Slashdot Mirror
Michael Robertson Talks VoIP With Voxilla
Vick writes "Two 'Bad Boys' of internet audio, MP3.com's Michael Robertson and Kazaa's Niklas Zenstrom, are done taking on the recording industry. Now their big fight is with the telephone companies and, apparently, one another. In one corner is Zenstrom's Skype, a software-only VoIP product that uses its own protocol and is banking on the huge popularity of Kazaa for its success. In the other corner is Robertson's SIPPhone.com, trying to simplify VoIP, and using the standard SIP protocol, to try to bring internet telephony to the masses. In this Voxilla.com interview, Robertson talks about the future of VoIP and minces no words in explaining why Zenstrom and the Kazaa boys have got it all wrong." (Last month, we posted about Skype.)
Try this one:
Proprietary does not mean bad or unsuccessful.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Kazaa has spyware. So it is bad. You can't trust proprietary software.
Well, if you'd read the article (Or, probably, more likely, if you could actually get to the article, which seems to currently slashdotted) you'd know that Skype is totally propeitary and the mp3.com guy's product is based around an open standard (SIP). The mp3.com guy spends a decent portion of the interview explaining that he thinks Skype will eventually lose out for just that reason, that it is propeitary.
VoIP will not make it unless two things are satisfied:
1. That a standard protocol is established. 2. It is packaged in a convenient form so that minimal effort will be required of people switching from land lines.
The obvious attraction of VoIP is not enough on itself to make it succesful, rather it will need a big push in order to get going. All I have seen so far is that it has barely advanced beyond the simple voice chatting features of an IM client such as ICQ. It needs to become more than just a fancy feature to list out. A standard protocol is without question the key as it was the creation of the 802.11 protocols that allowed WiFi to take off into what it is today. my 2 cents.
Checking out my form of escapism.
Is it just me, or is it really aggravating that Michael Robertson even gets media attention in the first place? This guy makes headlines promoting his(?) new business strategy focusing on The Next Big Thing. Yet every time he's tried, he's failed. MP3.com and Lindows stick out in my mind the most, and maybe there are others.
Really... Roberson isn't coming up with ideas that nobody's ever heard of before, and he sure as shit isn't a marketing genius. So WHY do I keep reading about him in various places? What has he ever done to deserve the media attention that he gets?
In Europe that's pretty much what they'll have to be doing unless they develop a large enough lobby to overthrow the current legislation. Which is unlikely because Europeans can call the US for something like 5 eurocents a minute thanks to deregulation of the long distance industry. (Whomever is in the EU and paying more should hook up with a better company) Overturning that would be fairly impopular with the electorate.
The problem is that ex monopolies like the French telco (> 70b euro deb) or Dutch telco (>50b eur debt) might not survive it so euros will probably pay for it in salvation tax....
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.