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KEITH WEINER - CEO founded DiamondWare in 1994. A passionate audiophile and music lover, he has written on the topics of computer audio, software engineering, computer games, and telephony for books, magazines, and DiamondWare's own newspaper Telephone Times. He is co-author of a number of audio-related patent applications.
He has spoken at numerous conferences, including Game Developer's Conference, Voice on the Net, Presence and Instant Messaging, and PlanetPDA. He has proposed a ratified standard in the 3D Working Group (part of the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group).
With a background in software development, and current active engineering involvement, he understands the technology in terms of what it makes the computer actually do, which is an important advantage.
He has strong opinions on diverse topics:
Killer App. Obviously voice. It makes games (a.k.a. "interactive entertainment") more interactive, it's the core of the conference call and, and is the preferred means of communication between people.
"The phone line". How many simultaneous voice audio streams can a broadband pipe transmit? There's no practical limit. A phone application could "host" a "conference" of 16 people (or more). It may not be called a "conference", but simply an N-party call. Users won't care, so long as it enables a call to the entire family at Christmas, or the entire virtual team in an enterprise.
Mobility. He prefers sitting in the "winter conference room" (the back patio of his home) to an office with fluorescent lighting. Arizona winters are warm and sunny during the day. Everyone has a favorite spot, which makes work more enjoyable (and more productive). What's needed is wired and wireless connectivity. In his house, he has CAT5 cable to the patio. In Starbucks and many other retail venues, there will be 802.11.
Audio Quality. One benefit of VoIP is that end-users will be able to adopt newer technologies. One important such technology is wideband. Once you hear 16 kHz audio, you will not ever want to go back to "old phone" sound. Of course, users could even adopt 44 kHz (CD quality) or better. Why not? It's only a matter of having sufficient network bandwidth.
Government. Laissez-nous faire (leave us alone). Innovators do not need government "help", nor the deadly regulations that inevitably come with it.
Convergence. PDAs, wireless networking, voice, email, paging (and other messaging), GPS, mapping (just to name a few) will converge in tomorrow's devices. The desktop computer will not go away (it's got more power, and it's cheaper), nor will the laptop. But in many instances, it's easier to carry a smaller device (e.g. on an airplane), and there's no need for the power of a bigger computer. The main factor is ubiquitous wireless broadband (i.e. 802.11X).
Increased productivity. Desktop publishing raised the bar. A typed page with whiteout on it, or cross-outs, became unacceptable. Now, even meeting agendas and other "quickie" documents usually look pretty good. Similarly, the PDA makes it possible to work in locations and in contexts which work was not previously possible. To stay competitive, one will use a converged device.
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