Netwatch - October 30, 1995
Audio and video streaming applications (wherein playback commences prior to the complete transmission of the file) have become widely available to mainstream Internet users in the last nine months. Audio streaming applications are broadly div ided into telephone (real time voice encoding and playback) and tape player (playback on demand) varieties. Both are possible because of simultaneous advances in encoding/compression and the arrival of the 14.4 modem as the current popular mainstay.
Without the development of VON (Voice on the Net) standards (which have fostered the orderly arrival of HTML and more recently VRML), the market has grown explosively and is rife with incompatible formats, especially in the playback on demand arena. On the phone side, two products, the Internet Phone ("IPhone") by VocalTec and DigiPhone by Camelot, have the highest visibility and are the first to deliver shrink wrap versions on retail shelves.
This NetWatch Tech Report was originally intended to be a functional review of these two competing products to be published when both products hit the shelves. However the disparity that exists throughout the range of software testing, marketing, even financing (VocalTec is not traded while Camelot is) is extreme, and we are concerned that our best objective reporting will feel biased. It is not. The NetWatch team has established itself as a primary nexus of VON related discourse on the Net and we have been in it since the beginning.
VocalTec announced and made available IPhone on February 15, 1995. Over 40,000 people downloaded IPhone during that first week. As of the date of this report, we estimate that over 600,000 copies have been distributed to end-users.
Astoundingly, without a large scale "public" beta, VocalTec brought directly to market a fundamentally new consumer based application with revolutionary compression and encoding technology and married it to the existing InterNet chat standard, IRC, to solve the thorny problem of locating users in realtime on a Net where many user addresses change at each logon. VocalTec's rollout of IPhone remains one of the few clear instances where a Net based and distributed application was compelling enough to open a lot of wallets around the world.
In mid March the "Iphone War" occurred. IRC operators, on their own volition or under pressure from angry IRC users, banned the Iphone: it was eating up available connections and VocalTec's strategy of a 60 second speech limit on the evaluation copy resulted in extremely heavy logon/logoff activity.
Iphone went silent worldwide for about 6 hours - then the dedicated Iphone/IRC server network was born. And the server side has since evolved into it's current structure of 16 servers.
VocalTec has since released a number of new builds, and one major enhancement to Iphone: full duplex capability. In this context, full duplex means that a user can talk and listen at the same time. Conventional telephones are full duplex. Half duplex, the original Iphone release, results in a CB radio-like speech: say your piece, followed by "Over" then sit back and listen.
The jury is out on full duplex: there is a large installed base of Creative Labs soundcards and no SoundBlaster duplex driver. Multiple soundcard configurations (one way to achieve full duplex) are tricky, and there is a fair amount of confusion caused by full duplex MIDI cards being perceived (and purchased) as having full duplex voice processing capability. In addition, Net traffic can, and does superimpose significant transmission delays: when this happens, full duplex becomes an illusion, occurring in the technical but not the practical sense.
Finally, VocalTec has recently entered the audio on demand side of VON with Iwave. We will cover Iwave in detail in another NetWatch Tech Report. It performs solidly and the VocalTec marketing scheme is brilliant. Give it away. Corner the "we don't have any money now (but we will some day!)" market and really subdue any late audio on demand entrants. The possible downside is that buyers often equate quality with price, and free software is seen as having zero value.
VocalTec is a software development / publishing firm. Since 1991 they have been selling voice related technologies. Their 30+ people in Israel and NorthVale, NJ are the designer/developers of their own technology. On the basis of their performance they have landed a number of strategic OEM arrangements with Motorola, Cirrus Logic, Boca Research, NetCom and others.
VocalTec has positioned itself well to become the VON standard for 2 way communication.
Almost immediately after the February 1995 Iphone release, a then unknown Camelot announced that DigiPhone would be available soon and would surpass Iphone in a number of areas: useable at 9600 baud, on an Intel 386 and be full-duplex to boot.
It was reported that the first announced DigiPhone test for investors failed. Subsequent demonstrations attended by NetWatch staff included a traveling demonstration in New York in May, 1995 , and the PC Expo in June, 1995 - also in New York. Both of these demos failed to work.
Camelot sought beta testers. At this writing we have been able to locate individuals that completed the required beta test paperwork, but unable to locate any individuals that received test software.
Although not necessarily damning (because a company can market its product through whatever channel it deems best), we felt it was highly noteworthy that an InterNet phone package was unavailable for demonstration via download. Demo software is de rigeur on the Net, especially if the application is for use exclusively on the Net.
The arrival of the shrink wrap version in stores initiated another round of misgivings:
The "Extensive Directory of Digiphone users" advertised on the box does not exist. Users report expending over six hours with Camelot support in order to get their software product almost working. The software repeatedly terminates in a general protection fault (GPF) The connection protocol makes it extremely difficult to connect with a Net user with a variable IP address. This includes the majority of users that connect via dialup from home. A corollary problem is that there is no way to know who's available to talk to.
And perhaps most Machiavellian, since there is no way to find someone to talk to, it's difficult to determine if it is working.
We are unaware of any OEM arrangements Camelot has effected - these are particularly difficult to initiate if there is any product instability.
Our perception is that DigiPhone was prematurely rushed to market due to investor or executive board pressure. It is extremely difficult to believe the Camelot technology folks could be unaware the product was not ready for release.
Yet on Wall Street, every time Camelot issued a press release the stock price went up...and up. On August 24th the price hit almost $8 a share! In this NetScape fueled InterNet frenzy, this makes some sense. But Camelot had yet to ship a product - and indications were that there wasn't any product of substance. On September 15, 1995 Camelot announced that they were going to ship, and Digiphone is in the stores now.
Notes: Current product is not practical to use if either party has a dynamic SLIP/PPP account.