Taking the Gloves Off, Skype Edition
Jonathan Rosenberg Joins Skype
I was warming up to write a blog post on Cisco’s UC announcement today (Cisco Unified Communications system 8.0), but the video on their web site nearly put me to sleep. Based on the look of the new Cisco phones, they didn’t get the memo about the importance of user experience.
Instead, the big news today comes from Skype: They hired Jonathan Rosenberg, a key author of the SIP protocol:
http://gigaom.com/2009/11/09/skype-names-sip-guru-as-chief-technology-strategist/
Rosenberg is well-regarded in SIP circles and his hiring means that Skype is making a stronger push into the enterprise… When I last spoke to Skype CEO Josh Silverman, he was pretty clear about his desire to turn Skype into a major enterprise voice and collaboration player.
The recent legal tussling over Skype’s core technology has finally been put to rest and now they have Rosenberg. Given that he was instrumental in the development of SIP, founded DynamicSoft (which was acquired by Cisco) and was then key to Cisco’s voice strategy over the last 5 years, this could be a very interesting twist for Enterprise UC.
-John
John Lamb, Modality Systems.