The power of VoIP in Adobe Flash 10
Adobe Flash 10 beta is being credited with super powers with the inclusion of peer to peer (P2P) and the ability to seamlessly integrate VoIP without a Skype install. Using P2P, Flash sites will be able to serve higher quality video than YouTube at a fraction of the cost. VoIP is enabled by a combination of the Speex audio codec and the Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP).
Anyone in the client-side VoIP space is vulnerable, says Adam Fisk. Writing a VoIP app now becomes as easy as writing a Flash video play, with all the "hard stuff" already done. And since it's in Flash, you don't need to worry about a separate install--unlike Skype. Finally, the code is not based on SIP or P2P-SIP in any way. Adobe's SIP work has so far only been shown in Adobe Pacifica, not in the Flash Player.
Adobe has put a lot of money into SIP, including the hiring of Dr. Henry Sinnreich, the "Godfather" of SIP. There has been continued talk Adobe would be offering some sort of service revolving around SIP, but the company has yet to make any official announcements. If Adobe could implement a P2P CDN and/or P2P-SIP infrastructure through Flash, it would be a serious game changer.
For more:
- Adam Fisk's blog on Flash 10 Beta being a YouTube,
Skype, and BitTorrent Killer
- GigaOm chimes in on Flash P2P
being disruptive; comment reading recommended.
- A prediction Flash
based VoiP, Adobe please wakeup!
- A Spartan Adobe Pacifica Blog
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Comments
By Tim Panton | Posted 5:19am | May 20, 2008
The blogosphere says the end of the world is nigh for us at phonefromhere.com. Adobe adding VoIP to Flash is a market-ending event for all other VoIP clients and services.
In reality every serious player has known this was coming. Adobe have been telegraphing it for years.
What is surprising is how little actual telephony functionality they have chosen to deliver in Flash 10.
We are confident that with our sound basis in real telephony protocols we can compete effectively.
Flash is just one more player in a crowded market. It may spawn a thousand more competitors, but each will struggle to differentiate from the other given that they will all have to use Adobe's media server on the back end.
Meanwhile those of us leveraging the power of opensource will be able to be that little bit different and will continue to do so, moving further and further from a highly homogenised crowd.