Irwin Lazar's "Real-Time" Blog

Microsoft plans greater phone integration in next LCS - Computer Business Review

A peek into Microsoft's plans for its next release of LCS. There is no longer any doubt that Microsoft is jumping into the enterprise VoIP space with both feet.

IBM Withdraws OS/2

My colleague Peter O'Kelly notes today in his blog that IBM is officially withdrawing OS/2 from the market.

While I have to admit, I wasn't even aware that OS/2 was even still available, I'm still saddened by this news. My experience with OS/2 dates back the early 1990's when I ran a LAN that was based on Microsoft LAN Manager running on OS/2 (which if memory serves me correctly, was actually Microsoft OS/2 before the IBM/Microsoft split). Sometime in the early 1990's I switched my home machine over to OS/2 for Windows, which while it was a resource hog, it didn't crash and had a better user interface than Windows. I also became a beta tester for OS/2 Warp 3, which was my final experience with OS/2 given that my 386sx-16Mhz wasn't quite up to the task of running it.

I still believe OS/2 was ahead of its time, especially with regard to the user interface which again if memory serves me correctly, featured the "right-click" and treated desktop items as objects, something Microsoft didn't achieve until Windows 2000 (along with the ability to support multiple virtual protected mode machines).

Much like Microsoft's feature set for Vista sounds remarkably like what one can get today from Apple OS X Tiger, OS/2 seemingly provided the early milestone for Microsoft developers to go after.

RIP OS/2 - we hardly knew ya'

"Jingle" Bells

In the Christmas spirit, the Jabber Software foundation recently released specifications extending the XMPP instant messaging protocol to support voice & video. This provides XMPP developers with an alternative to bundling SIP into their apps for rich media services.

While XMPP hasn't seen much success outside of the U.S. government and financial services firms, the adoption of it by Google for its GoogleTalk service provides an opportunity for XMPP to become a stronger alternative to the SIP/SIMPLE set of standards. Especially with the pending integration of AOL and Google's IM services (see Light Reading: AOL/Google: VOIP Buddies).

Even with Google and AOL coalescing around XMPP for rich-media services I'm still not convinced that there is a real challenge here to SIP. In the consumer VoIP space all offerings that I'm aware of (such as Vonage, CallVantage, Packet8, etc.) are all based on SIP. In the enterprise space all VoIP system vendors and providers of hosted "IP Centrex" services are implementing SIP (though most enterprise systems vendors still rely on their own proprietary signaling standards for end-points). IM vendors such as Microsoft and IBM Lotus are on the SIMPLE bandwagon for integration of presence and IM with voice and video.

Still, the emergence of XMPP alternative to SIP/SIMPLE will be interesting to watch, especially with the power of Google behind it.

On TV!!

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by an independent news production company about issues related to residential VoIP services and home alarm systems. The interview has since been distributed across the United States and at least one station cbs2chicago has used the footage to product their own story.

Check it out at http://cbs2chicago.com/consumer/local_story_347103121.html and be sure to note the "Opus" lamp on my desk (something I found on eBay a few years ago).

It's really interesting to see how these things are produced, most of the "action shots" were staged, the alarm system shown in the early part of the story is actually our office fire alarm system. You can also catch a glimpse of our archiac six-year-old Cisco Ethernet switch in our Virginia office, the first model to feature Gigabit Ethernet uplinks!

Aswath Weblog: Dodging Skype Draft

Aswath Rao comments in his blog about some recent analysis of Skype's super nodes.  Most interesting is the observation that being behind a NAT router with a private IP address doesn't necessarily keep one from becoming a Supernode.

Both Columbia University's analysis of Skype (http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~library/TR-repository/reports/reports-2004/cucs-039-04.pdf), though the Skype Network Administrator's Guide at http://www.skype.com/security/guide-for-network-admins.pdf notes that only machines that are "unable to receive inbound network connections (such as a user behind a NAT or Firewall) will never become eligible to become a supernode nor will it ever be asked to relay a third party's traffic).

Aswath notes that those behind a "well behaved NAT" could become Skype supernodes, since they could be open to receiving an unsolicited session request.

This is important stuff for enterprise network managers to be aware of as they determine the proper Skype policy for their organization.

Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast

I wanted to plug Dan York and Jonathan Zar'sBlue Box VoIP Security Podcast. I subscribed to this after seeing a posting on the VOIPSA VoIPSec mailing list and so far it has been one of the better podcasts that I've found.

While Dan and Jonathan work for VoIP product vendors, they are also members of VOIPSA and the show has been extremely objective, featuring news and interviews from individuals throughout the VoIP industry.

If you are looking for a good source to keep up with news related to VoIP security, give this podcast a shot.

Verso "Skype Killer" Certified

Verso Technologies has announed that the Tolly Group has certified that Verso's "NetSpective" filtering product can block the latest versions of Skype. So, if you want to keep Skype off your network, you now have an option.

I've had a lot of conversations with enterprises in the last few weeks over Skype. While many are interested in using it to save costs, the overwhelming concern that I've heard is that Skype can't be managed. IT shops can't support it, and they can't know how it's being used by their employees. There is also the fear of a user's PC becoming a Skype super-node, causing disruption to normal traffic flows. I think these concerns outweigh the fears of Skype as an attack vector (though that's a concern as well) into the enterprise network.

Thanks to James Enck's EuroTelcoblog for the pointer to this announcement)

Skype's North American Plans

Skype Journal posted an interesting overview of Henry Gomez's plans for Skype North America, including a photo of Skype's current "North American Headquarters" (Henry's cube at eBay's HQ).

It's worth reading for insight into where Skype is heading post-eBay acquisition.

Realtime-VoIP: The Web's VoIP Community

VoIP writer Ken Camp contacted me this morning to announce his new venture, "Realtime VoIP", a community site meant to foster an interactive conversation among those interested in VoIP products, technologies, and services. The site includes numerous discussion forums, a reading room, links to external resources, and newsfeeds via RSS and podcast.

This looks like an interesting experiment, and one which can leverage the nature of the Internet to foster collaboration among interested parties.

Microsoft RTC Team Blog

The Microsoft Real-Time Communications product team has established a blog

"We've heard loud and clear that many people want a better connection with the RTC product team. We're excited to do something about it. The primary goal of this blog is to establish two way communication between the product team and our customers and partners. We will also use this blog as an educational channel to provide additional product information."

It's now on my NetNewsWire Feed list.