Software Systems Architecture

Looking Back at Mainstream Videoconferencing

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:40:00 CST

Last year's biggest video calling news was financial -- Cisco acquiring Tandberg, Skype separating from eBay and Logitech purchasing LifeSize. Let's assume these are signs of maturation, that video calling is significant enough to be termed "mainstream", and look back at the predictions Joe Duran and I made in 1996. We prefaced our book,

Down the Road is our vision of the future of videoconferencing:
Chapter 13: "Barriers Breaking Down" is mostly about the current challenges to successful videoconferencing. With the technologies and developments we see on the near horizon, these challenges will be overcome, and mainstream videoconferencing will surely be a reality.
Chapter 14: "Things to Come" concludes our vision of where videoconferencing will take us, once videoconferencing is mainstream.

As often happens with technology predictions, we were too optimistic in the short term and perhaps not optimistic enough in the longer term. Let's consider more specifics.

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"Video Conferencing" D.O.A.?

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:30:00 CST

After the long predicted "Year of the LAN" finally arrived, use of "LAN" and/or "Local Area Network" died off. "Ethernet" and/or just plain "network" were more sensible words to use -- there was no need to encompass the losers: ARCNET, Token Ring, FDDI et al. Even with the emergence and prominence of WiFi, displacing Ethernet in some contexts, there has been no apparent revival of "LAN".

Anecdotes, financial results, public opinion and popular culture suggest that we have experienced the year of video conferencing. However, with this arrival of video calling, the term "videoconferencing" is rightfully dying. A variety of terms, e.g., "telepresence", and brands, e.g., Skype, have emerged and become more useful than "conferencing".

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Flash Forward: The Year of Video Conferencing

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:00:00 CST

18 years ago, the long predicted "Year of the LAN" was no longer in question -- the Local Area Network had finally arrived. A dozen years ago our book predicted "Videoconferencing should become mainstream by the end of the decade ..." How wrong! ...

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On a Monday

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:20:00 CDT

It is another holiday in the U.S. (and Canada). It likely will rain, a fitting end to a "Summer of Rain" in Austin. I've listened to the three songs I usually listen to on Mondays, by the Boomtown Rats, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, and (The Rev.) Al Green.

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Desktop virtual machines (DRM bites me, too)

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 21:15:00 CDT

[V]irtual machine performance passes my test, but this application (playing DVDs) doesn't seem very usable.

Upside Down (Windows over Fedora 7 Linux)

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 08:15:00 CDT

Eventually, it dawned that I should try turning the software upside down. Instead of running Fedora in a virtual machine on Windows, the raw hardware could run Fedora and the Windows file server could be relegated to a virtual machine on VMware on Fedora.

Real Virtual

Mon, 21 May 2007 13:15:00 CDT

Sometimes I feel overly cautious as I re-engage with virtual machine thinking. When IBM, Microsoft et al aggressively tout the advantages of deploying servers as virtual machines, what's the sweat? Last month I plunged into decisions and experiences with virtual machines in the "real world" -- production environments. Alas, there was no time for writing stories then, and the thoughts are fleeting.

Free code meets free sectors

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:52:00 CDT

... 500GB disk drives are readily available for under $200 and have roughly a billion sectors, so the marginal cost of a disk sector is under 0.2 micro-cents. In the last week or so, I've become re-enamored^VRM with virtual machines and am using them to gobble up tens of millions of sectors with free software. ...

Looking at and past the windows

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:45:00 CST

(1965) "Same old places and the same old songs... It's the singer, not the song." - Jagger/Richards
(1929) "You may forget the singer, but don't forget this song." - A.P. Carter

Looking out the windows

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 04:45:00 CST

While the "real world" mourns President Ford and ponders the past, present, and future of our planet, many in cyberspace find now the time to ponder hardware, software, and Internet platforms.

blogs & S P A M revisited

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 04:45:00 GMT

My laments about blog overload coincided with Gartner... After months of a seeming plateau, there are widespread perceptions and statistics that spam has escalated.

blog, blog, blog

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 04:45:00 GMT

Reasons I haven't been writing?

Busy with family
Busy with work, both paid and pro bono
Writer's block
All of the above, but...

"blog overload" has also affected me.

Post-hiatus Miscellany: Surgery, Photos, Phones, Notebooks, Fedora 5

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 04:45:00 GMT

After the last long hiatus, "If Tomorrow Wasn't Such A Long Time", I did not expect another, but it happened, for similar reasons: personal illnesses, a variety of family challenges and blessings, and trying to keep up/catch up with commercial and pro bono professional activities.

The Really Difficult Parts; More iBook Struggles

Sat, 10 Sep 2005 04:45:00 GMT

Effectively identifying/sorting/searching/sharing digital photos is challenging. My iBook was seemingly dead but has been partially revived.

Let Me Keep My Metadata!

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 04:45:00 GMT

They Took My JPEGs! & won't give 'em back!

Sat, 16 Jul 2005 04:45:00 GMT

They Took My Kodachrome! Medical Addendum

Sat, 02 Jul 2005 04:45:00 GMT

Navigating Modern Medicine, Miscellany

Mon, 23 May 2005 04:45:00 GMT

Digital Photos, PHP, FC3, Dead Fans

Sat, 23 Apr 2005 04:45:00 GMT

(disc)centricity: Solaris X and Fedora in a Windows world

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 04:45:00 GMT