This is the main question that emerges from the discussion taking place over the blogsphere after my latest post on the 10 reasons why VoIP has succeeded.
Moreover, we can split this subject into sub-subjects. What about the enterprise space ? What about consumers ? It was not my purpose. I wanted to take a look at VoIP in general, I wanted to think of why we’re here speaking, making business, attending conferences etc. on VoIP.
First of all, my opinion is: VoIP is a success. And it’s disruptive. According to the author of this great book, “Fast Second“, a “radical innovation” is “disruptive” because “it introduces products and value propositions that change prevailing consumer habits and behaviors in the major way”. What about making phone calls from a computer ? It’s only a part of the whole story, but one of the most important IMHO.
I’m very optimist while looking at VoIP. You know, you can look at a glass of water as if it was half empty or half full. I usually go for the latter. But I don’t think it’s only my point of view. Here at least five basic facts:
- I’m here speaking (or pretending to) about VoIP. I’ve been working in the VoIP space since 1999, in the same company. If VoIP wouldn’t have been successful, maybe I wouldn’t be here. Many of you working in the field of VoIP are basically in the same situation.
- Skype has hundred millions users. Do you think it could ever happen for an unsuccessful technology ? Yes, Skype is a service, but it’s like speaking about Microsoft and Linux.
- VON Events are growing and growing year after year in terms of both attendants and exhibitors. I refer to VON events since they should be the older events on this subject. No, I don’t think it would happen for an unsuccessful technology.
- There are billions minutes handled through VoIP worldwide, by Telecom operators, by Vonage-like services or by Skype-like services, it doesn’t really matter. It was something unbelievable just a few years ago.
Mr. Blog makes good points here, while Aswath basically disagrees with my points. Irwin instead asks if there’s any profitable consumer VoIP service somewhere. Garret also basically doesn’t consider VoIP a success. But he (like me) makes a living through it. Yes, VoIP is still far from being considered as DVDs or TVs, but there’s still much work to be done. By us. It means that we must still work hard but it doesn’t mean that, all this said, it hasn’t been a success.
Stay tuned for more comments around the blogsphere.
Technorati Tags: aswath, garret smith, luca filigheddu, mr blog, irwin lazar, readius, skype, voip
Why I run my blog on Thesis Wordpress Theme
Thesis gives my blog a very professional look with very clean, easy-to-read layout and SEO friendly design. Take a look at my post explaining why I chose Thesis for my blog. Get your Thesis Theme today!
Why I host my blog on Media Temple
Media Temple Grid-Service is a hosting solution which guarantees speed and reliability to my blog. Unlike other shared hosting plans, Mediatemple Grid-Service eliminates the “bad neighbor effect” by distributing the load over several servers instead of confining it to one machine. This redundancy means more stability and virtually no downtime. Get Media Temple Hosting services now!
