ETel Day One
I spent yesterday at the pre-show for ETel. This truly is a VoIP hacker-fest. Part way through the day, for example, someone came running out with a Treo running a Linux shell.
There are a lot of old friends, and new faces here. For instance, I had dinner with Phil Wolff from SkypeJournal. We had a spirited discussion about the future role of the incumbents in a Voice 2.0 world. How long, I asked, until they are simply resellers for content coming from the portal players?
I also ended up in a deep discussion of identity with John Todd, and some folks proposing a new identity standard.
The next two days are looking very meaty, and very interesting. The focus here is a contrast to the other VoIP shows I attend (VON, and IT Expo). This event is very much about the possibilities of emerging VoIP apps — tomorrow vs today.
