Month: October 2007
-
/
It’s the (app) platform, stupid!
Continue Reading: It’s the (app) platform, stupid!“Phone systems” are dead. PBXs are dead. IP-PBXs are dead.
Well, okay, not really… people will still be buying “PBXs” for quite some time. Just as there are certain communities out there who still buy horse-drawn wagons. But the reality is this:
“Phone systems”, PBXs and IP-PBXs without easy application programming interfaces (APIs) are a dead branch on the evolutionary tree.
The future of communication belongs to mashups. To quick and easy ways to interconnect disparate systems. To integration of communication systems with business processes and other applications. In a world where voice is no longer always the primary mode of communication, we have to stop thinking about “phone systems” and take a larger look at how “communication” in general fits into our infrastructure. More than just how we use the system, we have to look at how we can get data in and out of the communication system. To borrow from the 1992 Clinton campaign:
It’s the platform, stupid!
As you look at communication choices, the question is really about who has the “best” APIs… whose system is easiest to integrate with…. who lets you get data out of their system easily – and also lets… -
/
A heck of week to choose to go dark! (Microsoft, MySpace/Skype, iPhone… )
Continue Reading: A heck of week to choose to go dark! (Microsoft, MySpace/Skype, iPhone… )Boy, did I choose the wrong week to go dark! Way too many amazing things going on out there this week… here is a quick view of some of the disruptions with relevant links:
- Microsoft formally announces release of Office Communication Server – tons of coverage out there but I recommend the analysis by the UC Strategies team.
- Skype will be providing voice to MySpace IM – again tons of coverage – Skype Journal has more info and a screenshot. See also the Skype blog.
- Per Business Week this morning, Skype will be rolling out its own mobile phone, starting in Europe.
- MySpace
- Apple, meanwhile, announces an upcoming developer kit for the iPhone via a note from Steve Jobs (some reactions here and here).
- And finally MySpace says it will open up to application developers in a similar manner to Facebook.
All in all a rather busy week! (And it’s not over yet…)
Technorati Tags: apple, applications, facebook, iphone, myspace, microsoft, ocs, unifiedcommunications, skype, voip
-
/
ETel, disrupted… O’Reilly cancels ETel! (But the ETel Program Committee is looking at what could be done instead…)
Continue Reading: ETel, disrupted… O’Reilly cancels ETel! (But the ETel Program Committee is looking at what could be done instead…)O’Reilly just cancelled ETel for 2008. Yes, indeed, it’s sadly true as shown here:
Due to changed circumstances since ETel 2008 was announced, we have decided not to move forward with the conference this year.
It is somewhat ironic that part of the ETel 2008 graphic was this:
Obviously O’Reilly did.
Those of us on the ETel Program Committee were just informed of the decision yesterday. We are admittedly still in a bit of shock. This year’s program had over 100 submissions and we were very much looking forward to what was shaping up to be an excellent conference this year. Great mixture of technical sessions, thought-provoking sessions and so much more.
We are not privy as to exactly why O’Reilly made the decision and on many levels it doesn’t really matter. As far as O’Reilly is concerned, ETel is now dead for 2008.
Personally, I think it is a loss to our industry. I think it is also, frankly, a loss to O’Reilly. But I’ll get into that perhaps in another post next week.
Right now, we on the ETel Program Committee are starting to look at what’s next. I think for many of us ETel served a…
-
/
Going dark for the calm before the storm… (aka “light blogging ahead”)
Continue Reading: Going dark for the calm before the storm… (aka “light blogging ahead”)Life takes very interesting turns. Yesterday afternoon I faxed off my acceptance of an offer from a company I’d really never heard of that turns out to be doing some extremely fascinating things. They found me through this blog. We’ve talked. I’ve visited. I start on Monday, October 22nd. I’ll be actually in a role very similar to what I was doing before, but with more of a direct focus on social media, at least initially. I will still be working remotely from Vermont and will be traveling to similar conferences as in the past. It’s exciting and I’m very much looking forward to getting started. Great people. Great company. Profitable. Strong developer community. Been around for a while. In the right space, in my opinion.
For now, though, that’s all I’m going to say. More on (or near) the 22nd. 🙂
Until then, I’m expecting to be blogging less here and on my other blogs. I’m traveling to a PR/Communications conference next Monday and Tuesday to do a “Podcasting 101” workshop and so I’ll probably be blogging about that. There’s a hundred things I want to blog about! My queue of articles to write is probably the longest it…
-
/
The audacity of Asterisk – why the 3Com/Digium partnership fundamentally changes the game in SMB telephony
Continue Reading: The audacity of Asterisk – why the 3Com/Digium partnership fundamentally changes the game in SMB telephonyThe SMB VoIP game is changing. Fundamentally. And in a pattern we’ve seen before in other industries. In the news release out today, Digium and 3Com announced that:Under the terms of the agreement, 3Com will offer Digium’s award-winning Asterisk Appliance™ to small businesses that need a reliable, easy-to-deploy voice solution based on open standards. 3Com Asterisk will be available through the company’s proven channel of partners worldwide.
Let’s think about that for a minute. 3Com will make Digium’s Asterisk appliance available through “the company’s proven channel of partner’s worldwide“, which some reports are putting at around 60,000 resellers. Digium just wound up with a large global sales channel. Yet to be seen is whether there will be any channel conflict with existing Digium Partners/VARs, but regardless, Digium just wound up with a way to deploy Asterisk-based solutions globally. It does, however, get one step better (my emphasis added):“3Com is focused on delivering products and solutions for converged secure networks, in which voice is an application that can be readily integrated with many others,” said Bob Dechant, senior vice president and general manager for 3Com Corporation. “We’ve announced a complete voice strategy and new product offerings for small businesses, including…
-
/
eBay pays $530 million to buy out Skype founders – and writes down value of Skype by $900 million
Continue Reading: eBay pays $530 million to buy out Skype founders – and writes down value of Skype by $900 millionNot necessarily a great day over at Skype today – per the eBay news release, Niklas Zennstrom stepped down as CEO, eBay paid $533 million to “settle obligations to certain Skype shareholders” and is also taking a $900 million charge to write down the value of Skype. From a Bloomberg article:“It has not performed as well as we would have hoped in the short term,” EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said in an interview. Skype was profitable the first half of the year, he said.
Many others out there have already offered their analysis and so I’ll point you to them today:- Skype Journal (Jim Courtney): The Metamorphosis Begins: New CEO Sought for Skype
- VoIP Watch (Andy Abramson): Management Shake Up At Skype
- Bloomberg: EBay Takes $1.4 Billion Charge Related to Skype Unit
- Skype co-founder Janus Friis’ blog: (not) just another monday
- Thomas Crampton: Zennstrom defends Skype while stepping down
- Technorati search on ‘skype’