TDM is bad, and VoIP was marginally better. But PBX was a solution to high prices from Telcos, and cheaper mobile phones mean PBX's offer no value.

Saying VoIP is "now" dead is like waking up from a coma after five years.

The value prop needs to change.

Dave

I think Alec gets it right by declaring VoIP nothing more than infrastructure, but to declare it dead is to throw the baby out with the bath water. We are not free from the shackles of the PSTN. Not that I'm hostile toward the PSTN, however it has what is still lacking in VoIP and yet carries so much baggage that keeps us from going forward. What is missing…. VoIP as an infrastructure is not ubiquitous, it does not have a universally successful utility/business model (other than some notable exceptions like Voxeo), it does not have open interfaces (especially in the API camps) and its namespace is practically unnavigable. Furthermore, the dependence on PSTN is only getting us closer to the regulatory entrapment and monopolistic pricing structures that VoIP was supposed to enable us to escape from as we meddle too long in a transitional funk.

I fully applaud those who have made the structural separation and are developing the killer app because of VoIP and not necessarily "with" VoIP. However, the infrastructure is fragmented, localized (islands) and incomplete.

Now time for me to go off and sell more of that SS7 and gateway glue that has you in shackles.

Just to expand on what Alec mentioned. To the contrary, I think it's actually one of the best moves BT took last year. BT was one of the few carriers that boughtinto the the marketing vision of companies like Avaya and IBM in the opportunity of selling traditionally closed components of their carrier platform as a billable service to enterprise customers so that these enterprises can in turn choreograph and orchestrate these services into their mash ups, portals and business work flows. So BT did acquire and invest significantly more than the cost of Ribbit into these technologies and one of their first PR announcements was in fact releasing the Web21C API's to the public.

This was a great marketing and business vision that these companies had but the problem is that rarely standards developed ground-up by a consortium of mega-corporations have ever proved to be practical. I believe BT quickly realized that this was the case with their recent investment in the 21CN network.

If Shell or BP, or any other enterprise customer BT has, wanted a simple telephony widget on their employee search portal that's something that BT could easily sell through Ribbit without having to outsource the service and support and a significant chunk of the profits to a third party technology provider. If instead they chose to go with the design by committee platform they have at hand the difficulty of implementation
would be prohibitive to the point that they would have no choice
but partner on every single deal with the technology provider. So to me
it doesn't seem to be stupid at all.

And with regards to Alec's Article "2008: The Year that VoIP Died" , I don't think it was ever alive to die, I've written about this in my blog: http://shidan.gulfpearl.com

—
Shidan Gouran