Stuart Henshall has NAILED the story and the importance of what Apple is doing with the upcoming 4.0 release of an OS for iPad, iPhone and iPods. Why now is multitasking going to be so big, and why will VoIP and VoIP apps be important? Because finally, with LTE and WiMax the importance of selling and marketing data plans time has come.
Companies like Skype, Truphone and Google Voice are all in this market together. Only fools think they compete. They don’t. Each has clear cut market differentiation, and yet while there may be some overlap, they really each begun to carve out their own clearcut market position. Sure GoogleVoice wants to trump Skype at some point, but by the time that day comes, Skype will have been sold again.
So why does multitasking help these three and the carriers at the same time? Data and data plans, cloud based services and ubiquitous connectivity is what changes the game for these players. When I see a TV commercial from Cox Cable offering me web based management of my phone services from them that is still 1.0 era, you have to realize that the “me too” and “me also” approaches of the rising telcos are getting their lessons from the Voice 2.0 manifestos and developments that we’ve all been evangelizing and using for the past five or six years. Even Vonage is making quiet moves to be more than a PSTN replacement, with their mobile application.
So when your iPad on 3G gets a call on a softphone, then whats in the cloud will matter. Whose service the call comes over won’t.