eComm 2008 Coverage I
With sessions from 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. there's a lot to be covered out of this event; yet, with very limited WiFi access, it's not feasible to do any blogging during the event. Andy Abramson has managed to provide a summary of the first day's coverage in both mainstream media and onllne weblogs.
Jonathan Christensen's leadoff keynote Wednesday was able to set the stage describing (from the perspective of a then Microsoft employee) of how Internet infrastructure evolved that allowed Skype to arrive on the scene in the summer of 2003 and become the main discussion point at Fall VON 2003 largely because its development had ignored SIP and deployed its own protocol to realize the original SIP vision of multi-modal communications. Bottom line was that having an easily installed VoIP client allowing calls at no cost had brought in over 500,000 downloads during Skype's first two months of availability. And the SIP promoters had been left out of the picture creating lots of controversy. A more detailed report on Jonathan's presentation, which included a discussion of Skype's rich Mobile Internet Communications going forward. In the meantime check out The Register's report on a dialog between Jonathan and David Isenberg re eBay's involvement with Skype.
Several presentations, including those from Ribbit, Voxeo, Voxbone and IfByPhone have included, within their conceptual service architecture, Skype as a peer level component to SIP for ensuring truly globally accessible voice enhanced services.
iSkoot's new CEO Mark Jacobstein made his initial public appearance (and sponsored Wednesday's lunch) to talk about how the iSkoot architecture presents the most viable solution, in today's mobile architecture, for accessing Skype from a mobile phone. Complementing the architecture is a business model that is carrier friendly. As proof of concept in a commercial setting, he presented information on the highly successful launch of the 3 Skypephone in the eight countries served by 3 .
Coming just before a coffee break, Mark's presentation generated lots of post-presentation informal discussion, especially with respect to the potential for iSkoot's operation on other mobile platforms such as Blackberry, Nokia and Windows Mobile devices. (Mark is not in the picture above.)
Ben Lilienthal, VAPPS CEO, (shown on the left) gave a Lightening Talk update on their HighSpeedConferencing.com service with its ability to support HD Voice for all those participants who come in via Skype. For a quick demonstration to hear the HD Voice difference call +9900827047997030 on Skype or (605) 475-8800, conference ID 7997030 from a PSTN number.
Lots of discussion about accessing services from the most common platform of all, the traditional 12 button phone or handset with over 5 billion in use. Mobivox's COO Nitzan Shaer provided some insight into the issues they have encountered and resolved involving having a "purpose driven" speech recognition capability for their service that provides low cost calling to both PSTN and Skype destinations.. IfByPhone demonstrated how to get driving directions if you know a phone number near your current location (such as on a store windwow) and a phone number at your destination using a Voxeo-hosted service.
More to follow ...
Tags: Skype, eComm2008, VAPPS, HighSpeedConferencing, iSkoot, Mark Jacobstein, Mobivox, Nitzan Shaer, IfByPhone, Voxeo, Ribbit, Jonathan Christensen
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