Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Last night was Debate Night in Canada.   The leaders of the NDP, Liberal, Conservative and Bloc Quebecois parties were on National TV last night.  The Globe and Mail coverage is in this morning’s paper, and the Globe also published live thoughts from the editorial board.  The Citizen  slanted the story differently from the Globe and Mail, painting Harper as a victor in the debate.  The National Post, surprisingly, declared Jack Layton the victor. 

What did I think?

There’s really no way I could vote for Paul Martin in the next election.  Everything he said lacked sincerity. It’s clear he’ll say whatever it takes to get elected. That leaves me the choice of Jack Layton or Stephen Harper. 

The NDP, frankly, scares me.  Aside from their predilection toward taxation and big government, Jack also said, regarding trade, the he believes a strong countervailing strategy needs to be used, “to show that we’re serious when our industries are under attack.”  Jack’s in favour of a trade war with the US.  Sorry Jack.  That’s a non-starter for me. 

That leaves the Conservatives.  Much of what Harper says rings true for me.  I believe very strongly in the Conservative stance that putting spending choices in the hands of individual citizens is a better approach than new government funded programs.  His tax cut targeted at families with children is a much better idea than the NDP and Liberal proposals to create scores of federally funded daycare spaces feeding off the federal teat. 

However, if Mr. Harper wants my vote in this election, he has to stop pandering to the Christian Right. I believe more strongly in human rights and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms than the Conservatives programs.  Harper’s pledge to reopen the debate on same-sex marriage is a complete non-starter for me.  As Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe said "We already had a free vote on that, so I think we shouldn’t have a free vote on a question that was resolved, every six months."  It’s too bad Mr. Duceppe doesn’t feel the same way on the question of Quebec Sovereignty.

There were a few good soundbites:

• Duceppe on Government stonewalling during Question period: "Question period should be answer period."
• Martin to Duceppe on National Unity: "You are not going to take my country away from me with some trick, with some ambiguous question."
• Harper on Government accountability: "The only way to make sure a government is held accountable is to defeat it."

In the end, the debate didn’t help me at all.  Jack Layton is still a big spender; Paul Martin is still the leader of a corrupt institution which believes it knows what’s best for me; and Stephen Harper is still pandering to so-con’s.  Perhaps I’ll vote Green, or Libertarian.

Oh, and the new format — stultifying. 

I’ve been asked to chair the Instant Messaging and Mobility panel at Pulver’s Consumer VoIP Summit in Las Vegas.  It’s happening on January 4, during the Consumer Electronics Show. So far we have speakers from AOL, Yahoo, and Earthlink. I think a speaker from Google or Microsoft would really round out the mix, don’t you?  My picks: Mike Jazayeri, Google Talk Product Manager, or Mike Corrigan, GM, MSN Messenger.  Whaddya think? 

Stuart Henshall asks "Should Skype have a PhoneGnome Strategy".  The answer is a resounding yes. However, Skype’s proprietary protocol is a real handicap in this scenario.  Many of the benefits of the strategy Stuart advocates are already available with standards-based solutions, such as Gizmo Project.

Stuart says some of the benefits would be:

1. Home Phone numbers to be associated with Skype accounts. Thus every PhoneGnome activated with a Skype Account would 1) ring when the home phone rings (anywhere!) and 2) provide cheap SkypeOut rates when dialing out of your local calling area with the home phone. Thus more integrated than doing what I now do. Which is run SoftGnome and Skype concurrently.
2. Backup/Skype solution for when a computer is not operating. All Skype calls would ring the home phone. This is no different that Skype’s call forwarding option that is offered now. However the ring for this service would be free. Device availability could be communicated as well.
3. It would substitute SkypeOut for creating an agreement with another ITSP. It would also enable dial by number for all Skypers who also have PhoneGnome. This would result in many more SkypeOut minutes being used.
4. New service opportunities for the family are opened up. Currently SkypeIn numbers appeal to a small audience. Eg a business line, or access in other countries. Create a SkypeGnome strategy and the opportunity for additional services that cater to each member is increased. Eg one home line, four extensions. Voice Mail on Skype etc.

Now consider the following scenario:

1. You can configure any ITSP to work with PhoneGnome.  Use SIPPhone as the ITSP in your PhoneGnome.  For all your outgoing calls you would get the benefit of $0.01/minute calling.  For incoming calls from Gizmo buddies, have them add a *746 prefix to your home phone number in the Gizmo address book.  Calls then go directly from SIPPhone to your PhoneGnome.
2. This also gives you the benefit of a backup solution.  Now, if the Gizmo buddy you’re trying to reach is offline, you can quickly establish that using presence, and choose the toll free *746 PhoneGnome number instead.  No minutes consumed.

I had a great discussion with PhoneBoy yesterday.  He had questions about iotum on his blog from last week and concluded "Maybe I’ll find the time to chat up Alec Saunders and he can tell me how this all works."  I called him from my car on the way home through the snow last night.  Unfortunately, you can’t use Live Meeting to do a demo while navigating snowy winter streets.  Reached him in Port Orchard WA, which is a beautiful spot. Anyway, you can read what he wrote after the conversation here.  His Becky concept is cool.  Conceptually speaking, the notion of wrapping the iotum Relevance Engine in an IVR is a powerful one.

Jason Droege is the top dog at SIPPhone.  Recently, three of us have have experienced a problem with Gizmo consuming more resources than it should.  So, at 2:04 I sent Jason a piece of email outlining what we were experiencing, and at 2:15 I had a reply from him that his engineers were looking into the issue.  That’s service!