Voice and mobility to drive IP services

Thanks to Curtis Franklin for filling in over the holiday season. starting the year amid the hoopla that is CES2008 is a dangerous distraction for anyone trying to make sense of the fast moving IP communications space. But amid the gaggle of new product and alliance announcements two trends seem obvious: First there is a welcome transition from a fascination with VoIP as a technology to voice as a service. This is most apparent in the unified communications space where vendors and service providers are bundling applications to improve business efficiency and productivity. Expect to see significant activity around this whole area as companies push out their IP boundary. This will include the video comms space as the emergence of IP based video applications spill into traditional voice sectors.

The second and most obvious trend is the continuing innovation around the mobile/wireless arena with IP based applications expected to flourish and as industry heavyweights seek to ensure they are part of the action. Finally a correction: Monday's newsletter item about VoIP's worst of 2007 wrongly described Google as the owner of Skype. eBay owns Skype.--Tom