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This year was the 5th addition of Walt Mossberg's and Kara Swisher's "All Things Digital" conference. I'm sure that it will come as no surprise to you that I have attended all five and intend to attend the next five as well. They say that first year conferences are a huge crap shoot because of the chicken and egg problem of attracting fantastic speakers and a fantastic audience -- you need one to get the other but can't get one without the other. By force of personality and reputation, Walt and Kara blew that away the first year by simply getting the most amazing speakers ever. The fabuloous audience quickly followed. But they created a problem for themselves.
The speakers at their first "D" were just too good: Gates, Jobs, Diller, Larry and Sergey, Meg Whitman, Terry Semel, Mark Cuban. I mean, give me a break. Year two: Gates, Jobs, Ellison, Carly Fiorina, Masa, Henning Kagermann. Year 3: Gates, Jobs, Mel Karmazin, McNealy, Zander, Diller, Jerry Yang and Dave Filo. Year 4: Gates, Al Gore, Howard Stringer, Terry Semel, Vinod Khosla, Bob Iger (Jobs couldn't make it and was sorely missed). So what were Walt and Kara going to do to make their 5th anniversary "D" a special one? They touted the answer on their homepage -- "Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to Make Historic Joint Appearance at D5."
Now I have to admit that, as much as I looked forward to seeing Gates and Jobs spar on stage, I thought that perhaps Walt and Kara had gone a bit too far calling the Gates/Jobs smackdown a "historic joint appearance." The cardinal rule of showmanship is to under-promise and over-deliver. It is hard to imagine that calling a chat "historic" could be viewed as under-promising, and harder still to imagine that after advertising a talk as "historic," one could possibly over-deliver. But I was wrong.
The "historic" joint appearance of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs wasn't just historic, it was, in fact, awe inspiring. I envisioned a half-hearted quarrel, punctuated by clever but cynical jabs at one another. What I got was a history lesson taught by the principal protagonists of the story. As I sat and listened to Gates and Jobs recount their 30 year journey to bring the best possible personal computers to the world, it struck me that no two living humans have had a bigger impact on my quality of life than they (case in point, I am typing this blog post on my MacBook on Microsoft Word).
It would be hard to replicate the energy and mood of the room with simple words. It may even be hard to replicate with video. Nonetheless, I strongly urge you to watch the videos of the conversation over at Kara and Walt's great new "news and opinion site" called AllThingsD.com. In the videos you will see a pair of mature, thoughtful moguls. Bill Gates was erudite, statesmanly, and utterly charming. Steve Jobs remained the consummate performer, yet managed a bit more humility than is his norm. They traded fours like an old married couple. And their recounting of the history of the personal computer industry had the cadence of an on-again off-again romance. In the end, Jobs had the turn of phrase that brought us to our feet -- a snipped right out of a love letter -- "There's that one line in the Beatles song, 'You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead,' and that's definitely true here."
Great conferences are all about great theater. And I have never seen better theater than Jobs and Gates on stage together, modestly recounting how they changed all of our lives, in incalculable ways, forever. Hats off to Walt and Kara for orchestrating this once in a lifetime event. When can I register for D6?
I have survived another Consumer Electronics Show. No small achievement. But it has taken me nearly a week to recover and tell the tale. The Consumer Electronics Show has gotten so large -- so out of control -- that it will undoubtedly break apart under the weight of its own mass. Conference organizers were predicting that 140,000 people would come to Las Vegas for CES this year. But I'm betting they missed by a couple tens of thousands. Quick trips from the convention center to any hotel on the strip took 45 minutes when they should have taken 15. And the line for free ice cream at the Yahoo tent was backed up all day, every day. I heard one blogger at the airport say to a friend that he spent the day at PodTech's BlogHaus rather than contend with the crowds (I myself took refuge at the BlogHaus on a daily basis -- they had the winning combination of copious drinks, snacks and bandwidth).
All the whining aside, CES was jam packed with gadgets, technologists and big giant TV's. That's right. Once again, CES was absolutely dominated by Televisions. LCD TV's. Plasma TV's. Home Theater projectors. My partners Andy, Vivek and I wandered the conference floor obsessively comparing TV's. We got right up close and looked at the consistency of color. We stood back and looked at motion blur. We debated the extent to which differences in displays were the results of actual technical superiority or merely better tuning. We checked out Sharp's 108 inch LCD TV (for those keeping score at home, last year's colossal TV king was a 103 inch plasma but this year LCD claims the bragging rights). We enjoyed Panasonic's use of plasmas in their booth for window panes, picture frames and a blazing fire.
And the winners are? None of the above. There weren't any clear winners in TV land this year. I suppose if there were any winners, it was the consumers. There were a panoply of stunning televisions on display. Technology is getting better. Prices are going down. That's undoubtedly a winning combination for TV buyers. That said, there were three TVs that I left the CES floor excited about. First, Sony was showing the thinest, most beautiful little OLED (Organic LED) displays you've ever seen. Sadly, they aren't yet in production. But when they are, they're going to be big sellers. They had extremely vibrant colors, a stunningly precise picture (with a 1,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio), and a form factor that can not be beat. I really want one. Second, as beautiful as some of these flat panel TVs are, the best pictures on the show room floor came out of a high end projector. Optoma was running the perfect scene from "Phantom of the Opera" to show off their amazing HD81 projector. The quality of the picture was unrivaled by anything I saw on the showroom floor. Sure, at ten thousand dollars or so, it isn't cheap. But for those of you with an empty basement and an old car to sell, this projector is the way to go. And Third, my partners and I were thrilled to see beautiful TV's on display using the single panel LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) technology from our own portfolio company MicroDisplay. Both Akai and Memorex will soon be manufacturing MicroDisplay enabled Full HD TVs that will be priced hundreds of dollars cheaper than the next closest 52" and 62" Full HD TVs.
It was not, however, the fancy new televisions that I found most compelling at this year's CES. It was the amazing disappearance of TV wires. Several companies were demonstrating wireless systems for high definition televisions. It reminded me of the initial hints of wireless audio several years ago at CES. The first year there was a single dedicated Yamaha system demonstrating wireless audio. The next year wireless audio was scattered throughout the convention center. And the following year it was everywhere. I imagine we'll see the same trajectory for wireless video. This year there were a few manufacturers demonstrating wireless televisions (several of which were powered by our own ultra wideband portfolio company Tzero). Next year I anticipate that it will be everywhere -- built directly into TVs, in stand alone systems, as part of set top boxes. Wireless video is a no brainer. Imagine the ease of installing a flat panel on the wall if you don't have to worry about burying the wires in the wall. (Now if only someone could come up with a system that safely and efficiently delivers wireless power.) I guess I'll go back to CES next year. If nothing else, to see the proliferation of wireless video -- and party like its 1999.
It is no secret that I'm a big fan of conferences. I use them as both a great source of information and a great source of new conversations. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to speak at a bunch of events and to be an advisor to others. In light of that, I've decided to be a little more systematic about sharing conference info on VentureBlog. I'm going to try to share info about the conferences at which I'll be speaking, as well as the ones I think will be interesting and that I plan on attending. I hope it proves interesting and helpful to those of you reading.
Under the Radar: Mobility!
While the idea of mobility has evolved rapidly in recent years, there is no denying that mobile networks, platforms and devices are going to be a major mover of tech economies for the foreseeable future. I would personally sooner give up television than my Treo. For folks interested in getting a great overview of the cutting edge startups in the mobility space, you should definitely check out IBDNetwork's Under the Radar: Mobility!. This one-day conference is being held at the Microsoft Mountain View Campus on November 16th and will run from 8am to 6pm. Companies like 4Info, EQO, MostionDSP, Plusmo and Sharpcast will be presenting. It should be a fantastic mobility primer.
VentureBlog readers can get a $70 discount when they REGISTER HERE.
Business Blogging Seminar in San Francisco
In an effort to help businesses large and small alike better understand and utilize blogging as part of their business strategies, Six Apart has started running half-day blogging seminars throughout the country. You can see the latest dates and locations at the Business Blogging Seminars home page. Anil Dash and crowd from Six Apart do a great job of helping Marketing, PR and Product Management folks better understand the blogging landscape and put blogging to work for their businesses. The next Seminar is in San Francisco on Monday, November 13th at Le Meridien. You can REGISTER HERE. I don't know if I'll be talking at this one but I'm sure to speak at some of these in the future (count me in for the Honolulu seminar). When you talk with folks who are doing a good job of using blogging as part of their business, you can appreciate the power of the medium. Great stuff.
Web 2.0
OK, this is really a tease I suppose because it is no longer possible to register for the upcoming Web 2.0 conference. It is sold out. And for good reason. I was looking at the latest schedule for the event and was blown away by the lineup. Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle have really pulled together an amazing set of speakers for this year's Web 2.0 Conference. I have no doubt that people will be blogging this event like crazy next week (it runs Tuesday through Thursday). I'll be there for sure. And Craig Syverson and I will be podcasting from the conference one Wednesday. Keep your ears pealed for our VentureCast from Web 2.0.
If you missed your chance to go to the Web 2.0 conference because you registered too late, you should definitely keep your eyes on the Web 2.0 Expo home page. The Web 2.0 Expo is a new conference and tradeshow being launched by O'Reilly Media and CMP Technology this coming spring in San Francisco. The event will take place from April 15th through 18th in the Moscone Center. I will be giving a talk about communicable diseases (no lie), which is worth the price of the ticket alone. It should be another great event from O'Reilly and crew. I'll be sure to let you all know when registration opens.
I guess that is it for my first VentureBlog Conference Roundup. I hope it is useful. Track me down if you're at any of these events.
For those of you out there looking for some practical advice on Internet company building, I'm speaking at an event this week called "From Garage to IPO: How to build a successful consumer Internet company." The event is a day long tutorial being put on by the TiE Internet SiG, of which I'm an Advisory Board Member. There are a lot of great folks involved in the event, including Iggy Fanlo from AdBrite (formerly from Shoping.com), James Currier from Ooga Labs (formerly from Tickle), Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn (formerly from PayPal), Caterina Fake from Yahoo/Flickr, Heather Harde from Fox Interactive, Manish Chandra from Kaboodle, Munjal Shah from Riya, and a bunch of other great people. We'll cover topics ranging from getting started to partnerships to customer acquisition to monetization -- it should be a great discussion for new and seasoned entrepreneurs alike.
Here are the details on the event:
Wednesady, October 18, 2006
7:30 am - 7:30 pm
TiE SV
2903 Bunker Hill Lane
Suite No. 108
Santa Clara, CA 95054
To sign up, click here. I look forward to the conversation and hope to see lots of you there.
I can't decide what is making it harder for me to write this morning. Is it the fact that I am still completely exhausted after a weekend of too little sleep and too much mental stimulation? Or is it the more mundane fact that God-awful music is blasting out of my speakerphone courtesy of the now 57 minutes I've been on hold with Bank of America credit card services? I'm going to go with mental overload because I refuse to cede the power to communicate to B of A musak.
This weekend I was privileged to attend Tim O'Reilly's FOO Camp. FOO stands for "Friends Of O'Reilly" but the crowd is only a small subsection of those who count Tim as a friend. Tim has long been not just a uncanny predictor of future technology trends but a supporter and promoter of both those technologies and the individuals responsible for inventing them and shepherding them from concept to phenomenon. The individuals present at this year's FOO Camp had played significant rolls in the creation and dissemination of some of the most important technologies over the past decades (from Lotus 1-2-3 to Perl, Python, Ruby, Flash, you name it). But the conversations of FOO Camp were clearly pointed at the future, which leaves one's mind spinning.
One of the things that is striking about FOO Camp is that nearly everything that takes place over the weekend is collaborative. Talks are rarely lectures -- they are conversations. Ad hoc projects at FOO take interesting twists and turns because they are necessarily interdisciplinary, driven by experts in hardware, software, networking, who are encouraged by the environment to think out of the box (a child of FOO's inventive environment was unveiled at this year's gathering -- Chumby is an open source hardware and software platform that truly embodies the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of FOO). As I wandered around O'Reilly's campus Saturday night I was struck by the incredibly inclusive, social and creative energy everywhere -- in one room a group of folks were singing and strumming Simon and Garfunkel tunes, in another a crowd was engaged in their 5th or 6th hour of Werewolf, on the patio a few pyromaniacs enjoyed a fire sculpture involving propane and a zen sand garden, others gathered 'round the laser in Make Magazine's office engraving their laptops and cell phones with various a sundry images and insignia.
Two of my favorite sessions during FOO Camp were further testimony to the collaborative nature of the weekend. One of the "talks" was entitled "Halfbaked.com: entrepreneurial improv theatre." It was organized by Dave McClure, Paul Rademacher and James Levine, who had the great idea of randomly assigning teams of participants two word company names and, with fifteen minutes of preparation time, having them then present their business plans to a panel of VC judges (namely, me and Paul Graham). The results were clever and funny and felt sufficiently close to my day job as to be a little disconcerting. The winning team pitched Bottlecap Porn, fully functional (if somewhat under-featured) website and all. The other session I can't stop talking about was called "That Sucked," which was organized by Joshua Schachter. In Joshua's session, he started off by telling about times he'd been faced with technical challenges that really sucked. He then opened up the floor to the crowd to share their stories. The tales of woe expounded were like a history of computers gone bad, from printers shooting parts across the room to infinite loops to missing source code (the inspiration for SourceForge). They were simultaneously the geekiest and funniest stories I'd heard in some time. And like the "Halfbaked" session, virtually everyone in the room participated, making the session all the more illuminating and entertaining.
I hope that Tim and the entire O'Reilly organization get as much out of FOO Camp as do the participants. We all certainly owe him a debt of gratitude for hosting this incredible event.
Post Script: I hung up on Bank of America after being on hold for 190 minutes! I hope there is less of a wait when I call to cancel my card.
I spent most of last week down in San Diego at the Wall Street Journal Conference, D: All Things Digital. I've attended the D conference every year since its inception 4 years ago. The conference is run by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher and primarily takes the form of Walt and Kara interviewing CEO's of major corporations about innovation. In the past, those CEOs have come primarily from the technology and communications sectors. This year, however, there was a larger representation of traditional media companies (Disney, Discovery, Martha Stewart, Random House, etc.) talking about a favorite theme of all D's, past and present -- convergence.
This year, more than any before it, the talk of D seemed to acquiesce around a single area of interest. The vast majority of speakers at this year's Wall Street Journal Conference spoke about the digitization of video and the ways in which digital video is changing the media landscape. This shared focus was so stark that it lead me to believe that perhaps this year's WSJ Conference should have been renamed "DV: All Things Digital Video."
As could be expected, the representatives of New Media spent their fair share of time talking about digital video. Bill Gates made clear that Microsoft is extremely focused on the online/offline video experience. Not only is Microsoft working on better approaches to video search and display (Windows Media format is in a bitter battle with Flash for online video format dominance, although I'd give Flash a decided edge at this time), but it is also betting pretty significantly on the home convergence with it's Media Center software which will gain significant distribution as a part of the Vista release. Meanwhile, Marissa Mayer and Terry Semel were in now way willing to cede the video market to Microsoft. Both Google and Yahoo are working hard to bulk up their online video experience with both professional and user generated content.
It would appear from the conversations at D that even the Old Media companies have gotten wise to the user generated content revolution. Judith McHale, from Discovery Communications, talked about their efforts to leverage user generated content for some of their travel programs. Susan Lyne, CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, discussed the power of user demonstrated crafts and cooking projects. Even Al Gore, when not musing about the arcane history of the printing press, talked about his television network's explicit strategy to leverage user generated content for traditional media programming. And Disney's Bob Iger, not to be outdone by the old media posse, stressed not only user generated content but the capacity to play that content on wired and mobile devices alike.
On the device front, while Sony has a powerful foothold in the digital video space, Howard Stringer spent much of his time talking about the eBook Reader that Sony launched at the D conference, not about their digital video solutions. Moreover, it doesn't look like the two segments will likely come together any time soon -- Sony's eBook platform is based upon eInk's technology which is energy efficient but extremely slow switching; therefore, it was clear that the eBook Reader will not be used for video any time soon. On the other hand, the conversation with Antonio Perez made clear that Kodak's cameras are quickly moving from still to moving picture capture. Kodak has quietly claimed the lead in the digital camera category and appears poised to quietly attack the digital video camera market as well.
On a related note, I spent some time with Jonathan Kaplan, CEO of Pure Digital Technologies, at the event and was given the chance to try out Pure Digital's new hundred dollar (or so) video camera that Walt has raved about. It really is a great little device for quick and easy digital video capture and download. The device has a built in USB connector and could not be easier to connect and download video to your computer. I used the Pure Digital video camera to record some video of my 9 month old niece and quickly and easily uploaded it to the new Six Apart blogging platform, Vox (Vox used to be referred to as Comet but has recently been launched to the public as Vox). It is clear to me from the early activity on Vox that sharing video will become one of the predominant features on the service, particularly as Vox gives you more granular controls over who can see your family movies than is available with a traditional blogging platform. To be clear, I am an investor in Six Apart and Vox, so I am certainly biased, but I could not be more excited about the ability to post video of my kids on Vox, knowing that only my parents and siblings can see those videos when viewing my Vox blog.
One thing became very clear to me as I sat and listened to CEO after CEO sing the praises of digital video -- the digital video train has left the station and anyone who hasn't yet made a bet on a particular online video technology is not likely to reap the benefits of this round of online video innovation. On the other hand, I remain really bullish about those bets that were placed on digital video at the front end of the DV revolution. I made one such bet on VideoEgg, which I continue to believe is uniquely situated to act as an onramp for video to the web. During one lunch at the Wall Street Journal Conference, Chad Hurley, founder and CEO of YouTube, was sitting at a table with me and the rest of the VideoEgg board (Cliff Boro, Howard Morgan and Josh Kopelman). We should have called Josh Felser, CEO of Grouper, over from the table next to ours where he was eating and we could have had a mini-digital video summit.
It will be very interesting to see what transpires on the digital video front between now and next year's Wall Street Journal Conference. I imagine that there will be lots more to talk about as video continues to dominate not only the mind share but the bandwidth of the web experience. There is no question, the digital video revolution will be televised.
I've just gotten back from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a zoo when there aren't an extra 180,00 people running around. But during CES it is an absolute mess. Just getting to and from your hotel is a challenge of epic proportions. It doesn't even help to rent the bright yellow stretch Hummer. It will just get stuck in traffic (although it will be a little slice of heaven -- twinkling stars on the roof and all -- on your way to dinner).
This year's CES was bigger than ever. But it would be hard to argue that it was better. In fact, to the extent that anything on display at CES was better than last year, it was only marginally so.
Case in point -- flat screen televisions. You could not turn in any direction at CES this year without seeing the "latest greatest" flat screen television. Toshiba and Canon were touting their SED TV (Surface-Conducting Electron-Emitter Display). Sharp was showing its Mega-Contrast LCD (1,000,000:1 Contrast). Every company had its own spin on the perfect viewing experience. But the reality of television innovation can be summed up by the battle of the gigantic plasma screens. Last year Samsung proudly displayed the "worlds largest" plasma TV. It came in at one hundred and two inches. The Guinness Book honors this year, however, went to Panasonic which was displaying a . . . yes, you guessed it . . . one hundred and THREE inch plasma. (It made about as much difference as Nigel Tufnel's amplifier going to 11.)
Since size didn't matter, the TV manufacturers were left to "innovate" in more creative ways. While I frankly can't imagine the real world uses of the technology in the near term, both LG.Philips and Toshiba were displaying 3D LCDs. They used optical tricks that resulted in different viewing experiences for both eyes, thus creating the illusion of three dimensions without the need for any goofy glasses out of the cereal box. The LG.Philips TV created that illusion by inserting a visual "parallax" barrier between the viewer and the pixels. The barrier blocked different pixels for each eye, thus producing a three dimmensional effect (if you stood in the right place!). The advantage of that process was that it could be turned on and off, thus making the LG.Philips a switchable 2D/3D LCD.
Equally useful was the the Sharp "Two Way Viewing Angle LCD." This panel used the same affect as those plastic kids trading cards that look like Clark Kent from one angle and Superman from another. If you stood on one side of the Sharp display you would see one picture but if you shifted over a few feet you'd see another. And if you stood right in the middle you'd see a little bit of Clark Kent, a little bit of Superman, and get a headache. Sharp was touting it as a great in-car display because it could present different visuals to the driver (maps) and the passenger (Seinfeld). Of course both the driver and the passenger will get neck aches looking sideways at the screen.
All in all, CES has become too big for its own good and if the excitement of next year's show is a 104" plasma or a 4-way viewing LCD, I suspect a bunch of us will stay home in the new year rather than rush off to Las Vegas.
I have seen the future and its name is Mac mini. The mini is one seriously great little computer. I got one last week and have been singing its praises ever since. It is not the fastest computer. It is not the cheapest computer. It is not the smallest computer. But it is certainly the smallest cheap and fast computer out there. And the cheapest small and fast computer out there. And, yes you guessed it, the fastest cheap and small computer out there (my apologies to Apple, which advertises the mini as "Inexpensive, But Never Cheap" -- semantics -- at $500 it is darn cheap). Add the fact that the mini now ships with Tiger, as well as Apple's fantastic iLife software, and you can purchase one heck of a computer for under five hundred bucks.
This week I was visiting the new offices of a startup I recently funded. The company is in the process of pulling together the infrastructure necessary to support their business. After looking at their options, the guys decided to outfit the office with Mac minis. For a little over $600 it is possible to provide each of the company's telesales and customer service agents with all the computing power they need. This is particularly true because the company's sales and support functions are going to be run on web apps like saleforce.com and Five-9's. Thus, the only thing that those folks will really need in a desktop computer is a web browser and a reasonably fast pipe. In that respect the Mac mini is plug and play. All the company will need to do when it ads new reps is run across the street to the Apple store, buy a new mini and super cheap monitor, bring it back, plug it in, launch the browser and they are off to the races.
It strikes me as a bit ironic that Apple has managed to make good on Larry Ellison's network computer vision. Sure, it's more expensive than the couple hundred bucks once envisioned for a true dumb terminal. But it frankly isn't that much more expensive and delivers a whole lot more computing muscle than Ellison envisioned when he launched the New Internet Computer (NIC) Company.
I've been attending the DEMO conference since I joined the venture business. Even during the slow years of the early 2000's DEMO maintained an energy and excitement replicated in few tech gatherings. And as the tech economy has strengthened, DEMO has returned to the vibrant gathering it was in the late '90s. This year was DEMO's 15th anniversary, which it celebrated by honoring tech visionaries of past and present DEMOs (folks like Dan Bricklin, Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins, and Ben and Mena Trott). The conference collected its traditional mix of exceptional entrepreneurs, the nation's top tech journalists, and a gaggle of venture capitalists from throughout the country, making it one of my "must attend" conferences of the year.
It is this very mix of entrepreneurs, journalists and VCs that makes DEMO such a successful conference each year. Great entrepreneurs vie for six minutes on the DEMO stage in hopes of garnering attention from the press and investors (Jeff Hawkins told the story last night of insisting upon launching the Palm Pilot at DEMO rather than CES). VCs attend DEMO not only in hopes of finding potential investments but in an effort to spot interesting trends in the industry and to spend time with those great entrepreneurs who will continue to innovate for decades to come. Journalists come to DEMO because they get great stories year in and year out -- if a new product can shine in a 6 minute demo, it will make a great story for the national press. As a result of these symbiotic relationships, DEMO continues to thrive after 15 years of ups and downs in the tech economy.
My hats off to Stewart Alsop, the father of DEMO, and Chris Shipley in whose able hands DEMO has continued to thrive. I look forward to DEMOfall.
Consumer VOIP will hit mass adoption later this year
Like David, I too was at the Consumer Electronics show this year. One of the big themes was consumer Voice over IP. A host of previously unannounced products made their way onto the show floor with no fanfare (as well as a few with major hype). Consumer Voice Over IP is finally crossing the ease-of-use line to reach a wider market.
There were three approaches with promise on the show floor: portable handsets, consumer routers, and Skype gateways.
1. Portable Handsets: Almost a cell phone...
The best example of the first approach was UT Starcom's Vonage handset. Vonage is one of the major Voice Over IP providers. Previously, they used Cisco and Linksys VOIP devices that you plug into your network at home. Now innovative telecoms company UT Starcom has produced a wi-fi handset that lets you make calls from anyplace you can connect to 802.11b. Now consumers buying Vonage don't need to set up any equipment in their home so long as they already have Wireless.
On top of that benefit for Vonage customers, it will work anywhere you have wi-fi. Going to a hotel on business? Throw your phone in your luggage and your home phone number travels with you.
It's a flashy prototype and certainly got quite a bit of attention on the CES show floor. Of course the problem is obvious -- you still have to carry the handset and your cell phone since WiFi isn't ubiquitous. And at home, you can't use any of your existing phones without going back and installing the original gateway. It may be an easy piece of new equipment, but it still replaces everything you've got.
2. Consumer Routers: No more landline...
The second approach was to use existing home networking gear to replace the landline phone. Netgear and D-Link both had unannounced products on the show floor: combo 802.11b/g routers with built-in VOIP. Basically, it's a wireless router with two normal phone jacks in the back. Plug your existing cordless phones in there, and you have instant voice calling. Netgear was there with AT&T CallVantage and D-Link was there with Lingo. Both manufacturers promised firmware updates to work with a variety of services, but out of the box the routers work with default providers.
Anybody with a home network can now have VOIP too. Just take that old wireless router and replace it with the same brand except it's got phone jacks. Netgear in particular made a big deal about how the router itself did some magic to make sure voice calls were not interrupted by data usage from the computer. These devices are formally coming out by February or March will retail for about $120.
3. Skype Gateways: Free calling...
The most interesting solutions didn't get much press at CES, probably because they were too esoteric for the masses. However, it's hard to argue with free as a consumer proposition.
A Taiwanese company called Sysgration introduced the SkyGenie product line. These devices sit between your regular phone jack and the phone. An additional plug goes into USB port on your computer. Your phone works as it did before.
However, if you dial "##" before your number, you are now dialing on Skype, the free calling network. Incoming Skype calls ring on your home phone, complete with caller ID and a different ring pattern.
The high-end device, the SkyGenie Voodoo, can even route incoming Skype calls to other phones and receive calls that then get routed over Skype. When at both ends of a call, SkyGenie Voodoo provides free international calls using your current phone system. For less than $100 in equipment, any company with overseas offices can get rid of their huge telecommunications costs.
While it's a little complex for the mass market because it requires Skype signup, free is a powerful motivator. Though it received the least press attention of all the VOIP companies at the CES, I suspect that it (and other similar products like those by ActionTec) will have a greater effect on the telecommunications market in the long run.
Despite the lack of press, these companies certainly received a lot of attention from distributors on the show floor...
