Goodbye and Hello

By Richard "Zippy" Grigonis, Editor's Note

SIP magazine is about to undergo a major transformation.

As Rich Tehrani and TMC announced last month, SIP is becoming Unified Communications magazine. The premiere issue will appear in July. The new magazine will contain a section exclusively dedicated to SIP, and the same SIP columnists will be found there.

Why the change? Now that the “gee-whiz” aspects of the SIP protocol (and of IP for that matter) are slowly disappearing as it becomes a mainstream technology incorporated into many different IP Communications devices, it’s time to focus on what we can actually do with the plethora of new and exciting IP and SIP-based products and services now appearing at a quickening pace. This is not surprising if one examines the way a new technology is developed and undergoes successfully adoption by vendors and customers.

For example, in 1878 the public would have eagerly read a magazine entitled Light Bulbs (“Every shape, size and color bulb is reviewed by our capable staff… Gas lighting, arc lights and incandescent bulbs compared… Tesla’s new fluorescent bulb… Plus 10 tips for selecting the right kind of light bulb for your home!”) In 1992, a magazine on the new and astounding technology of CD-ROMs would have been a hit — I believe there were even some expos, conferences and seminars held at the time. In the late 1990s I was even asked by an investment banker and some friends of mine to be part of a project to publish and oversized, glossy magazine called… IP! It would have been quite an ego boost, but the magazine would have lasted only until the telecom bubble popped a few years later. (As it happens, the project went nowhere.)

All of this demonstrates that, while individual, new technologies are the subject of intense scrutiny, these things-in-themselves (to borrow a term from Immanuel Kant) become pedestrian after a while, because they simply serve as the building blocks for products and applications that actually do something. By the end of the 1990s, people were not interested in the embedded operating system used by voice modems — they wanted to know what they could do with them to save money and be more productive. (As it turned, out, of course, voice modems themselves would be eclipsed by newer technology and an entirely new cycle began.)

The mythic unified messaging technology of the 1990s was the progenitor of modern Unified Communications (UC). UC is much more than simply listing voicemails, faxes and emails on a single interface, as was the case with its predecessor. Today it has more to do with presence, FMC (Fixed-Mobile Communications) and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem).

All of this just goes to show how TMC not only continues to stay on top of the world’s rapidly growing and evolving technologies, but it also follows them to maturation and fruition in the everyday, real world.

We hope you’ll enjoy our new magazine and website!

Richard Grigonis is Executive Editor of TMC’s IP Communications Group.