Category: Unified Communications
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Video Interview: What Is The Future of Real-Time Communications?
Continue Reading: Video Interview: What Is The Future of Real-Time Communications?As I posted over on the Voxeo Talks blog recently, über-geek Chris Pirillo recently interviewed VoIP industry veteran Jeff Pulver and Voxeo CEO Jonathan Taylor on the topic of the future of real-time communications. It was a wide ranging interview talking about the history of communication apps, how VoIP has evolved, the role of standards, issues around bandwidth caps, the role of individuals and so much more. Chris explained a bit more on his site.. The video is now available on YouTube:
As a producer of video interviews, I was personally intrigued by Chris’ use of a Google+ “Hangout” to conduct the interview. I’m going to have to try it at some point.
Enjoy the video!
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A *CRAZY* Week In Collaboration / Communications News – A Summary from Dave Michels
Continue Reading: A *CRAZY* Week In Collaboration / Communications News – A Summary from Dave MichelsThis has been an absolutely insane week of announcements relating to the Unified Communications / collaboration / VoIP / etc, etc. space… it’s been a while since I can think of a week that had so much news packed into it.
I think it’s called… “everyone wants to get all their news out before it is US Thanksgiving and people start ignoring news because of the holidays!”
Regardless of why, the fact is that each day I’ve watched the Twitter stream just scrolling by with tons of items I’d love to write about. Unfortunately, I, too, have been slammed – and unable to write all that I’ve wanted to.
Thankfully, Dave Michels pulled together a nice summary over on No Jitter:
Watta Week!
Check there for pointers to stories about Microsoft Lync… Mitel Freedom… Cisco’s zillion video announcements… and news from Polycom, Avaya and HP, too.
Some week, I’m hoping to write about each of these myself… but that week is very definitely NOT this week!
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Meet My Spam Honeypot for Telemarketers (Otherwise Known As My Desk Phone)
Continue Reading: Meet My Spam Honeypot for Telemarketers (Otherwise Known As My Desk Phone)The phone on my desk rang a second time today. I glanced at the console, didn’t recognize the Caller ID and simply ignored the call. A minute or two later a text message buzzed on my iPhone with a transcription of the voicemail left by the caller. I took one look and knew right away:
Yep, another telemarketer!
Just like another call earlier today. As I did my little glance-ignore-wait-for-text-message routine I realized yet again how my communications channels have changed over the years. Here is the reality:
I pretty much NEVER answer my desk phone.
Why not? Pretty simple, really:
The people who I want to speak with already know how to get in touch with me!
And the “how” comes down to: unified communications and mobile.
Unified Communications
For instance, we’re huge users of Skype internally at Voxeo. I have everyone in the company as a contact, and am in a zillion various group chats with internal employees. If someone within the company wants to reach me, they will:
- Check my presence on Skype. Am I online? If so, am I “away”? or “busy/Do Not Disturb”?
- Send me an IM – asking if they can call me if…
- Check my presence on Skype. Am I online? If so, am I “away”? or “busy/Do Not Disturb”?
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The New Breed of Tablets from Cisco, Avaya and RIM – will they matter?
Continue Reading: The New Breed of Tablets from Cisco, Avaya and RIM – will they matter?Cisco, Avaya and RIM are all rushing out “tablet” devices now for the enterprise market – but will they actually matter? Will enterprises really want to use these high-end and high-priced tablets versus all the new consumer tablets like the iPad and all the various Android and Windows tables in the queue?
Don’t get me wrong … it think it is awesome that Cisco, Avaya and RIM are all coming out with new tablets. Ever since getting an iPad back in early May it has become a constant companion on my travels around and I use it for so many different purposes.
The touch interface is also so incredibly “natural”… I watch my daughters using the iPad and just have to think: “Why shouldn’t computers just work this way?”
Any user interface improvements that improve the communications user experience are very definitely a GOOD thing!
So I commend Cisco, Avaya and RIM for coming out with tablets.
I just still find myself wondering why I might want to pay to buy one of these tablets. I had this exchange yesterday with analyst Brian Riggs on Twitter:
As I said, I already have a SIP client on my iPad (and there…
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Define “VoIP” – and then we can debate whether it is dead!
Continue Reading: Define “VoIP” – and then we can debate whether it is dead!There is a fundamental problem with the “VoIP is dead” debate continuing to rage across the VoIP/communications part of the blogosphere (see Alec Saunders part 1 and part 2, Jon Arnold, Andy Abramson, Ken Camp, Jeff Pulver part 1 and part 2, Om Malik, Shidan Gouran, Ted Wallingford, Dameon Welch-Abernathy (PhoneBoy), Rich Tehrani and a zillion others…)Aswath Rao and Luca Filigheddu came closest to the mark in their posts. The fundamental problem with this entire debate is simply this:
Define “VoIP”?
As I discussed in an Emerging Tech Talk video podcast I put up this morning, there are a range of definitions you could give to “VoIP”, including, but not limited to, the following:
- The underlying infrastructure, a.k.a. the “plumbing” – the mechanisms, protocols, etc. that are used for the transport of voice/video/etc. over IP. Things like SIP, H.323, RTP, various codecs, etc.
- Consumer “PSTN line replacement” services – Offerings like those of Vonage and so many others where the basic idea is that you can get cheaper telephone charges by going over the Internet and getting rid of your local landline. Also called “pure play” VoIP by some or “VoIP arbitrage” by others.
- Computer-to-computer/softphone offerings, often coming from the…
- The underlying infrastructure, a.k.a. the “plumbing” – the mechanisms, protocols, etc. that are used for the transport of voice/video/etc. over IP. Things like SIP, H.323, RTP, various codecs, etc.
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Ken Camp no longer blogging at Realtime Unified Communications Community…
Continue Reading: Ken Camp no longer blogging at Realtime Unified Communications Community…It seems this month is a month for VoIP/Communications-related bloggers to move around… Beyond Jon Arnold, Ken Camp has announced that his regular blogging relationship with Realtime has come to an end and that he will no longer be blogging at the Realtime Unified Communications Community that has been his blogging home for the past three years. Ken’s a great guy and a friend and I do wish him all the best in whatever comes next. For now his writing can be found at the Stardust Global Ventures site that he and his wife Sheryl Breuker maintain. He promises to let us know of some of his new ventures in the next little while.
P.S. You don’t need to worry about me joining this trend… I own this domain and it’s hosted on TypePad, so as long as I keep paying that annual fee…. 😉
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Want to join an emerging communications/tech dinner in San Francisco Wednesday night?
Continue Reading: Want to join an emerging communications/tech dinner in San Francisco Wednesday night?If you are in the San Francisco area (perhaps for VoiceCon?) and are interested in “emerging communications” or “emerging technology”, would you like to join a group of similar folks at a dinner Wednesday night (Nov 12, 2008)?Lee Dryburgh, the organizer of the eComm Emerging Communications conference, is hosting a private dinner in conjunction with Thomas Howe at the San Francisco Airport Marriott (Burlingame). There are currently some 50+ folks attending and some seats left and if you are tracking or pushing things forwards in the communications space you may like to try and reserve a seat (75.00 USD) by emailing Lee.
I’ll be there, naturally, along with Thomas Howe, Eric Burger, Ken Camp, Sheryl Breuker and many others who are involved in the space. If you do want to join us, please email Lee very soon.
Technorati Tags: ecomm, ecomm2009, voip, san francisco
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Attempt to join a VoiceCon/Mitel presentation on UC foiled by Real Player on Mac
Continue Reading: Attempt to join a VoiceCon/Mitel presentation on UC foiled by Real Player on MacSo today my participation in a VoiceCon webinar was foiled by “fun” with RealPlayer and my MacBook Pro. The VoiceCon team was running a webinar called ‘Demystifying Unified Communications’ and I was curious to check it out as it was sponsored by my prior employer, Mitel, and the speaker was Mitel’s Doug Micheaelides who I know well. I was just curious more than anything else to see if Mitel’s marketing had changed in the six months since I left. I’m also one to often listen to analyst presentations – it’s part of what I do.It was not to be. Now, admittedly, this is largely my fault for not checking whether the webinar system would work with my Mac in advance. But attending the webinar was low priority to me and something I would just try to “fit in” if I could do so. Since it looked like I could, I jumped over to the page, registered and clicked the link to launch the presentation…
Oops.
Turns out that the web presentation system the VoiceCon folks are using needs Real’s player and as shown in the image to the right, my browser wasn’t very happy with that.
Naturally, I did…