Stardust Global Ventures

A couple of days I ago I said I was finished talking about VoIP. I meant it then, and I mean it now, but there’s been enough flailing about that I feel compelled to rant.

For a starting point, see VoIP – Is it dead or alive? Or simply boring? .

Friends and colleagues around the industry seem driven to talk about VoIP incessantly. I’m not, and I don’t think they are either, so I’m calling bullshit on a bunch of esteemed friends and colleagues. Doing so because I said:

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.

2009 – No bullshit. No VoIP. Be real and create real solutions for communications.

I’ll call some friends out directly and by name, and pose an invitation. Or perhaps a challenge.

Alec Saunders of the “VoIP is dead” side of the conversation wrote 2008: The Year that VoIP died, which he then followed up with VoIP: “If you hadn’t nailed its feet to the perch, it’d be pushin’ up the daisies!”. I know Alec is kiddingly referring to this a the “VoIP fire” and I expect him to pour a little more gasoline today, perhaps even before I get this posted.

I’d offer that Alec isn’t really arguing that VoIP is dead. He knows how widespread it is. He notes the failure of VoIP pure play companies, but pure play in an sector is risky and I think we can pick just about any piece of the industry and find plenty of pure plays that have failed. Niche solutions don’t have the breadth required for sustainability in many cases. Alec moves from that thread to talking about what are mashups or converged successes that operate around VoIP – not pure plays, but integration plays.

Jeff Pulver wrote that VoIP is NOT Dead!, saying that “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.” Jeff quickly moves into the contunuum of the IP communications industry. And he asks how many declaring VoIP dead were actually involved in the industry when he introduced the concept of “purple minutes” to which I look around and easily say all of us.

Jeff’s real focus, in his own words, is on the “promise of IP Communications” that’s a whole lot bigger and more tangible than VoIP.

Then we’ve got a couple of my brightest friends chiming in as well. Dameon Welch-Abernathy (aka Phoneboy) says in VoIP: OUT for 2009 that he agrees there’s innovation going on in VoIP (agreeing with Jeff Pulver, Andy Abramson, and Jon Arnold. But he immediately follows with “However, those innovations are services. Companies like Fonolo, Jajah, Mobivox, iotum (makers of Calliflower), and others are using technology that has existed for years in new and exciting ways.“

Dameon summed it up nicely – Normal people don’t care abut VoIP.

Amen brother! Preach it.

Then there’s Ted Wallingford. I’ll tell you I think Ted’s the Rodney Dangerfield of unified communications. He’s so busy working with his head down and nose to the grindstone – doing real work in the real world – that he doesn’t get the respect he deserves for the wisdom and balance he brings to our industry. He gave us 10 points about the death of Voice over IP and the followed up a day later with Those with VoIP’s blood on their hands….

I’ll summarize the home run point of this in a simple statement from Ted – “in this neck of the woods, something is dead when people quit talking about it.“

So who’s talking about VoIP? Really? Alec, Jeff, and a bunch of us inside and on the periphery of the industry in a huge freaking echo chamber. And we (yes, I include me, and shame on me for writing about this bullshit again) aren’t adding value in any way. We’re quibbling over semantics. We’re beating a dead horse and listening to the wind blow while we flap are own jaws.

I have to say it again:

So guys, bullshit on you. And on me. We’re doing nothing productive by continually using VoIP as a frame of reference. Frankly, I think you’re doing yourself, your customers, and our industry a disservice by trying to frame the conversation around VoIP. You’re bullshitting yourselves and everyone else if you think VoIP, as a protocol, as a transport mechanism, or even as a service, is the core value proposition that’s going to help ANY business win in 2009. It’s nothing but a fringe piece of the communications issue. Yes it’s vital to unifying communications, but you know what? That’s been done. And all we’re seeing now is incremental, unexciting change. And trying to whip up a frenzy by declaring VoIP dead or a live is just plain bullshit.

Sheryl and I talked about this, so we’re extending an invitation. We’re going to host a, open, public conference call on Calliflower on Monday evening, January 5th at 6PM Pacific time. You’re all invited. I mean ALL of you. Anyone who’s interested. The whole Internet is invited. You’re all impacted. We’ll send personal invitations to the people mentioned in this post, but everyone is invited to listen in. We’ll be sending lots of Facebook invitations. It could be a lively conversation. And we’ll ppost it here as a podcast afterwards for those who can’t make it live.

This call will be some simple questions, and my esteemed colleagues will get a chance to answer. Sheryl will moderate the call. Here are the questions:

1. Do you truly and honestly believe VoIP is a vital, growing technology that’s of any interest to customers?
2. In ten words or less, what do you think the single hottest niche segment within the unified communications space is for 2009? Depending how many we get, we may discuss these in more detail, because I think this is where the meat of the conversation we’re circling around lies.
3. In ten words or less, what do you think is the single most talked about but unlikely to drive real change and innovation technology in 2009? Where do you think time, effort and money are being wasted?
4. What one company or service do you think will take the industry by storm in 2009?
5. What one spectacular flameout do you think is coming in the industry in 2009?

We’ll address three of those five questions. As the moderator, Sheryl will decide which three.

One more time:

Game on!

VoIP: Dead or Alive? http://apps.facebook.com/calliflower/conf/show/43921

Technorati Tags: Alec Saunders, Jeff Pulver, Dameon Welch-Abernathy, Phoneboy, Ted Wallingford, VoIP, unified communications, kicking a dead horse.