With the release of Skype 4.0 for Windows beta 3 a year ago February, Skype first introduced their superwideband SILK codec. A month later at eComm 2009, Jonathan Christensen announced SILK’s availability for third party partners with royalty free licensing of the SILK codec. Since then it has been incorporated into all subsequent releases of Skype for Windows 4.x, Skype for Mac 2.8 and Skype for Linux. Recently Skype announced that the SILK codec will be supported in the next release of Skype for iPhone.

What does the SILK bring? Basically the best quality “in-your-head” audio available for voice conversations. To recall Jonathan Christensen’s highlights at the time the SILK codec was first introduced, the focus was on:

improving the audio bandwidth out to 12,000 Hz (12KHz)

providing bandwidth management to deal in real time with degraded  network conditions

balancing the codec optimization between voice, music and background noise, each of which can have an impact on the overall user experience

overall robustness to provide a more consistent user experience, regardless of network conditions and an individual caller’s voice signature.

From a user perspective, one will notice crisper conversations, easier interpretation of accents and an overall high quality “in-your-head” voice experience.

But there have been other consequences of SILK’s availability:

• The FREETALK Everyman Headset for Skype ensures that users get the full benefit of SILK by providing an audio chip that effectively replaces the PC’s native audio chip to bring consistently the full benefits of the audio quality available with SILK.
• Similarly the more recently introduced FREETALK Freedom Wireless Stereo Headset also supports SILK’s audio bandwidth.
• A push-to-talk offering, Blabbelon, which provides the ability for gamers to communicate in a multi-party voice algorithm used by gamers, has incorporated the SILK codec, setting a new standard for gaming voice sessions.

But here’s the bigger picture: in order to have a voice conversation that takes full advantage of SILK, the end points of the conversation must incorporate the SILK codec and the telecom infrastructure must support the transmission of SILK conversations.

• The three Skype clients make this possible for end-to-end Skype-to-Skype calls between PC’s (and iPhones with the next Skype for iPhone release);
• Invoking SILK in Blabbelon by default results in every call participant’s taking full advantage of SILK since it is incorporated into the SILK client.

Incorporation into Skype for iPhone will only take advantage of SILK should the other party also be on a Skype client. But:

• SILK is not currently supported in the recently released Skype for Symbian.
• Nor will it be used in the Skype clients being developed for use by Verizon customers due to the need to link the user’s smartphone to Verizon’s Skype gateway using the underlying 3G wireless voice channel.
• SILK cannot be invoked on SkypeOut calls to the PSTN.
• Nor is it supported yet on any other third party smartphone or other end point handset or phoneset hardware.

And therein lies the challenge: how does one propagate SILK such that it becomes available beyond the Skype and Blabbelon worlds? Skype has taken the first step by making the SILK codec available royalty-free and publishing the source code. However, for broadest adoption it needs to become a recognized international standard.

Recently Skype has been working with the IETF’s “CODEC Working Group” as one candidate to be considered in the working group’s effort to identify and standardize a superwideband audio codec that could be widely used across IP-based conversations. In a “Speaking of Standards” post earlier today, Skype releases source code for SILK super wideband audio codec – the details…, Voxeo’s Dan York has provided an excellent detailed background, including both the political and technical considerations leading up to the adoption of such a codec as an IETF standard for interoperability across service providers and end point software and hardware suppliers. He concludes with:

Still to be seen is if there are any additional licensing terms from Skype, but overall this is a great step forward for those of us who want to see better overall audio quality on the Internet. Obviously it’s in Skype’s interest to do this so that the CODEC WG might consider SILK as the codec to standardize on versus the others or creating a new one… but still… it’s great to see. What do you all think?

And it sure helps Skype’s case that Skype has recently hired executives who have IETF working group experience such as Director of Developer Relations, Jason Frischl and Chief Technology Strategist Dr. Julian Rosenberg.

Bottom Line: Ever since the launch of SILK, it’s very noticeable when one is not on a SILK call. SILK can bring significant business productivity advantages when there’s less of “can you repeat that?” or simply misunderstanding of the speaking party. It makes everyone in the family more readily understood during those grandparent Skype video calls. It’s all about improving the end user experience.

There are many efforts to incorporate “wideband (8 Khz)” HD Voice into the telecom infrastructure. GIPS has some excellent wideband codecs; Jeff Pulver is running HD Voice conferences. While HD Voice is definitely an improvement on today’s standard PSTN voice calls it is not up to the quality of SILK-supported calls.

However, spreading SILK’s quality of conversation requires not only the appropriate hardware or client software, as described above, but also support of SILK in the telecom back end infrastructure. Having a standard that every player making the conversation connection possible can work towards would be a major step forward in “clearing up the conversation” when on a voice call.

Update: Skype’s Jonathan Christensen provides an update summary about the SILK codec in his Skype blog post “Advances in audio”. He reiterates the focus he described a year ago:

• improving audio bandwidth going from 8 kHz to 12 kHz, meaning that a SILK conversation sounds like you are in the same room as the person you are speaking with
• providing real-time bandwidth scalability to deal with degraded network conditions
• balancing codec optimization between voice, music and background noise, each of which can have an impact on the overall user experience
• delivering a robust solution that delivers a more consistent audio experience, regardless of network conditions and an individual’s voice signature

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• Skype’s new 3G iPhone app to have CD quality sound (venturebeat.com)
• Global Phone Number Provider iNum Brings HD Voice Calling To Skype (techcrunch.com)
• GIPS Explains Its Positioning in HD Voice and Video (voiceontheweb.biz)
• FREETALK Everyman Headset for Skype: A Reprise (voiceontheweb.biz)

During my three plus years of blogging, the most educational and informative conference for keeping up with innovation in the “Emerging Communications” space has been eComm, the Emerging Communications Conference (and now Awards). And now eComm is coming to Europe in two weeks.

Conference organizer Lee Dryburgh and his team of advisors have assembled many of the top thinkers and activists in the IP-based communications space with the goal to “promote and accelerate communications innovation”. On the website’s home page is an outline of the forthcoming changes foreseen:

Telecom is becoming software

Today’s model of the telephony and SMS cash-cows will significantly dry up long-term

“Phones” are becoming general purpose always-on computers

A march is underway to change how spectrum is allocated and utilised

Applications innovation is being democratised

The media industry is converging with personal communications

Internet-style ecosystems are starting to pressurise the traditional value chain

Search engines and computer manufactures are encroaching into the space

App downloads; media content and even communication streams are increasingly routing-around operator’s billing systems

The telecom kingdom is fragmenting daily.

It’s only at eComm that you will find respected experts such as Martin Geddes, Thomas Howe, Alan Duric, Brough Turner, Dean Bubley, James Enck, Jonathan Christensen, Jan Linden and Gerd Leonhard all under one roof at the same time. But amongst the others, there’s always at least one or two who will surprise us and challenge our thinking about how the telecommunications industry will evolve. While we all talk about “networking” from a technology perspective, the personal networking at eComm is just as valuable as the presentations.

Also this week it was announced that Skype has taken on the role of Headline Sponsor of the show while innovative companies such as Voxbone, Voxeo, GIPS and Voice Sage are Platinum Sponsors. Without their support Lee would have to triple the registration fees and probably put the conference out of reach for many of the attendees.

Alec Saunders has bought his tickets to go; have you? Click here for a 10% discount when registering.

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• The Emerging Communications Conference & Awards (gigaom.com)
• Dryburgh: What’s after Skype? Intent. (skypejournal.com)
• Skype Says Next Generation Platform Will Embrace Developers (techcrunch.com)
• Skype for Asterisk Release Marries Skype Calling into Popular Asterisk PBX Platform (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Is WiFi Becoming the Unregulated Stealth Carrier of the Future? (voiceontheweb.biz)

The past Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday I attended my first Canadian Telecom Summit – where Canadian telecom carrier and vendor executives have an opportunity to provide an overview of their goals and directions encompassing both recent accomplishments and future plans. Overall many of the speakers succeeded; however, there are still a few telecom executives who want to preach motherhood. The audience comprised a mix of participants in the Canadian telecom ecosystem including both national  and  independent carrier management personnel, telecom business consultants, regulatory body staff, financial analysts and service providers amongst others.

Some highlights:

Building out a national broadband infrastructure (wireless and wireline). While the country can be considered “covered” with broadband and 3G wireless access, there are a multitude of private companies who have invested several billion dollars to build this infrastructure. Bell Canada, Rogers, Telus and MTS Allstream are the major carrier players but there are several regional or local private operations providing backbone to vertical or regional markets, (Atria Networks, Hydro One Telecom and Internetworking-Atlantic are some examples.)

But doing the interconnect between these players, especially at the wholesale/retail interface, is governed by CRTC regulation. A “regulatory blockbuster” forum, encompassing the heads of government relations for four major carriers and a public policy advocate, brought out several of the issues and conflicts from the participants’ perspective. Multi-billions of dollars are being spent this year to build out fiber and wireless infrastructure. Shareholders want to see return on investment; business and consumer customers simply want value for their charges independent of how the connection is routed. CRTC personnel were in the audience but there was no indication as to whether they heard anything new.

Customer Expectations: Simply put, several of the presenters focused on the customer as the primary consideration and marketing target when it comes to developing services. Lots of talk about how the user experience is changing and will change with the range of new services available via mobile data/Internet. However, execution is the challenge.

From comments by various Rogers personnel related to Net Neutrality (separate post) through to the demonstration of user-friendly interfaces that aggregate local and cloud-based personalization of a mobile device the conference covered a range of end user issues. Both the Palm Pre and Comverse demonstrations provided specific examples of how such aggregation can work to the user’s benefit. Microsoft’s “Surface” table demonstration was pretty amazing but it can only become a consumer experience with a significant price drop from the stated $12,000.

It’s about bringing broadband speeds to mobile services: One common theme across most of the presentations was the exponential growth of user demand for mobile services across the data networks. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazardis used physics as the basis of his talk about the future need for more wireless data network capacity through not only additional spectrum but also scalable applications and, based on an inherent strength of BlackBerry devices since their introduction ten years ago, effective wireless data compression to reduce bandwidth demand.

Rogers Chief Strategy Officer Mike Lee pointed out that current investment in wireless and fiber infrastructure dwarfs all other investment in Canadian ICT combined. Four outcomes that I have experienced this year as a result of these investments: launch of their 7.2 Mbps HSPA wireless service reaching 75% of the Canadian population; fiber-to-the-node installed to my neighborhood cable head, 3G service to two central Canada resort areas which I frequent and, most importantly, a robust, stable 3G service compared to my AT&T 3G roaming experience.

The disconnect: However, I also felt a major disconnect with the emerging communications opportunities being discussed at conferences such as Lee Dryburgh’s eComm Conferences and Jeff Pulver’s recently launched HD Communications Summit. Innovative applications, communications enhanced business processes and the productivity benefits of HD Voice were amongst the subjects NOT discussed at Canadian Telecom Summit. Innovative yet profitably successful services such as Voxeo and Jaduka ride over the carrier networks. Yet the Canadian Telecom Summit was an opportunity missed; it had the audience that needs to hear these stories and to build awareness of the services required to facilitate sustainable revenue streams at the carrier level.

Friend Thomas Howe, CEO of Jaduka and more commonly known as Mr. Mashup, puts it succinctly in a recent post, The Sophomore Slump, concludes with:

My suggestion is simple: instead of putting out another solo album, today’s operators need to team up with other musicians. They need push out of their current ecosystem and into others, showing how voice and communications can make other applications better.

…….

The challenge? Operators need to step back from the spotlight, and give somebody else a turn at the microphone. Operators need to admit that they are not expert at anything other than real time communication. The most rational path is for the carriers to partner with others companies that bring other talents and values to the table, [rather] than to use what operators do best to extend their partner’s offerings.

Bottom line: Canada continues to lead the world in delivering communications over a large geography but with relatively small pockets of population. But, instead of hearing oft-stated platitudes about the need for increased business communications, let’s hear about specific examples where enhanced communications applications and services can deliver true productivity enhancements to the both enterprise operations and the end user while bringing significant benefits to our social communications.

Suggested reading: Thomas Howe’s various posts on The Jaduka Exchange – a primer on new telecom services in action. Especially relevant: Unified Communications? No, CEBP.

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• Bell, MTS at odds in separate appeals of CRTC rulings (cbc.ca)
• Rogers defends wireless pricing (thestar.com)

A few final notes on eComm 2009.

First, conference organizer Lee Dryburgh and the Comunicano team need to be commended and thanked.

With the termination of the eTel conference two years ago, Lee took it upon himself to organize an Emerging Communications conference that would serve to keep a broad audience of communications specialists and evangelists updated on topics that demonstrated the benefits of IP-based communications. Lee did this at his own personal risk; in fact, I believe he took a bit of a loss last year. While he passed break-even this year with a 20% increase in registrations at a new venue, I don’t think his surplus was anything that could come close to appropriately rewarding the time and effort he has put into this event.

Andy Abramson’s Comunicano team provided marketing communications support at no charge to Lee. Many of his team members provided support at the conference; many of his clients made presentations (iotum, Voxbone, Global IP Solutions, Mobivox, Fonolo, IfByPhone). These presentations either outlined an evolving technology or were case studies demonstrating Voice 2.0 in action; none could have been considered as being close to “commercials”. And therein lies the value of eComm; it is an educational and networking forum.

About three months ago Lee, who lives in Europe, sent an email to the eComm Facebook group members asking for suggestions for a Bay Area charity to whom he would present a donation covering 10% of any surplus. I had submitted Shelter Network, providing housing support services for distressed families in Silicon Valley, as a candidate; a few days later Lee sent me an email saying he wanted to support Shelter Network. On Thursday, Amy Wright, a Shelter Network manager, accepted a check for $2,000, a number which Lee had, in the interim, guaranteed as a minimum donation.

Check out Duncan Davidson’s entire eComm 2009 Flickr photostream; the photo above is included.

Lee will continue to post information about content availability on the eCommConf Twitter feed.

Other posts covering eComm 2009:

• Saunderslog: eComm – strong stuff
• Andy Abramson’s VoIP Watch: eComm Was a Hit
• Jon Arnold: eComm 2009 Posts and Photographs
• Martin Geddes: My eComm Presentation with a link to the video we viewed due to his “Error 24: Insufficient Hours In Day” situation at BT.
• Richard Sprague WebLog : eComm 09 virtually
• Dean Bubley’s Disruptive Wireless: Thoughts from eComm
• Fierce VoIP: eComm 2009: Ditech Networks announces toktok voice-enabled web apps service

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• eComm Conference Wrap Up (ubergizmo.com)

Over the past three days there has been a continuous stream of presentations that provide insight into a wide range of issues, opportunities and perspectives in the IP-based communications space going forward. While there will be more posts covering individual presentations, it’s worth taking time to mention a few highlights:

• Most innovative, outside-the-box, presentation: Ge Wang of SMULE (Sonic Mule) and his presentation including recordings of the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPhO). Become your own iPhone musician by breathing gently into the iPhone’s mic using their Ocarina iPhone application (warning: small fee $0.99).
• Most outstanding announcements: three offerings that open up new user experience opportunities in a Voice 2.0 world (Yes, I already blogged about these but they still stand out as winners for both the service providers and end users.)
  • Voxeo: Tropo.com opens up the Voxeo platform,  previously limited to the small population of voice developers, to hundreds of thousands of web developers.
  • Skype: making the superwideband SILK codec available royalty-free to any relevant hardware or software vendor that wants to bring new user experiences to voice calling.
  • Jaduka: the appointment of Thomas Howe as CEO will accelerate the adoption of voice into existing business processes, eliminating the error-prone mundane while opening up new standards for applications such as healthcare procedures, customer satisfaction and service deployment.
• Other presentations of note:
  • Martin Geddes, Head of Strategy, BT: there is value in addressing issues of efficiency and effectiveness inherent to business processes. Martin proposes that the key business model is to satisfy the needs of parties who want to interact with customers; for instance, improve the productivity of call center employees
  • Shai Berger, Fonolo, whose deep dialing service has now mapped out the IVR trees of over 500 companies and presents new opportunities for customer service operations.
  • Mobivox, expanding their voice-activated mobile services platform with their CRM for Voice business tools.
  • iNum, announcing support for IM and presence, initially with Google Talk
  • Alan Duric continues to see ongoing profitability and success at Norwegian service provider Telio. Why? a continuous stream of innovation and new value-added services.
• Some themes and issues across multiple presentations:
  • Spectrum 2.0: several presentations and a panel covering issues related to (the lack of) spectrum management and “white space”. In major markets over 90% of available spectrum remains unutilized.
  • Regulatory issues: the challenge of creating and executing a user-oriented regulatory framework under “the first technology administration”. Network neutrality: is it more a “buzz phrase” than a real issue? Seeding the policy makers with players who understand regulatory issues from both an innovation and business opportunity orientation as opposed to supporting monopolies or duopolies. Aligning regulation with the application potential of emerging communications technology.
  • API’s: several presentations from vendors who provide free API’s that support third party developers in writing applications that are then hosted by the vendor: IfByPhone, Voxeo, Jaduka, Ribbit, Adhearsion (whose Jay Phillips, right, provided a tutorial incorporating programming to Skype for Asterisk),

One note: there were a lot of innovators and forward thinking people amongst both the speakers and the audience. Most interesting was that there were at least six attendees from carriers who were asking the questions about how carriers can adapt to this emerging communications world: SaskTel (2), T-Mobile US, Rogers, NTT. eComm’s biggest challenge for next year will be to attract a larger audience of carrier personnel. In personal conversations I learned a lot about their issues that may work its way into future commentary.

Overall, eComm 2009 once again provided a primer in a wide range of aspects of the emerging communications space. With Thomas Howe leading Jaduka’s CEBP charge into larger enterprises, Voxeo addressing a huge community of web developers, Skype offering new levels of call quality to the entire communications hardware and software community, Fonolo solving that PITA known as punching your way through company IVR systems and Calliflower offering new user experiences in conference calls, the next few months will prove most interesting. Most challenging to observe will be how these technologies and services assist business and personal issues in times of a most challenging overall economy.

Timothy Hay, Wall Street Journal wrote up Jon Arnold’s panel on “New Ways to Monetize Voice” : VoIP Start-Ups Scramble To Find Niche (subscription may be required)

Alec Saunders: eComm – strong stuff

At the BlackBerry  Developer Conference last fall, RIM announced that they would be launching their BlackBerry applications store in March, 2009. While it’s early in March, RIM last night provided significant details leading up to the launch of BlackBerry App World later this month. Rather than doing a launch at some big event, in these times where all costs are under surveillance, they had given several weblogs a “heads up” about a URL which readers could visit after 10 p.m. EST to learn about “an exciting BlackBerry announcement”.

So what did the announcement contain? Links to:

• register as a user at BlackBerry App World (to find the requested IMEI number go to Options |Status on your BlackBerry; this is NOT the more familiar PIN number)
• signup for a PayPal account, should you not have one. Since PayPal is a “trusted” payment system that readily and easily handles multiple currency issues, it will be the sole App World payment channel initially
• get the latest version of BlackBerry firmware (BlackBerry OS 4.2 or later required, note that carrier-specific BlackBerry OS 4.5 upgrades are now available for all 8xx0 BlackBerry Pearl, Curve and 88×0).
• learn more about the BlackBerry App World application submission process

On reviewing the revised Developer FAQ and reading other blog postings, Alec Saunders points out two new details:

• Pricing Tiers: while Tier 1 represents Free applications, Tier 2 starts at $2.99. Obviously RIM expects applications to be of appropriate value in order to start charging.
• Potential for additional RIM revenues related to transaction-based activities within an application: Is RIM putting out market feelers on this subject?

Alec says, “Both are smart moves”. Stop by his post his observations.

The real market action starts once we get to download and install some applications. At eComm 2009 yesterday, we witnessed a very innovative application for the iPhone. Smule’s Orcarina establishes a benchmark, not for the application itself, but for how far developers can bring “out-of-the-box” thinking into taking smartphones to a new level of entertainment and business acumen.

James Kendrick, jkontherun: BlackBerry paid apps to start at $2.99, require PayPal

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• BlackBerry App World minimum paid price: $2.99 (engadget.com)
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Thomas Howe has long been noted for his expertise in developing “Communications Enhanced Business Processes” (“CEBP”). Fundamentally this involves embedding communications facilitation into a legacy business process such as to reduce operating overheads and/or increase employee productivity. From many of the examples I have seen, I would call it eliminating the “intrinsically mundane” from any requirements for human intervention or participation at a given stage in a business process.

Enriched with his unique sense of humor Thomas has spent the past three years evangelizing CEBP through consulting contracts, speaking at seminars and forums and his personal weblog. Today, Jaduka, a provider of business process optimization through “blending real-time communications into critical workflows”, announced that Thomas has been appointed as CEO of Jaduka. Through this appointment Thomas gets to execute on his passion by seeing his vision implemented across a wide range of enterprises of all sizes.

In a Calliflower conference call this morning Thomas provided more details about where he sees Jaduka heading:

“My focus will be on helping our enterprise software partners and customers employ communications to improve efficiency, employee productivity and customer experience. With an API accessed by companies a million times daily and a platform with 1 billion user accounts, Jaduka is well positioned to serve both the $250 billion BPO and $350 billion Telco 2.0 marketplaces.”

• Jaduka is focused on embedding voice into existing enterprise applications; they are NOT a provider of voice applications (see Voxeo for these)
• the Jaduka API is already called upon over one million times per day demonstrating that it is a solid, tested, robust service
• Jaduka has solved the problem of scalability; this is perhaps Jaduka’s leading differentiation from any competitors
• Jaduka is looking to launch a new service that will make it radically easy to integrate voice into current enterprise applications
• Jaduka focuses its marketing efforts on enterprise developers (and not telephony or voice developers); they look to partner opportunities with enterprise software vendors such as Oracle and SAP as well as system integrators.

Thomas was another of Andy Abramson’s “draft picks” for leading change in the conversation and communications space. From my own personal experience interacting with Thomas over the past eighteen months, Jaduka has a winner at the top who can now deliver cost savings and productivity enhancements to many, many enterprises in these economically challenging times.

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• Howe goes to Jaduka (saunderslog.com)

With the launch of Skype for Windows 4.0, Skype delivered its first client incorporating Skype’s new superwideband SILK codec providing a new user experience in voice calling. For example, Alec Saunders in “Skype 4.0 audio: smooth as SILK”:

Perhaps the biggest improvement, though, is audio quality.  We all thought that Skype audio was great, right?  Skype’s internally developed SILK codec slipped into the final release, despite not having been in prior betas. A wideband codec that delivers the goods at half the bitrate of prior codecs, SILK makes talking on Skype a pure pleasure.

The SILK codec will be rolled out with the final release of Skype for Mac 2.8 (currently in beta but without the SILK codec) in April and in the next Linux release (no date given). The coding was designed to allow easy embedding into hardware devices, such as sound cards, headphones and Skype phones. But this still limits the SILK experience to Skype-to-Skype calls. So they looked at the question of how can Skype most readily advance the deployment of this high quality codec  and the resulting user experience at billions of additional voice conversation end points?

At eComm 2009 this afternoon Skype announced, during Jonathan Christensen’s keynote presentation, that the SILK codec will be licensable, royalty-free, to device manufacturers and others; it has been designed independent from Skype signaling protocols such that it can be used in voice streams incorporating the SIP protocol. Jonathan mentioned that there is no requirement to use the SILK codec in conjunction with a Skype implementation.

From an interview with Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s GM for Audio and Video, with Alec Saunders in Skype’s SILKen bear hug: “Further, SILK media streams pass unchanged across Skype’s own media gateways, meaning that SIP endpoints have suddenly become much more compelling in the Skype world”.  Alec goes on to discuss two reasons for Skype’s strategy: (i) to spread superwideband audio everywhere and (ii) to give existing carriers a bear hug. Read the post for details.

In his post on this announcement, Jonathan pointed out what the three year Skype SILK development process focused on:

• • improving audio bandwidth going from 8 kHz to 12 kHz, meaning that a SILK conversation sounds like you are in the same room as the person you are speaking with
  • providing real-time bandwidth scalability to deal with degraded network conditions
  • balancing codec optimization between voice, music and background noise, each of which can have an impact on the overall user experience
  • delivering a robust solution that delivers a more consistent audio experience, regardless of network conditions and an individual user’s voice signature

I have watched as a wireless carrier attempts at new video calling services are introduced and subsequently fail due to a lack of adoption – the primary reason being there are too few devices out there supporting video calling and thus, there’s nobody to whom one can make a wireless video call. Skype’s announcement today overcomes a major barrier to allowing a much broader user base to take advantage of superwideband audio. It’s a first, but key, step towards a broader goal than “Skype Everywhere”, namely, superwideband audio on all voice calling.

Finally, this afternoon I had a chance to meet many members of the SILK development team who attended Jonathan’s presentation. They deserve kudos and congratulations for all their ground breaking efforts and success in setting new standards in voice call quality.

Developers can find more information at Skype’s SILK website.

Phil Wolff, Skype Journal comments on the SILK performance slides shown at the presentation: SILK performs better

Update: The transcript of Jonathan Christensen’s Codec Evolution and Industry Proposal presentation.

As indicated in previous posts, Voxeo has become a leader in the development and hosting of voice applications. From their website:

Voxeo helps enterprises improve service and lower costs by automating and connecting their most common phone calls with our Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions.

Our IVR and VoIP hosting, turnkey platforms, and developer services – powered by VoiceXML and CCXML – are used by over 35,600 companies to create and deploy any telephone application they desire.

Historically Voxeo has provided, at no charge, resources for C++/Java and Web Developers to produce customized IVR applications that are then hosted at their network operations center. Their developer community has grown to over 35,000 participants. As their expertise has grown they have also developed their licensable Prophecy SIP platform for those enterprises that wish to host their own services using Voxeo’s tools.

Until now their voice applications required the use of the VoiceXML standard which placed limitations on their appeal to the broader developer community. Today, an announcement at eComm 2009 removes this limitation; Voxeo will be providing the tools to support the creation of voice applications in five languages: Python Ruby, PHP, Groovy and ecmaScript:

Tropo is an application platform that enables web developers to write communication applications in the languages they already use: Groovy, Ruby, PHP, Python and JavaScript. Tropo is in the cloud, so we manage the headaches of dealing with infrastructure and keeping applications up and running at enterprise-grade. Tropo is simple to deploy, requires no contracts and no up-front setup costs. With Tropo developers can build and deploy voice and telephony applications, or add voice to existing applications.

Via Voxeo’s new Tropo platform built on their existing infrastructure, developers can then deploy their applications on Voxeo’s hosted offerings via their Tropo.com portal. Applications can incorporate inbound calling via PSTN, SIP, Skype and iNum while also providing appropriate connections for outbound calling.

Voxeo’s business models simply runs at a cost of 3 cents per minute for use of the service. There are no setup charges or contracts required; payment is via credit card. CEO Jonathan Taylor claims it takes five minutes to set up and deploy via Tropo.com.

Additionally Voxeo announced that the  developers of Adhearsion, a Ruby-based rapid application development framework, will be making their framework support the Tropo platform.

For developers who want to have a deeper look, check out the Tropo launch site where there are incentives for developer participation. One more relevant Voxeo blog post: Get the Tropo sample applications – via git and Github.

Voxeo’s announcement is a major contributor to the evolution of the Voice 2.0 world, opening up opportunities for a much broader community of developers and integrators.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be heading out to San Francisco for eComm 2009. Kudos to organizer Lee Dryburgh, who on his own initiative and at his own personal risk, launched this event last year. Late last week Lee was able to announce that registrations had surpassed last year’s attendance.

Attendees should come away with not only a much better understanding of how this will be a watershed year for telecommunications. The combination of shaky economies, emerging Voice 2.0 offerings and opportunities for more effective personal and business communications is creating a “Perfect Storm” for a watershed year in the communications space. Smartphones, video calling, collaboration services, communications enhanced business processes, communications infrastructure, business models and regulatory issues will all be on the menu. From the eComm press release last week:

Included among the dozen keynote speakers and scores of other presenters over the three days of eComm2009 are:

•    Ge Wang, assistant professor at Stanford University and co-founder, CTO and chief creative officer of Smule.com;
•    Jonathan Christensen, general manager for audio and video at Skype;
•    John Forsyth, vice president of strategy at Symbian;
•    Malcolm Matson, founder of the OPLAN Foundation and entrepreneur;
•    Michael Calabrese, vice president, and Sascha Meinrath, research director, both of the wireless future program at the New America Foundation;
•    Tony Jebara, co-founder and chief scientist at Sense Networks and assistant professor of computer science at Columbia University;
•    Media futurist Gerd Leonhard;
•    Richard Whitt, telecommunications and media counsel for Google in Washington, D.C.;
•    Martin Geddes, head of strategy at BT Design;
•    Benjamin Joffe, founder and CEO of +8*;
•   Mark Rolston, chief creative officer of Frog Design.

Sponsors include Skype, MetaSwitch, NEC Sphere, Voxbone, Global IP Solutions, Voxeo, Jaduka, Ribbit and Broadsoft.

I have already been approached by some companies for interviews (although with full days through to 9 p.m., scheduling interviews may be a challenge) and been made aware of announcements coming from Skype, Voxeo and Jaduka. I’m sure there will be others; it will be a most interesting week.

As Lee says at the end of the press release:

Those wishing to register online may do so at  http://www.amiando.com/ecomm2009.html. For an additional $100, attendees may register on site.

And by entering the promotional code “one touch”, you’ll get a 20% discount courtesy of Voice On The Web.

P.S. – Given that there are many these days in need of social assistance, whether food, shelter or otherwise, Lee has announced that “10% of any profit from the event will be given back to the local community by donating it to the Shelter Network (http://www.shelternetwork.org)”, a Bay Area non-profit undertaking that assists families and individuals with housing issues. Lee has personally guaranteed a minimum $2,000 donation and undertook an interesting social networking experiment to help raise additional funds.

Breaking News: Voxeo CEO Jonathan Taylor is to make a significant announcement at eComm 2009. Click on the eComm logo below to register.

When Dan York had to find a new employer in the fall of 2007, he kept hinting he had found a great employer but could not reveal it until he started his position. Turns out that Dan had become employed by one of the true innovators and success stories in the voice applications space: Voxeo, a vendor of IVR and VoIP platforms and services.

I have previously had the opportunity to interview Voxeo CEO Jonathan Taylor for a couple of stories (see links below). I find that Jonathan always has an interesting and informative story to tell. Voxeo is a case study in innovation leading to business success and is a sponsor of eComm 2009 (which means their business must be accelerating). Last week conference organizer Lee Dryburgh interviewed Jonathan and has put both the podcast and transcript up on the eComm 2009 website. Jonathan goes back to his unconventional roots in learning about telecomm and information technology and subsequently contributing to their convergence.

Voxeo turns out to be the outcome of his lack of deep exposure to, or history with, the business side of either telecomm or information technology but rather a passion to figure out “how things work” and “what customer pain” can be addressed by new products and services in a convergent world. He learned early on that, if I solve someone’s problem, the business will come.

In the interview he talks about:

• How he acquired, in one weekend, over 800 access numbers to bulletin boards in the days when “’We’re going to call your grandmother, but let’s only talk for a couple of minutes’.  Long distance was expensive.”
• How his activity led to a visit from the Secret Service. Turns out the Secret Service got a lesson in new communications technology from Jonathan and some of his acquaintances.
• His experience selling storage equipment and Novell Netware LAN’s to large BBS’s (including his first lesson on how  important email would become):

At the time, most BBS software was not multi-line, suffering on DOS, largely.  To build a large VBS [BBS?] was like thirty lines.  You would actually get thirty computers with one modem on each computer and connect them together with Novell NetWare.

• Moving from Sound Blaster to Dialogic cards to solve his problem of “There must be a way to connect a telephone to a computer”. And how it resulted in his first experience with an offering called ”Unified Messaging”: “We accidentally built a unified messaging platform.  We had no idea that there was a concept called Unified…” He went on to build his first business that eventually got sold to MediaGate.

I was thinking about what I wanted to do next.  I kept thinking back to when we first started developing the phone interface for the IRDG Unified Messaging product.  I was remembering, especially as someone not from a computer telephony or telephony background, how unbelievably arcane and difficult it was to get the Dialogic card working right, getting it to work consistently, and then dealing with phone companies to get T1 lines and Wink Start, Loop Start signaling, and DID’s and literally all the stuff I had never heard about. ….

… Right, but I had never heard of before.  I would sit down to have conversations with people and I literally had no idea what they were talking about.  I would just pretend I did and take notes, and then go home and try to figure it out.

• The other key learning from his first company: “’How is it that some of the largest companies in telecommunications don’t have enough people with enough experience to get all this stuff up and running?’  We’ve been doing telephony for eighteen months, now.”
• The three key words that resulted in starting Voxeo: “computer telephony sucks” So how did they make it not suck (in 1999)?

We roughly divided the problem into two domains.  First, it was incredibly difficult, especially outside of telephony, to create applications for the phone, learning all these API’s and the terminology.  We said what if we take web technology and apply it to the phone so you can build a voice application the same way you build a web application.  What would that look like?

The second domain was deployment.  We said rather than selling a box or software to people, and then they have to go deal with carriers or their local phone companies and all that strange terminology and process, we will just pre-deploy it all for customers, in our own data centers, and they can access that platform over the Internet.

Essentially, it was XML-driven telephony development, hosted or what we would now call Software as a Service or cloud-based deployment.

Jonathan then goes on to describe the evolution of VoiceXML, CallXML (built a prototype while at home with pneumonia) and CCXML that became core to Voxeo’s services and platforms. He also talks about being turned down by VC’s because he was only asking for $3 million; his solution to get funding: same business plan, ask for $30 million. And he talks about how Voxeo has leveraged web services into a space that did not understand the potential and value-add of web services a decade ago.

Go to Lee’s eComm 2009 blog post with both a link to the podcast as well as the transcript of the interview to get the full story. It makes a great case study in how technology evolves into a very successful business.

In closing, two comments:

• Columbia Data Products, where Jonathan was first employed, had tape drives that were a key module to a demonstration setup I used to manage for demonstrating graphics plotters for IBM mainframes and DEC/Data General mini-computers.
• At BBS Con which I attended in the summer of 1995, Jonathan should have stopped by the Quarterdeck booth to solve his problem of having a separate phone line for each BBS computer. A significant portion of Quarterdeck’s DESQview sales were to BBS operators so that they could have eight lines coming into a single PC.

Finally I have just confirmed with Lee Dryburgh that Jonathan will be speaking at eComm 2009 and making a significant announcement at that time. Register here and use “one touch” for a 20% discount.

Last day to register today for Regular Pricing; Late pricing applies for registrations after Feb.17, 2009. Enter “one touch” for a 20% discount.

Two weeks ago eComm 2009 organizer Lee Dryburgh observed that:

With the heavy backdrop of economic doom and gloom everywhere I’d been finding it ever more strange that virtually every company I was dealing with in relation to the 2009 conference, was reporting accelerating business let alone [as opposed to] flat or declining business.

Via a Skype multi-party call he held a virtual panel discussion involving:

• Jonathan Christensen (Skype)
• Irv Shaprio (IfByPhone)
• Rodrigue Ullens (Voxbone)
• Graham Brierton (Voicesage)on this topic.

When asked about today’s economy he repeatedly found eComm 2009’s sponsors saying “Oh no, we’re actually doing better, due to the downturn”. So he asked each of the panelists what their offering was doing such as to accelerate their business.

Graham Brierton (VoiceSage):

For example, we had a company that the key thing they wanted to do was bring in their debts cheaper and quicker, instead of reminding people to pay their bills.  Part of the paying the bill process was transferring them back into a call center to actually collect the money.  What we noticed when we analyzed the data was they were getting a hell of a lot of people that were wanting to pay between 3:55 p.m. and 4:05 p.m.  We still don’t know the reason why there is a peak at that point, but there is a peak at that point.

One of the issues that these guys had was that they couldn’t actually take all of those calls because they had a shift change at 4:00 p.m.  They were unaware that because they had a shift change there were a lot of people that wanted to engage in a process with them but they weren’t allowing it because of their internal business processes.  They actually changed that.  That came as a direct result of simply looking at the data generated from the interactions that their customers were having with us, and us trying to collect money from them.

Irv Shapiro (IfByPhone):

Batteries Plus is a franchise-based business in the United States and Canada that has hundreds of retail stores that sell only batteries.  If you need a battery for anything, you go into Batteries Plus or you go to their website and you can purchase a battery.

In many, many cases, people need a battery right away so they want to go to a store.  Batteries Plus was finding that they were fielding hundreds and hundreds of phone calls to stores asking for routine information such as “What are your hours of operation; which is the closest store to my address…?”  We automated that process for them.

In fact, they automated it themselves by going to our website, provisioning a toll-free number, putting in a IVR on the front end that asked a couple of very simple questions to determine whether the customer was looking for information about batteries.  In that case, the call was transferred to a central call center corporate.  Were they looking for the closest location, in which a geo-coded application automatically provided them with the closest location and driving information.  If they were looking for store hours of operation, same geo-code process except in this case we retrieved the hours of operation.

They found a dramatic increase in the productivity of their in-store personnel because now those personnel could concentrate on spending time with customers in the store.  The side effect of that is they sell more batteries.

Rod Ullens (Voxbone), who reported business growing at 15% per month:

At some point, they [cloud based services such as VoiceSage and IfByPhone] need to reach the PSTN.  Most of them actually need a telephone number to be activated.  The bigger they get, the bigger we get.  That’s already one reason.  It’s not necessarily because of us, but because of our customers that have services that are interesting, and we grow with them.

If you look at the way numbers were used in the past, where you had a telephone number that was just linked to a physical location, that’s all you can do with it.  The cost to dial such a number is pretty expensive.  What we’ve done is to just completely take away the geographical link.  Now a number is just a software-based identifier that people can use to call you on.  It’s very flexible.  You can just build up a service.

First of all, that service can be completely Internet based.  You can just use telephone numbers from Voxbone to make it reachable from traditional phone networks, from mobile phones and so on.  Basically, you can be a company and have a virtual presence in a lot of countries.  From day one, you can start a service provider, in forty-five countries.  I think that’s one major reason why we’ve grown, especially now.

Jonathan Christensen (GM Audio and Video Platforms, Skype), in response to Lee’s question: “What do you think is driving these minutes?  Is it businesses using Skype, for a change, in order to save money, for example?”

We’re seeing two things.  One is just consumer migration to value; people want to avoid long distance, but we also see in the consumer space a network effect around your friends being there, the quality being great, it being convenient and easy.  We have a large constituency of people where it is the convenience, free, and easy factor.

On the business side, Gartner, for example, recently said they kind of backed off their position that Skype is dangerous, evil, and will introduce Trojans into your network, and so on.  We hear; we have a bunch of case studies and we hear more and more from corporate IT, these commandments to their workforce saying, “When you’re travelling, when you’re making long distance calls, when you’re going to be faced with insane roaming charges, please try to use Skype.  It works, it’s easy, you can download it, it’s free”.  We are seeing acceleration in that sector, as well.

These are snippets from the discussion; Lee has transcribed the entire session in a eComm 2009 blog post.

Note that while all the participants in this call will be presenting, Jonathan Christensen will be delivering a keynote presentation: “Codec Evolution and Industry Proposal” along with a Skype announcement.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for value in communications services that drive business decisions, if you want to be a player in the emerging communications space, eComm 2009 provides the best opportunity to get a three day education in how the Voice 2.0 world will evolve. It’s an opportunity to network with the thinkers and business leaders who will be providing services for that market space. That’s why I’ve convinced a friend who is a 34-year veteran in the Canadian telecomm market to come; he wants his new consultancy to have relevance going forward.

Register here; enter “one touch” to get a 20% discount. Speakers. Schedule.

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• SILK: Skype’s New Audio Codec Sets New Performance Standards for Voice Conversations (voiceontheweb.com)
• Unexpected iNum Adds To DID (stuffem.wordpress.com)

Two weeks ago I wrote about eComm 2009 and the announcement of Skype’s participation as a Platinum sponsor. Yesterday registration for eComm 2009 opened with a Super Early Bird Special pricing of $1,190.00 available to those who register prior to December 22, 2008 – a $600 discount from the Regular price that will apply after January 20, 2009..

But, as a Skype Journal reader, you can save even more. If you enter the promotional code “skypejournal”, you’ll get a 20% discount, taking that Super Early Bird price down to $952.

The speaker list is almost complete and Lee has announced a recently revised schedule.

Also note that eComm has arranged special conference group rates at the San Francisco Airport Marriott, available until February 8, 2009; note that, as has been my own experience at Marriott hotels for several years, all rooms have high speed Internet access included in the room rate.

An excellent deal for anyone who is interested in learning about developments in the rapidly evolving Emerging Communications space where Alec Saunders Voice 2.0 Manifesto is now turning into reality.

Tags: eComm2009, Lee Dryburgh, Voice 2.0 Manifesto

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Perhaps the most informative event I have attended during my two-and-a-half years of writing for Skype Journal was last spring’s eComm 2008. Out of a sense of frustration organizer Lee Dryburgh took it upon himself to risk organizing this event when the former eTel Conference announced it would be no more. The 300 attendees were treated to a buffet of information about various initiatives being undertaken to deploy IP-based communications in innovative ways. From communications enhanced business processes to a garage-based operation to monitor security of abandoned farm houses, we all learned a lot. And the networking opportunity was excellent.

eComm 2009 has been announced; in fact, a call for speakers flooded Lee’s email over the past few weeks. He has put together a tentative schedule and been recruiting sponsors. Last year’s sponsors included many vendors we have written about since the event including iSkoot (Skypephone), Voxbone (iNum), VAPPS (HiDef Conferencing) and Brough Turner’s NMS Communications. Sponsors recruited to date for eComm 2009 include, once again Voxbone, and newcomers Global IP Solutions and Voxeo.

Today we learned that Skype has added its name to the list of sponsors. This is a new initiative for Skype in that they have previously tended to maybe provide speakers but not sponsorship at this type of event. In a statement to Lee Dryburgh this evening, Skype’s GM Audio and Video (and a keynote speaker last year) Jonathan Christensen said:

… thinking about why we did it.. We believe that communications is going through a major shift from hardware devices on dedicated networks to software applications. A new paradigm is emerging. As a clear leader in this new age of communications, it makes sense for Skype to sponsor the eComm event as it is all about celebrating this innovation and sharing our vision for the future of communications with those individuals and companies who are most interested in changing the way people around the world communicate.

It’s been pretty quiet recently on the Skype scene. But then President Josh Silverman did tell us in our September interview that Skype was undergoing a major restructuring. And we have not heard of any layoffs. So it would only be natural to assume that development efforts (beyond the Skype for Windows 4.0 beta program) are under way and we can assume we’ll see new product and service announcements in 2009.

Would any be made at eComm 2009? Speakers from Skype include Jonathan Christensen and Director of Strategy Julien Decot.

Registration for attendees opens December 2, 2008.

Note: Skype Journal editor Phil Wolff, Skype’s Jonathan Christensen, Voxeo’s Dan York, Brough Turner and Jon Arnold are on the eComm 2009 Advisory Board.

Tags: eComm2009, Skype, Jonathan Christensen, Lee Dryburgh, Julien Decot, Voxbone, GIPS, Voxeo

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Perhaps the most informative event I have attended on behalf of Skype Journal was last spring’s eComm 2008, held in Mountain View’s Computer Museum. Three days of speakers who covered a wide range of subjects on the Emerging Communications Space.

Organizer Lee Dryburgh has been putting together a repeat for next March, In order that participants can intermingle more often outside the event itself, Lee has moved the location to the San Francisco Airport Marriott. And he has just issued a “Call for Speakers”.

This isn’t a traditional telecom conference. The eComm audience has very high expectations of speakers. They are both seizing opportunities of the post- telecom era (or re-inventing traditional products and services) and can engage the audience. Rules include a ban on “brochure speak” from stage (overt marketing pitches) and a strict enforcement of the clock.