Bringing sexy back to VoIP - and what's next

After a drought of news this winter, the floodgates have opened wide for the latest on VoIP and Phone 2.0 applications.  It's a big dessert cart, and I can't decide what I like best.

Supreme kudos to Lee S. Dryburgh for organizing eComm 2009. There are a lot of next-generation network/Phone 2.0 thought leaders at Lee's conference this week with companies such as Ditech Networks and Skype discussing the latest cool technology. It is a tradition that the classic (1997-2007, R.I.P) and now-gone VON created, and I'm happy to see that he has orchestrated a successful event that can lay claim to that heritage and role for the next-generation-network community.

However, Jeff Pulver is off the sidelines and calling for speakers for a HD VoIP Summit in New York City in May. I'm very interested to see who shows up. You have to think that the Big Boys (AT&T and Verizon) as well as the cable companies are trying to figure out how to one-up each other over vanilla-VoIP offerings that are simply providing PSTN replacement. I bet someone at Verizon has done some forward thinking on this issue, but the marketing weenies want a demonstrable market before moving out of their comfort zone.

There's also plenty of buzz coming from the Voice 2.0/mashup arena. Thomas Howe will be commuting to Texas as CEO of Jaduka.  Twilio wins the daily double, picking up VC money from Mitch Kapor and highlighting a bunch of clients using their cloud telephony service. (HA! Cloud telephony service! Who would have thought of such a thing 18 months ago?)

Look at Avaya! It announces a relationship with DiVitas Networks for FMC and rolls out a media phone. DiVitas has a lot of interesting things going on behind the scenes, so expect to hear more about them as the year goes on.  And who would have thought that the media phone was going to be a business play so soon? 

The tagline under the FierceVoIP logo has always been "What's next in IP communications." If you've been following FierceVoIP for a while, you will have noticed that our coverage goes beyond simply "voice" and touches upon areas such as FMC, UC, mobile UC, videoconferencing, as well as IP-based applications which just happen to incorporate voice into the picture.

Over the coming weeks, you'll see us continue to broaden our coverage (where appropriate) into more of "What's next" in IP communications, but we're not kicking VoIP to the curb, either.

- Doug [1]