VoIP – Is it dead or alive? Or simply boring?
I’ve been following a thread of conversation that’s got friends on both sides of the major non-question of the year end. Is VoIP dead or alive?
Here are examples from each side, followed by something to back up my views below.
From the dead side, Alec Saunders
2008: The Year that VoIP diedIt seems highly likely to me that at some point in the future we’ll all look back and say that 2008 was the year that the VoIP industry finally died. With all due respect to my very good friends Jon Arnold, and Andy Abramson, it’s about time.
Voice over IP is just a transport and signalling technology. It’s plumbing. It may come as a surprise to some of you to know that in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s there was a TCP/IP industry as well. TCP/IP is inarguably plumbing. As the IP stack became common on all computing devices, TCP/IP went from being a differentiator to a commodity. The short lived TCP/IP industry was a footnote in the events that spawned the global web. The fact that a VoIP industry has existed is a similar historical footnote to the transformation of the communications industry as a whole. The VoIP industry was a necessary phase in that transformation; John in the wilderness announcing that the real action is still to come.
And what is the evidence that the VoIP industry is at that turning point?
And from the alive side of the table, Jeff Pulver
Today is December 31, 2008 and I find it real interesting some of my friends have declared 2008 as the year that VoIP died.
On the eve of 2009 the promise of VoIP is alive and well and living in the hearts of many people who believe in the future of innovation in communications. Ask many of my friends including: Vint Cert, Henry Sinnreich, Joe Rinde or Daniel Berninger and they would agree with me that one day the vision and the promise of end-to-end IP based communications WILL happen. The Internet communications revolution is STILL happening. In fact, we are living in an Internet Communications Continuum.
And for accuracy in supporting what I’m going to say, here’s my own post from just over a year ago
12/18/2007More on VoIP as PlumbingMy friend and colleague Matt Lambert over at Conversationware posted this yesterday in response to my post A Brief Look at 2007 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It’s a worthwhile read, and I ose Matt a note of thanks. Unknowingly, it was an email exchange we shared that led me down that line of thinking.
I thought it was worth revisiting this, especially after reading my friends at FierceVoip claiming VoIP crusader recants. (And a small ego note, it’s Ken Camp, not Champ).
More and more it has seemed to me that VOIP doesn’t matter. I don’t see this discussed on mainstream communications news sites, presumably it’s a question of who pays their bills through advertising.
First, I don’t think I’ve recanted much, but I will explain. Second, the plumbing analogy is certainly getting a bit long in the tooth, but this seems a good time to elaborate.
The post on FierceVoIP says
Don’t know if I would call all those edge controllers, QoS monitoring, security systems and media gateways mere plumbing, but I do agree that selling voice as a service rather than a technology is where the market is heading.
‘m not sure I’d either agree or disagree, but what I will say is that infrastructure, whether it’s SBCs and gateways or VoIP in general, isn’t what customers want. I think the FieceVoIP piece actually supports the point I’m making.
VoIP is not disruptive. It’s over ten years old. It isn’t innovative today. VoIP is a tried and true technology. It’s tested and proven. It’s been carrying massive volumes of voice calls for a long time now. It’s almost what I’d call a legacy technology at this point.
The failing of the unified communications industry segment has been that solution providers aren’t selling comprehensive integrated solutions yet. They’re still selling technology widgets. VoIP is a technology widget that is simply part of the established infrastructure. It’s not new. It’s not sexy. It’s not disruptive.
Customers don’t want to buy VoIP any more than they want to buy frame relay. Customers want solutions to business problems. Selling VoIP is still leaving it up to the customer to solve their own problem by peace-mealing together their own suite of solutions.
In 2008, I expect to see more VoIP companies that can’t move off of selling technolgy into designing and selling integrated business solutions fail in the market. That’s right, fail. And they should fail.
Plumbing parts are a commmodity. You can go to Home Depot and buy everything you need to pipe a house. Great for the do-it-yourselfer indeed. But most enterprise businesses, especially in the SMB space, aren’t looking to become DIY voice providers. They’re in a core business and they’re looking for solutions to their business problems.
So a word to the solution providers out there. Think long and hard about how you really integrate technologies to provide comprehensive solutions. Whether you call it Software Oriented Architecture (SOA) or Software as a Service (SaaS), the focus for the year ahead has to be on business solutions for business problems.
Integrating services, voice – video – data, with business applications like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management and Human Resources Management are going to be the really hot focal points in 2008. That’s where the real need is. And to succeed – to thrive – solution providers can’t offer widgets and plumbing and still win business.
So about a year ago, I claimed that VoIP is plumbing. Now let me repeat myself for emphasis:
VoIP is not disruptive. It’s over ten years old. It isn’t innovative today. VoIP is a tried and true technology. It’s tested and proven. It’s been carrying massive volumes of voice calls for a long time now. It’s almost what I’d call a legacy technology at this point.
The failing of the unified communications industry segment has been that solution providers aren’t selling comprehensive integrated solutions yet. They’re still selling technology widgets. VoIP is a technology widget that is simply part of the established infrastructure. It’s not new. It’s not sexy. It’s not disruptive.
Customers don’t want to buy VoIP any more than they want to buy frame relay. Customers want solutions to business problems. Selling VoIP is still leaving it up to the customer to solve their own problem by peace-mealing together their own suite of solutions.
VoIP is neither alive nor dead. It’s like air or water. It simply is. It’s time to quit kicking that particular dead horse because nobody cares. Yesterday in another post, I likened Cisco to vanilla ice cream – boring.
If Cisco is boring, VoIP conversation has moved down the contunuum to tedious. Yes, tedious. To give credit to my friends and genuinely esteemed colleague on both sides of this debate, you’re picking flyshit our of pepper. Voice services are vital, growing, and important. VoIP is tedious, mundane and debating it is actually a bit of an irritant to many of our readers.
I don’t care if it’s dead or alive. When I wrote IP Telephony Demystified back in 2002, I thought it was hot stuff too. It’s not. And for those of you doubters, think about unified communications. What matters is communications.
2009 is the year of services and customer services. It’s the year of delivering solutions and value. It’s the year of doing things right and delivering what works. It’s not the year of rehashing old protocols that are no more forward looking than copper pipes carrying water in our house.
And I’ll toss in a New Year’s resolution of sorts from Ken this time around. If you want to talk about VoIP, regardless of which side you shake out on, unless you’re really talking about service of some kind that adds value, don’t engage me. I’m not interested. You’re boring me. And if you’re really talking about services and couching it in VoIP terms because you think it will get you visibility or attention, I’ll probably call bullshit on you freely and openly.
Technorati Tags: VoIP, dead or alive, Alec Saunders, Jeff Pulver, Matt Lambert, FierceVoIP, dead or alive, kicking a dead horse, services, voice services, communications, unified communications, Ken Camp
on December 31st, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Nice post Ken, real nice post
Have a great 09
on December 31st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Great read!
It seems to me that the products and services that make use of VOIP are hardly compelling. Certainly not compelling enough for me to abandon more tried and true modes of voice communication such as cellular or plain old telephone.
VOIP providers have missed the window to be an alternative or competitor to traditional services and now they must figure out how to position themselves as a niche in the larger communications space.
For me, VOIP always seems to be a day late and dollar short. Skype is a great way to make free calls, but is useless unless the people I want to talk to also subscribe to skype. By far and away; most of the people I communicate with are very happy in the cellular realm of communicating.
And even though I have skype out credits; it’s far easier for me to pick up a cell phone to make voice calls than to check my internet connection, grab my headset, launch skype and make the call.
So for me, VOIP (via skype) has been relegated to sliver small niche. When I want to do a video call I fire up skype. Otherwise VOIP is simply too much of a hassle for me to worry about.
on December 31st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Thanks guys.
Pat, you have a great ‘09 too. Sheryl and I want to see you again in ‘09 for sure.
Scott, we want to see you, Kathie and JJ too. You’re dead on about Skype. One of Pat’s blog post comments was that Skype will continue to stall, and I agree with him.
Part of my point gets to your issue. It isn’t that you have anything against VoIP. It’s that you want voice service to talk to someone. You, me and everyone else could care less how it gets processed. VoIP is just one way, and it’s not interesting any more.
on December 31st, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Good summary Ken. Plumbing is a good analogy – it’s not the pipe that matters, it’s what you put at either end of it that matters (and sometimes what’s in the middle).
It was exciting for a while, when the technology was new. But it only excited engineers. Unfortunately the engineers then formed companies which offered nothing more than a pipe and a “hey look we’re a telco too!” banner for it. Jeff Pulver summarised it best when he said “they’re all just noise”.
Let’s hope that 2009 is the year of the product. That’s the part that so many VoIP start-ups have failed to produce and why so many have fallen, and they will continue to fall.
on December 31st, 2008 at 5:34 pm
[...] Camp declared the whole discussion boring, noting that he had written the same commentary on VoIP as plumbing at several times in the past [...]
on January 1st, 2009 at 2:34 am
[...] fundamentals have existed for over a decade and I don’t see any major changes on the horizon. It’s plubming, as Ken Camp has said many [...]
on January 1st, 2009 at 9:06 am
Great post Ken.
My take on the VoIP ‘dead or alive’ debate is that all that really matters is what it means to the customer. People want to communicate & they don’t care how the call is routed or the product works as long as it ‘delivers’ in terms of cost & quality. VoIP will continue as a service enabler & people will continue to buy products that provide them with the communication functionality they require.
on January 2nd, 2009 at 8:30 am
Nice one Ken.
As the world goes round we could all do well to revise and change our opinions on technology. For me, the question of what problems are solved by the technology has become the most important question.
VOIP doesn’t really solve a problem because I can already talk on the phone – and actually, the mobile device is the most convenient, most of the time.
Communications technology companies are in danger of missing the point. I don’t want more conversations because it’s cheaper to do so with VOIP. I actually want fewer, ‘more important’ conversations.
As an example, in looking for a communications technology that helps me have more important conversations, I discovered search engines – or they discovered me
– and I now get to talk to new prospects, and what conversations could be more important than that?
But we could do with more technology that assists us with our conversations. Twitter is one I suppose.
Unified communications is another interesting case in point. I’m not sure what problems are solved for me, or the organisation.
Click to dial never really took off…for a reason, and presence doesn’t scale. Although, I suspect making communications easier to use is one benefit (mostly unrealised, but with a few notable exceptions Alec) and communications enabled business processes ensure that important communications happen promptly.
The irony presents itself that the more important the conversation, the less important the cost is.
on January 2nd, 2009 at 11:59 am
[...] For a starting point, see VoIP – Is it dead or alive? Or simply boring? . [...]
on January 2nd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
[...] been reading a lot of interesting thoughtful posts by pals VoIP bloggers like Alec Saunders, Ken Camp, Ted Wallingford, Phoneboy, Garrett Smith, Jeff Pulver, Andy Abramson, Jon Arnold and a few others [...]
on January 2nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Its not just about “voice,” guys! Not only is business communications about other forms of real-time communication, but if you read the headlines, the next consumer generation is into real-time texting as well. California has a new law this year about texting while driving. So, we all know that the carriers may complain about being just “pipes” (“plumbing”), but its also about business process applications, and not just person-to-person contacts.
I haven’t had much time to read everyone’s comments here yet, but I have been writing about UC since before you all figured it out. I am glad to see everyone finally getting to understand the end user’s perspective and new multimodal mobile devices, not just the infrastructure view, that is pushing telephony to IP.
Happy UC New Year!
Art Rosenberg
The Unified-View
on January 2nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I think we’ve all been involved in US as long as you have Art. I found that just a tad condescending and egotistical given the well known histories of the people involved in the conversation.
I don’t think there’s a single person who’s said it’s just about voice. I will argue that *most* of business enterprise apps are about person to person communications, so I’d say you’re talking the same thing we are and it’s all just semantics.
If you’re talking CRM, SFA, HRM and the like, you’re really talking about human interaction and calling it an enterprise app doesn’t change reality.
That said, I’ve also always valued your insights and viewpoints in the industry too, and I’d love you have you join us on the call on Monday if you’re free.
Ken
on January 2nd, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Ken,
Didn’t mean to come across as condescending, but I guess I was jumping in too fast to read what I was writing. As I indicated, since I really hadn’t read all the comments, I may have been reacting to some other pundits who feel they have to explain what UC is all about. (I was particularly disappointed today in a long-time industry writer, who characterized UC as if it were a single, premise-based, real-time system, that did not include unified messaging because presence is of little value for asynchronous messaging.)
Thanks for the invitation, I will try to make it.
on January 3rd, 2009 at 12:14 am
Art,
Thanks for taking the time to read and coming back. I know Sheryl dropped you a note about the call. We’d love it it the time works out and you could join us!
on January 3rd, 2009 at 2:14 am
[...] Ken put another perspective: beyond the dead or alive idea. VoIP – Is it dead or alive? Or simply [...]
on January 3rd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
[...] Ken put another perspective: beyond the dead or alive idea. VoIP – Is it dead or alive? Or simply [...]
on January 5th, 2009 at 8:43 am
[...] Jon Arnold says “it’s not dead yet“. Andy Abramson agrees with Jon. Ken Camp says VoIP is just boring. Jeff Pulver says VoIP is very much alive (and later amplifies that statement). And a zillion [...]
on January 8th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
[...] have weighed in with opinion on the matter, including; Alec Saunders, Andy Abramson, Dan York*, Ken Camp, Jon Arnold, Irwin Lazar, Om Malik, Tom Keating, amongst others. And a little unexpectedly, Jeff [...]
on January 24th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
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