Skype Journal: The Blur of Fall VON

The blur called Fall VON is behind me; I'm heading home with lots of material for more detailed posts. But a few highlights:

Meeting, and actually talking with, "Skype chat mate" Helen Khais who traveled from Odessa in The Ukraine (IM+ for Skype) after five months of Skype chats as our only communications mode (other than the odd email); Helen is normally seven time zones distant. Helen participated as a panelist in the Goin' Mobile with Skype session. And when we found that it was Russell Shaw, who frequently links to Skype Journal posts, at the same table, we had to take a photo of the three participants in a thread last summer (of course the posts involved using Skype via Blackberries and iPhones), all with their Blackberries running IM+ for Skype.
Learning more about how IP-based services continue to drain the world of communications hardware and their replacement by hosted services: OnState's ACD Call Center that eliminates the need for a call center PBX while adding chat, SightSpeed with their newly released business video conferencing service and Junction Networks' OnSIP hosted PBX are three examples that come to mind immediately. (And we saw slides of smashed desktop phones at a session on European developments and mobile PBX's this morning and predictions of their demise by 2010.)
Meeting Thomas Howe (pictured) and Patrick Murphy of The Thomas Howe Company and learning more about their enthusiasm for developing services that embed voice within an application, especially when it comes to facilitating business processes, healthcare procedures and organizational team building. Thomas participated as a panelist in several sessions in the Innovator's Track and led at least one. (About the Bruins sweater: I was haunting the Boston Bruins on Hallowe'en with a Brad Boyes team sweater; the Bruins traded Brad, my long time neighbor, to St. Louis last March; this season he is on a goal-a-game pace -- to date: 9 goals in 9 games -- now turning out to be one of the most lopsided trades in NHL history.)
Participating in a most unique forum: Andy Abramson's annual Blogger dinner where we had many of the bloggers in the VoIP space along with many of the innovators in the IP communications space, several of whom are Andy's clients. Andy had the unique ability to make sure all 35 or so of the attendees heard the entire conversation. More later but one of the key discussions centered around keeping voice communications simple if we hope to see mass adoption of the potential for enhanced conversations. Alec Saunders provides his perspective.
My first participation as a panelist at VON where I provided an overview of Skype and VoIP on Mobile, based on my recent post on Mobile Conversations, at the Goin' Mobile with Skype session. Recognizing the draw of the Skype name, we had 40 to 50 very interested attendees. This session will be the subject of a future post but the presence of a 3 Skypephone (lower right in the picture) certainly piqued interest. On the right three mobile devices in a Skype chat session.
A session Thursday afternoon on HD Voice. Perhaps the most informative session for me in terms of learning about the development of voice technology and the importance of wideband voice in facilitating more comprehensible conversations, whether on VoIP, landline or mobile devices. HD (or broadband) Voice is becoming a feature for differentiating voice services, as we have seen with HighSpeedConferencing.com -- and in many respects, Skype triggered and led this movement as was recognized by a couple of session speakers.
A session on hacking of iPhones and why, with the announcement of a forthcoming SDK, there is no sustainable business case for hacking iPhones at this time as a business Sign on the right was sighted at a kiosk in the mall of the Prudential Center in downtown Boston. A most interesting interview with the kiosk proprietor on developments in this space..
Most prevalent mobile devices in use at Fall VON:: Blackberry and iPhones. (and I have a good feel for when iPhone will be launched in Canada; do not plan to give one as a Christmas present.)