Archive for August, 2006

PontiVoce Server Sings More Than One Note

Saturday, August 26th, 2006

While still in a stealth release, the PontiVoce software is initially targeting users outside of the US and Canada who can use a friend or family member’s PC in the US or Canada to make free phone calls. Added ramifications are already being seen. It is proof to me that it is quite difficult to create a one-ride-pony product when the design goals are to give people control over their communications.

When we move toward a more formal release, our story will be about opening up the Skype promotional offer of free calling in US and Canada to friends outside or the free calling zone, but it is already more. I have not written much about TeleVoce in this blog, trying to provide more general comments here, but this is a great time to share how products are born.

Like many technology companies, even as a startup, we have development in India and headquarters in Silicon Valley. International communications are part of my daily life. For testing we have software tools to enable remote control of PCs. When I started getting Skype calls to my cell phone from India that were free, I realized that we had a product and immediately we directed efforts to turn our testing tool into a product. We wanted to make a simple product so that others could enjoy this capability.

We have done that with the first release of the PontiVoce software. Tom Keating described the product operation very well, and I would be remiss if I didn’t give the link to our site. The basic premise is to give a remote user the ability to control my Skype. This first release allows you to select who has that control, and for now it only allows calls to be made within the US and Canada. This is a great thing for those outside of the free Skype promotional area, and it supports Skype’s objectives of getting more users in the US and Canada.

Even before we start adding more features, new uses for the first-release PontiVoce software are being found. We use it all the time now and find it more flexible than Skype’s call forward. You can always set your Skype to forward calls, typically to your cell phone. A useful feature, but then everyone can reach you. While driving one day I got a call from Algiers and a French-speaking caller just randomly calling. So you can fix that by only allowing your buddy list to forward calls. Not with my buddy list! PontiVoce to the rescue.

With PontiVoce, I enable callers that I wish to use my Skype to call me. This is particularly useful because right now it is free (we will help extend that–later). When I give those callers control I can close Skype to answering any calls if I wish, but all of my preferred contacts can find me anywhere. Call my home, office, or cell. Track me down– and its free. It has turned out to be the way we are using Skype right now. Very convenient, and we did not even realize how we would be using our own product.

That’s not all. Many international families enjoy having Ethernet telephone adapters (ATA’s) so that a US number can be used to ring in any country in the world. (This is the Vonage, et. al., market.) We have already seen calls made to the US on Skype, directed to a US Vonage number that rings in another country. In this particular case, a caller in Pune, India connected on Skype to the US where PontiVoce software directed a call to the Vonage US number (free) that rang in Mumbai (Bombay). Now the Mumbai residence has a second line for callers not just in the US! And it’s free for all those callers.

So what’s my point? Take advantage of our own Crazy Eddie while you can. I said let’s offer it for $5.95 as long as we can. Early customers are always highly regarded. We will allow all users upgrades for some time. Those who join the TeleVoce-Connected movement now will benefit economically as PontiVoce software advances.

It has only been out for a week. What will be next? How will you use PontiVoce software?

Posted in Product, Skype, Tech Life, VoIP | 4,237 Comments »

Geeks Gone Wild

Sunday, August 20th, 2006

Let me pre-empt the San Jose Mercury News, and comment before the story to be published tomorrow entitled, “Is Technophobia Holding Back Americans from Joining the Growing Blogosphere?” First it is interesting that they are picking on Americans. I hadn’t noticed that everyone in France is blogging.

Technophobia. What exactly is that? We certainly can recognize Luddites at work. And the NIMBY champions of the world. These behaviors I understand, but technophobia is not in that category I would claim.

The attempt to geekify our lives and then accuse us of technophobia is a very misplaced concept. There is an arrogant fun to geekdom. I know what you don’t, that is mistakenly viewed as some measure of intelligence. What is really means is that I have gone out of my way to learn something that was so poorly conceived and designed that obfuscation appears to have been the only objective. Don’t you want to join my group of code rangers? That is another blog—how come everyone wants or needs to know some programming language? (I was a great Fortran programmer—really I was. It’s true, but gag me if I talk about it. But Java, now that’s hot.)

The origins of these design disasters is not in obfuscation, but ignorance and laziness. Excuse my soapbox, but when a product, any product, is designed, exactly who is it for? If it is designed for people to use, then design it for people. If it is a laboratory experiment or technology demonstration, let’s be honest about what it is, or let’s all call it out and not sign up to join the geek army.

What is happening today is that lab experiments are dressed up and called products. You own them. We have become part of a giant lab experiment. To arrogantly wonder why everyone does not want to be part of a lab experiment seems silly to me. We own more junk that we have no idea how to use. Any number of cell phones would make a hit parade of lab experiments foisted on us.

We are persuaded to buy this stuff because of some hole in our life that will be filled. Vance Packard wrote about the manipulation of consumers in the 50’s. I am sure we think we are more sophisticated today, but Madison Avenue and our geek pride behavior does not support any such conclusion. Try to explain how cell phones are not a fashion accessory. The low percentage of functions used on cell phones is embarrassing. And the Mercury News wants to know why everyone does not write a blog? Snakes on a blog. Yikes!

Posted in Product, Tech Life | 1,027 Comments »

Independence Day for Telephones

Thursday, August 3rd, 2006

When I realized that it was August and I had not been blogging– no surprise, I thought of July, logically, and the US Independence Day. Since my life is about phone independence I wondered when is the Telephone’s Independence Day. Some commercial entity will someday proclaim that they have established Telephone Independence Day, and I could even see attempting to claim some role. This Independece Day wouldn’t be observed with greeting cards or fireworks. I rather think we could all just enjoy that we have the ability and even the right to talk freely anywhere around the world. You have to say we are pretty close to that capability.

I think whatever claim is made for declaring telephone independence we would have to go back to what is now referred to as the Carterfone Decision. The real pioneer who established a legal basis for users, heaven forbid, to connect equipment to the phone network is Tom Carter who designed the Carterfone and, more importantly, set a legal precedent.

Like most progress one day does not bring the whole, but the start was being able to connect “foreign” equipment to the telephone network. We have come so far that this seems comical, but for many years there was actually a “requirement” to tell the phone company that you were attaching something to the phone network that was not designed by them.

Now we enjoy many dimensions of freedom –choices of provider and the ability to use alternative provider services over the same wires terminating at our residences. It has now been ten years since Vocaltec enabled us to talk to anyone in the world for only the cost of Internet connections. That will certainly be viewed as a seminal event in the history of telephone independence.

Today we have completely accepted the ability to buy a phone, answering machine or modem and connect to the telephone wall jack. How long will it take to recognize the full telephone independence that we can talk to anyone without paying a telephone service provider?

Posted in NextGen Telephony, Telephony | 12 Comments »