It is ironic that Bell Labs, the very cradle where UNIX was polished to perfection, the first Integrated Circuit was crafted and where the first digital phone call was made is facing pressures from new open source technologies and VoIP. It is a case of unexpected effects of digital revolution. When everyone assumed that Linux would threaten Microsoft, it ended up eclipsing Sun. This is a great interview by InfoWorld with Jeffrey Jaffe, president of research and advanced technologies at Bell Labs. Instead of waiting too long, Bell Labs is fighting back and is developing a carrier grade VoIP system, and also developing a new computing platform for telecoms that is based on open source software. If that happens, Sun and HP-Compaq stand to lose more business, this time from big spending telecom operators.
It will be interesting to see the reaction of “stupid network” belivers. Once we preserve “quality, reliability, performance and security”, won’t we end up recreating most of PSTN, except for variable rate switching?
Even though his remarks didn’t explicitly state it, the major problem will be feature interaction, especially if they stradle two different branches. Also, how does one maintain feature differentiation while using open source software?