Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Squawk Box May 14

by alec on May 14, 2008

The biggest story to hit the telecom world in a while, in my opinion, is Facebook’s decision to go XMPP with their chat client. I think it means a ton for SIP/Simple, for developers and the IM Gulag perpetuated by Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL. So we talked about it on the SquawkBox. Some conclusions:

Given the sheer number of Facebook users in the market, and the failure of Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL to open up their clouds to SIMPLE, is this the nail in the coffin for SIMPLE? Answer: Probably.

With popular XMPP clients like Does XMPP beat the big MSFT YHOO AOL at the IM game over the long term? Answer: maybe.

A lot of us thought that a presence cloud would be part of the telecom infrastructure. Now it looks as if it might live outside the infrastructure. Answer: Probably.

We also talked about the rumoured TouchScreen BlackBerry that has surfaced on the Boy Genius Report. Reportedly it will be a Verizon exclusive. Seems like a smart move on RIM’s part — a counter to Apple’s iPhone Mo.

On the call: Jeb Brilliant, Andy Abramson, Jim Courtney, James Body, Brad Jones, Jeanette Fisher, Ian Hood, Bill Volk, Tom Howe and Todd Spraggins.

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It’s popular to talk about how VoIP means the “death of distance”.  Because IP flattens networks, Voice on IP rides “distance unaware” to basically any place on the planet.  Flat Planet Phone Company CEO Moshe Maeir knows this better than anyone, having just sold a call center to the UAW in support of the US Democratic Party… from his home base in Israel.  VoIP extensions were used to connect folks in Indiana back to their headquarters in NY.

Nicely done Moshe!

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Facebook annoints XMPP, open IM endgame in sight.

May 14, 2008

Those cagey guys at Facebook are about to do something which nobody else in the last five years has been able to do.  They’re about to crown Jabber/XMPP the king of IM protocols, and in the process they may finally crack the hegemony that AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo have enjoyed in the IM market for [...]

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