Disruptive Telephony

Congrats to the folks at Skype as they cross over the milestone of having 35 million users online at the same time, just a week after crossing over the 34 million mark! That's certain a great accomplishment and the recent growth is quite interesting.

It's not entirely clear to me the source of the growth, but perhaps it is most attributable to the Windows Phone beta version of Skype they released last week. Any Skype users with Windows Phones (and given that they are part of Microsoft now there are probably a good number just within Microsoft) are now going to have a way to stay online more. Perhaps it's also the new Skype-enabled TVs. Regardless, it's great to learn of the growth.

Of course, on the Mac 5.5 version of Skype I can't see the growth myself as there still seems to be no way to see the number of online users in the Mac client.

As I wrote about way back in November 2010, the Skype 2.8 client used to show the number of online users in the lower right corner of the client:

Now that number is nowhere to be seen. As I noted in that article, with the early 5.0 version for the Mac there was a "/mac users" command you could type in a chat window to get the number, but that command no longer works in the 5.5 client.

So I haven't a clue how we in the Mac world can know for ourselves the number of people online.

[3/6/12 8:24:01 AM] System: There are 32,145,771 Skype users online

Not that it really matters... I mean... I'd far rather see a Skype developer work on giving us the ability to see multiple chat windows simultaneously (like Skype for Windows users can) than to work on a way to display a number that is perhaps only of interest to techies like me. Still, it would be fun to have some way to see it. (And the lack of such a display is probably why I haven't written about milestones like this since back in January 2011 when Skype crossed over 27 million.)

I left a comment asking about this on Skype's blog post, but it hasn't yet been approved. We'll see if it gets posted and if there is an answer.

Regardless of all of that, I'll again say CONGRATULATIONS to the folks at Skype... and I'm looking forward to seeing Skype's continued growth in the months and years ahead.

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If you are interested in the future of telecommunications / telephony, you really need to go over and read his piece:

Peak Telecoms

A teaser:

The telco voice and messaging business is on the verge of going into meltdown. As this is where the margins come from, the problem is hard to exaggerate. The drip-drip of links about declining voice and messaging volume and revenue is becoming a small stream. Even mobile telephony is losing ground in competition to asynchronous messaging. Twitter and Facebook message volumes are exploding, and SMS is beginning to sink. Termination and roaming are endangered species, hunted by packs of voracious regulators. There is no way back. When I started writing Telepocalypse back in 2003, the only thing I got wrong was the timing.

Cue the song "It's The End Of The World As We Know It"...

Well done, Martin, well done!

Image credit: gmacorig on Flickr

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Seriously? Digium is coming out with phones???

• Crystal clear HD Voice
• Simple setup and installation
• Tightest integration with Asterisk
• Built-in & custom applications
• A built-in "app engine" JavaScript API

There will be three models available:

• D40—An entry-level HD IP phone with 2-line keys. Priced at $149.
• D50—A mid-level HD IP phone with 4-line keys and 10 quick dial/BLF keys with paper labels. Priced at $179.
• D70—An executive-level HD IP phone with 6-line keys and 10 quick dial/BLF keys on an additional LCD screen. Priced at $279

The news release indicates they will be available in April and are currently on display at ITEXPO this week down in Miami. A datasheet is available

Application Platform

What is perhaps most interesting to me is the "app engine" included in the phone. From the news release:

Digium phones include an app engine with a simple yet powerful JavaScript API that lets programmers create custom apps that run on the phones. They aren’t simply XML pages; Digium phone apps can interface directly with core phone features.

Many IP phone vendors have tried various systems like this to let developers build more apps into the phone with varying degrees of success. What makes Digium different, though, is that it comes from the developer community. The history of people working with Asterisk is the history of tinkering and hacking away on the systems. In fact, in the early days, that was all you could do. No fancy GUIs... just configuration files and cryptic APIs. As a result, Digium has a very strong developer community (they claim 80,000+ developers) who just may be able to make use of this new API.

What remains to be seen is what kind of applications you can really build with these phones - and how easy it is to install and or use these apps.

Are They Crazy?

But are they crazy for entering the already insanely-crowded IP phone market? Particularly at a time when enterprise smartphone usage is increasing - and may often be the preferred communication medium? And when people are becoming increasingly comfortable with softphones, courtesy largely of Skype and "Unified Communications" desktop apps like Microsoft Lync and similar apps from Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, IBM and more?

I completely understand that Digium would want to make the Asterisk "user experience" much easier and simpler. Particularly as Digium continually seeks to move beyond their traditional more developer-centric audience into businesses and enterprises. Many of those folks want a system that "just works." If they can order a system from Cisco or Avaya that comes complete with the IP PBX, IP Phones, etc. and it all just works, they may choose that over a less-expensive but harder-to-put-together solution using Asterisk.

As these new Digium IP phones are "designed exclusively for Asterisk and Switchvox," they should remove that pain and make it much simpler to get an Asterisk solution up and running. (Side note: Does this "designed exclusively" phrase mean they won't work with other systems? Or just that they work better with Asterisk? UPDATE: Digium's Kevin Fleming answered in the comments - the phones are SIP phones that will work with any system for basic features.)

Still, the IP phone space is incredibly crowded. One vendor of VoIP products, VoIPSupply.com, lists 382 results for IP phones. A quick scan of that list will show you names like Polycom, Snom, Grandstream and Aastra, all of whom have been typical phones used with Asterisk-based systems. (As well as Cisco, Avaya and other more "traditional" telecom players.)

What will these new direct-from-Digium IP phones do to the relationships with those other IP phone vendors?

Much of Digium's early business was with PSTN gateway cards that you could install into your computer. With much of that market moving entirely over to SIP trunking or SIP-based gateways, is the IP phone line designed primarily to replace that fading revenue line? Or to simply provide another revenue source for the company - perhaps at the expense of partners?

And what is the state of the market for IP phones, anyway? Analyst firm Frost and Sullivan says the market for SIP phones will continue growing and NoJitter's Eric Krapf has reported that IP phone vendors are seeing strong growth.

Still, with the "consumerization of IT" and the "bring-your-own-device" movement as people want to use their iPhones, Android phones, iPads, tablets, etc., it seems a curious move to launch a brand new line of IP phones.

However, Digium - and Asterisk - hasn't gotten to where it is by following the conventional wisdom. If anyone can carry off the launch of a new IP phone line, they may be able to do it. It will certainly be interesting to see where this takes them.

A new IP phone line... in 2012?

I would never have thought I'd be writing about that.

What do you think? Crazy move? or smart?

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Kudos to the LaughPong team for doing this!

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I'm there with my team from the Internet Society and one of our primary purposes will be to get a sense of the state of IPv6 support - or NOT - among consumer electronics providers. As large carriers look at how they can roll out IPv6 within their networks, having home equipment that supports IPv6 will become more important in the years ahead.

At the show, we will be meeting with some vendors who want to understand more about how to move their products to IPv6 and also talking with media about the launch of our new Deploy360 site to help accelerate the deployment of IPv6 and DNSSEC. We'll also be part of a presentation on Saturday with a representative from Comcast explaining IPv6 issues to a IEEE conference for consumer electronics vendors.

And, of course, we'll be walking all over the show floor seeking out vendors who have IPv6 support. We'll see what we find!

On a personal note, it will be interesting to go to CES. While I've attended hundreds of shows/conferences over the years, including the even larger CeBIT show over in Germany, I've never made to CES before this year. I've heard a great amount about the madness there, of course, and watched the coverage from afar. So it will be interesting to be on the ground there.

You can, of course, expect that I'll be tweeting a good bit both from @danyork and @deploy360 (although a colleague of mine may be doing most of the tweeting from that account). I'm also planning to put up some posts on CircleID related to what I find... and of course the Deploy360 blog.

IF YOU ARE OUT AT CES and want to connect, please shoot me an email, call me or ping on Twitter.

Let the fun begin...

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When I joined the staff of the Internet Society back in late September, the project I joined was charged with looking at questions like that and developing a means to promote online resources that would help speed up the usage of IPv6 and DNSSEC.

Yesterday, after a long 3 months of hard work, we formally announced what we are now calling the "Internet Society Deploy360 Programme" located at:

http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/

On that site, you will find real-world deployment information about how to get started with both technologies. Case studies, how-to documents, links to other sites, and much, much more...

THIS LAUNCH IS JUST THE BEGINNING!

The site is certainly incomplete... we wanted to get the site out there and now my task over the months ahead is to fill the site up with answers to questions and pointers to new information.

We're not looking to add ALL the information found on the web about IPv6 and DNSSEC, but rather the best information we can find.

And where we can't find information that answers specific questions, we'll be creating new materials either directly ourselves or with partners. As an example, I'm working right now on some tutorials about how to add DNSSEC support into Firefox, and how to configure DNSSEC for your domain at a couple of different registrars.

And let me tell you, it is EXTREMELY clear to me now that this program(me) is definitely needed, as many parts of both DNSSEC and IPv6 are in desperate need of geek-to-common-language translation! Just sorting through some of the steps myself, it's very clear that there's a good bit of pain that needs to be taken away...

To that end, we will be constantly adding new material and resources as we both find and create new content - both in text, video and other forms.

Our goal is also to help foster the conversation around these topics, and so we'll have a constant stream of blog posts and will, of course, be engaging via many forms of social media. You can be part of what we are doing by:

• following @Deploy360 on Twitter
• liking our Facebook page
• adding our Google+ page to a circle
• subscribing to our YouTube videos
• following us on SlideShare

and I would definitely encourage you to join us on as many of those channels as you use. We're also actively seeking volunteers to assist us and have been rather humbled and pleased by the great amount of interest and support we've already seen.

I'm excited to get this project out there... and am looking forward to the months ahead as we build the momentum to help get both IPv6 and DNSSEC more widely deployed!

Please do take a look around the Deploy360 site. I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions you have. Are there other questions we can be answering? What are the barriers you have found to using these technologies? Are there sites or resources that you found very helpful that we don't have on the site yet? Please do let me know! Drop me an email, fill out our feedback form, ping me on one of the various social media... heck, leave a comment to this blog post! Somehow... I'd love to know what you think.

And with that, I'm off to write some content...

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Is Skype now "boring" in 2011? That's the question Phil Wolff raises over at the Skype Journal in his post "Skype is boring".

Phil points out, quite correctly, that Skype is no longer the scrappy little startup intent on disrupting the entire global telecommunications industry.

They've done that.

Telecom has been disrupted.

As I wrote about back in August 2011, Skype has accomplished a great amount in its eight years of existence... completely destroying the expensive costs of international telephony, bringing video telephony to the masses, introducing people to wideband audio, demonstrating that you can have secure VoIP... and so much more...

But as we enter 2012, Phil offers a number of reasons why Skype is now "boring". His main points are:

• Skype is a top dog, not an underdog.
• Skype is one-sixtieth of the Microsoft behemoth
• Skype is less unique
• Skype didn’t look innovative in 2011. Or 2010. Or 2009. Or 2008.
• Skype staff don’t talk to the public.
• Skype abandoned its revolutionary People’s Product identity,

(read Phil's post for his full description)

And he notes the current status of Skype:

Skype should end 2011 with about a thousand employees, about a billion dollars in sales, a portfolio of more than a dozen clients and a few platform products, and hundreds of millions of users.

Most of Skype’s work in 2012 will be more of the same. Getting new users. Holding onto existing users. Inducing users to Skype more. Putting Skype on more devices. Keeping the network running. Boosting ARPU. Diversifying revenue.

Sadly, I must agree. I used to write about Skype all the time here. But I don't as much any more, in large part because, like Phil, I don't tend to find Skype as interesting to write about as it once was.

Instead of the little company taking on "the Man", Skype has now become "the Man". Heck, Skype is even now owned by Microsoft... who pretty much defines "the Man" in terms of the corporate enterprise.

I don't see this as a bad thing, actually. It shows the success of Skype to fundamentally disrupt and change the telecommunications industry. There is still MUCH more disruption that needs to happen, and it will definitely be interesting to see what role Skype plays in all that.

Will we see exciting and innovative things coming out of Skype in 2012? Will they be revolutionary? Or simply evolutionary?

Can Skype rekindle some of the passion that users had for the company now that they are as big as they are? (and part of Microsoft?) As Phil asks, should they even try?

Will the writing about Skype move now from the bloggers and media sites that focus on the leading edge to more of the "enterprise" sites such as those from industry analysts? (Has it already?)

What do you think? Is Skype now "boring"?

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Here in the USA, this is something that many of us think about in these final days. It's a last chance we have to make tax-deductible donations that can then be used to potentially lower the taxes you pay to the US government when we go through all that fun over the next few months.

Now, there are admittedly a zillion great causes and organizations out there to whom you can give donations. Local organizations, global organizations, relief organizations, churches and religious groups, arts organizations, environmental groups, sports groups, school groups, cancer and other research organizations... so, so many...

In the midst of all that, I'd also encourage you to think about possibly making donations to organizations helping in the fight to maintain an "open Internet".

2012 promises to be a challenging year for the Internet... not just with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it's PROTECT-IP cousin here in the US... but with similar legislation cropping up all around the world. With various governments seeking to put restrictions on the Internet in their country. With upcoming global telecommunications treaties and discussions. With various industries who have been severely disrupted by the Internet. With large companies wanting to lock people in to specific platforms and systems. With... with... with... the list goes on and on...

The Internet has now become a critical communications medium with so many players out there now believing they should play a role.

We need to ensure that the Internet remains open for "permissionless innovation"... for access to the services and applications we want to use... for access to everyone all around the world...

And unfortunately, the powers that would like to close and restrict the openness of the Internet are also powers that have a ton of money and a ton of lobbyists, lawyers and more.

So if you are looking for a way to help make a difference in 2012, may I suggest please helping out some of the organizations that are out there fighting to keep the Internet open?

There are again, many such organizations fighting the good fight for the open Internet, and I'm sure all of them would welcome the contributions. If you aren't aware of any such organizations in your region, here are four I personally believe are doing valuable work:

• Internet Society (ISOC)
• Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
• Public Knowledge

And yes, I'm now a staff member for the Internet Society but I've been a donor to ISOC for several years prior to joining as a staff member in September. There are also many other groups helping in local areas throughout the world.

THE POINT IS TO DONATE TO SOME ORGANIZATION TO HELP KEEP THE INTERNET OPEN!

Or even more than one! If you're in the US, you have a little over 24 hours to make those final contributions.

We've got a wonderful resource in the open Internet we have today... let's keep it open!

P.S. The four organizations I list above are all 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations under US tax law. If you are looking at other organizations you will want to just check to ensure that donations to them are in fact tax-deductible (if your point right now is donate for tax purposes).

P.P.S. There are, of course, many others working in complementary ways... the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is doing great work on critical privacy issues. I love all that the Sunlight Foundation is doing for open government and there are so many more. All of them could use donations!

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Jumping online this morning I noticed this trio of great posts yesterday about Windows Phone 7 and why it hasn't taken off. The discussion was started off by Charlie Kindel, a former Microsoft general manager:

• Windows Phone is Superior; Why Hasn’t it Taken Off?

MG Siegler weighed in on his blog with:

• The Windows Phone Problem in Three Words: Way Too Late

And Robert Scoble posted a comment on Charlie's post that led then to his own post:

• Oh, Charlie, you should have been here for Christmas

The comments on both Charlie Kindel's and Robert Scoble's posts are also worth reading. There were other articles on this theme, but these were the three I found most useful.

As to my own opinion, I'm definitely in Scoble's camp (to which Siegler also agrees):

It's ALL about the apps!

The device formerly known as a "mobile phone" is now a device to access all sorts of services, information, games, Internet sites and to send messages to people... and, oh yeah, it can make phone calls sometimes if you really want it to.

It's all about the apps... and until Microsoft is able to truly foster a strong application developer ecosystem it will remain, like RIM, a minor player in the mobile market.

Image credit: microsoftsweden on Flickr

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P.S. And I imagine that this little bit of snow may have been more snow than a few of those Floridians had ever seen! :-)

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