From the EDge

Those of us in the VoIP market have a relationship of one sort or another with VON and Jeff Pulver. Often they have been one and the same, certainly as the founder Jeff is the voice of VON. Now that all rumors point to the demise or significant transition, it appears to be an end to an era. This era is not the VON Show, but the state of the market and industry. VoIP is not news, so to speak. Jeff has embraced video, adopting the V as video and now the dot X, so there have already been many transitions, not to mention the ownership dance.

What we really miss and have already been missing is the gathering of thought leaders and friends that we see at each VON. I marveled and have often commented about the irony of Jeff’s inspirational keynotes being unappreciated by most show visitors.

Some of the commentary has unavoidably discussed the simultaneous scheduling of VON.x and VoiceCon. From a trade show industry view this was poor scheduling, but to me more interesting because VoiceCon could easily have been part of VON. Since VON has been dominated in many ways by old school telephony as they adopt VoIP technologies, the “new” unified communication movement could easily fit within a VON community. I have always felt this tension around VON that innovation was always valued, but we must pay the bills– and who could argue with that. Ultimately the brand of VON became difficult to position. The share of the early VON audience continued to decline and there was little need to preach the technological innovations that have made anything over IP as practical.

Speaking of innovation VoiceCon is not the land of innovation, so this is not a battle about leading any new market. That was my point about how this could have ended up as one larger show as innovation became dispersed into the mainstream of VON exhibitors. I recall attending a VoiceCon event (2 years ago as I recall) and finding that the participants had no clue what Skype was. How you could be any kind of a professional in the telecom business and not even know what Skype was is pretty shocking. Sadly there were probably a few attending VON in similar ignorance, but a very small minority.

It is somehow appropriate that Jeff has now embraced the next even bigger movement of social networking. I am on the same bandwagon myself. There is no question that while this is not much about technology, it will be much more pervasive and important than VoIP, as disruptive as it was. Many have already noted that there is no need to worry about Jeff. Hopefully all affected will land on their feet. News must be forthcoming. Jeff’s BlogTV show today was scheduled very early and short as he left for what must be a challenging meeting for him. Jeff could not comment on the recent rumors, but watch the wire and blogosphere .