying $1.3
billion in cash and $1.3 billion in stock. It also has performance encentives in the deal that would make a later payout of up to $1.5 billion by 2008 or 2009 if financial targets are met, giving the deal a total value of up to $4.1 billion.

I wasn't crazy about the idea last week over eBay paying >$3 billion for Skype and I'm still not crazy about it now. I would not be a happy eBay stock holder right now, my guess is the stock will drop a couple percentage points, so it will be interesting to see what eBay's stock does when the markets open.

Then again with plenty of market hype surrounding VoIP, I'm sure the stock traders and insiders will probably be heavily pushing their clients to buy eBay at the opening bell. "VoIP is hot right now.

Posted in Skype

Jabber to enter the softphone market

September 9, 2005

Remember the new open-source softphone I recently promised would announce its plans very shortly? In my prior blog post I mentioned I didn't want to steal TMCnet's Robert Lui's thunder, since he had the scoop on this story. Well, Robert has just posted the story to TMCnet.

The company I "teased" you about a week or so ago is Jabber - the very same Jabber that had its XMPP protocol embedded into Google's softphone, aptly named Google Talk

Let's just hope this new Jabber softphone client is more like Skype in terms of the GUI and functionality than it is like Google Talk, which I was a bit disappointed with when I took it for a test drive.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from Jabber - Reluctant Voice Player:

Jabber plans to integrate
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) directly into voice capabilities of its core Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) – occasionally referred to as the “Jabber” protocol – by next spring, TMCnet has learned. more...

Posted in Google, Skype, VoIP

eBay buys Skype?

September 8, 2005

Greg Galitzine blogs about a WSJ report that claims eBay plans on buying Skype for between $2 and $3 billion.

Quoting Greg who cites the WSJ:

One of the unnamed sources in the Journal story said that “eBay was
keen on adding services that make it easier to buy and sell goods
online, as it did when it acquired the electronic-payment processing
service PayPal in 2002.”

Greg states he doesn't get the potential Skype acquisition. I'm with him.

Sure you could add a little Skype Me button next to each eBay online listing, but how many auctioners want to be bothered to interact via voice? Some might I suppose, especially for large ticket items such as cars, but more auctioners I would bet prefer to interact anonymously using email. There are plenty of web call-me button companies such as eStara that are a heck of a lot cheaper than $2-$3 billion.

Also, eBay has enough critical mass that is they wanted to add a "Call me" button to all the auctions and offer a free softphone download people would do it.

Posted in Skype

Global IP Sound to announce video product

September 1, 2005

In a few weeks Global IP Sound (GIPS) will unveil a new product to complement the GIPS VoiceEngine Suite called VoiceEngine Multimedia. This will add high-quality video capabilities to the VoiceEngine product line. It's a natural extension to GIPS' renowned voice engine that is used in Skype, Google Talk, and other VoIP products. Global IP Sound's engine is the reason why Skype sounds so damn good - ditto for Google Talk, due to GIPS's ability to handle packet loss, latency, etc.

The initial release will incorporate On2’s VP7 codec, which is a high quality video codec.

Posted in Google, Skype, VoIP

VoIP spells doom for calling card business?

September 1, 2005

I haven't used a calling card since my parents gave me one for college (to avoid my college's exorbitant per/minute fees), and I would have figured with unlimited cell phone plans, unlimited broadband VoIP plans (Vonage, Lingo, etc.), as well as software applications such as Skype, Gizmo, and now Google Talk that calling cards were so passe. Who needs calling cards, (including both post-paid and pre-paid calling cards) when you have so many competitive options that offer inexpensive calling, right? I mean really, who wants to dial a an 11-digit access number then remember their calling card account number (or pull it out of their wallet/purse) and then enter the destination number as well as their PIN?

Well apparently, even with so many phone options these days, each vying for the same "limited" phone minute pie, there is still a huge market for calling cards.

Posted in Google, Skype, VoIP, Vonage

Skype gateway to PBX

August 30, 2005

Here's an interesting Skype solution that lets you integrate your PBX with Skype/SkypeIn,SkypeOut so you can use Skype for your trunk lines to save money. I actually found this on TMC's VoIP forums.

Here's a description of the product carried by Spintronics:
. Design Power boost to ensure enough voltage and current to drive your PBX and Ring
.

Posted in Skype

Dissecting Google Talk with packet sniffer

August 26, 2005

As I mentioned to James Seng in a comment I posted to his Google Talk post Google Talk isn't using SIP (yet). James confirmed my packet capture analysis of Google Talk with some sniffing of his own, which you can check out in his More About Google Talk blog post. He has some interesting discoveries, including Google appearing to install a STUN server on every Google Talk client to solve the VoIP NAT issues. James writes "In other words, like Skype, Google Talk turns every client into a possible server to help relay voice call between two users." Doesn't this sound eerily like Skype's super nodes that everyone gripes about?

James has echoes my sentiments when he writes, "Very smart thing to do technically speaking but let me go read the Google Talk UAT again.

Posted in Google, Skype, VoIP

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