Conclusions
For those of you keeping score at home, it's clear that, right now, Gizmo Project is a serious contender for Skype's VoIP crown. It has a strong client, a knowledgeable development team, and the ability to more easily connect its VoIP client to others around the world.
However, Skype has gotten off to a considerable head start. Its base of 40 million subscribers is a formidable obstacle that any new VoIP service will have to reckon with. And the reality is that, despite such advantages as open architecture and the ability to dial out to land/mobile lines, the most convenient VoIP connection continues to be a call to a contact within your chosen network. This means that Gizmo Project, along with the swath of other new entrants, desperately needs to find innovative ways to build up its subscriber numbers. After all, if all your colleagues are on Skype, why would you use Gizmo Project?
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??? Introduction
??? Gizmo Project
??? PeerMe
??? Conclusions
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With this said, the ability to record calls and the availability of free voice mail are outstanding features that could make Gizmo Project more useful and more valuable right now. Will Gizmo's developers be able to keep up their relentless addition of new features and extras? Time will tell, but I'll be watching closely.
I'll also be watching PeerMe with keen interest. If the company is able to successfully make the partnership deals that will allow it to bolt its client into a wide range of service-oriented online communities, databases, and Web sites, it will tap into an immediate source of revenue that will fuel future growth.
And then there's Sony, AOL, and Google, all of which have announced new plans for Voice-over-IP services. With the exception of Sony, each of these services will enter the game with large numbers of existing subscribers.
And how about Microsoft? Given the company's newfound emphasis on Internet services, I wouldn't be surprised to see VoIP or videoconferencing built directly into Windows Vista, or released as a Windows XP add-on via Service Pack 3. I also wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of acquisition before the end of 2006.
One final note: Across the board, acoustic quality exceeded my expectations. But I did experience slight but noticeable variances that were the result of the quality and proximity of the mic on the VoIP-oriented headsets I tested. A word to the wise: If you're going to be spending a lot of time VoIPing, make sure you get a top-notch headset that features comfortable earphones as well as a mic that rests close to your mouth. This will ensure maximum possible clarity.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
