In my list of what VOIP is going to be in 2008, the first point is “solving a problem“. I hope to see more and more services where VOIP and IP Communications in general are used to solve a problem, to offer a solution to something that is making someone lose time, money or simply makes someone’s life better.
In most of my public speeches I use to say that Vonage, Packet8 and others POTS replacements are not innovative VOIP services but normal telephony. If the UE is the same, I have a telephone and can make phone calls, I call it telephony. It doesn’t matter the technology behind it, it’s telephony, period. Most of the services offered to me by those players are basically available with “traditional” telephony also. Don’t get me wrong, they offer great services but we need more, we finally need a powerful and effective leverage of IP.
In Italy the way we use the telephone is drastically changing, mobile operators are invading customers’ premises with FMC offerings and some of them are trying to push mobile services at home, without the need of being bounded to a telecom operator’s wire, whether it is VOIP or not. That should be an clear alarm for many players… But I know in the US the story is much different… At the same time I ask myself: how long will it last?
That being said, for VOIP in 2008 I want new services that are strictly linked to what I do everyday and let me save time and money and make my life better. I praise guys like Thomas Howe, Alec Saunders and many others that are working hard to bring a new dimension to IP Communications, adding a social flavor and merging it into business processes and daily activities, that can be really improved thanks to IP Comm. Calls or IMs activated thanks to specific triggers, complex actions performed thanks to voice recognition or next generation IVRs, presence-based services well integrated in our business activities.
For 2008, I bet VOIP will be more and more a problem solver. I really look forward to it.
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