Michael Robertson was caught talking to Chris Pirillo on the Gizmo Poject today. They are using Gizmo to record the session. He openly discusses what's good about Gizmo (e.g. the recording features) and provides some useful background on why he started with hardware at SIPPhone and effectively copied Skype. I've paraphrased the podcast. Time approx 30 minutes. Download or read the summary.

When I started Sipphone we focused on the hardware because we thought a market for soft phones would emerge. However with the exception of Skype no one did a good job on software. So frustrated 9 months ago, we decided to build our own client. Our goal is to build an open directory. I don't think we will knock Skype out of the running. I do hope that embracing open standards and openness will win the day in the long run. Skype has a huge lead and yet the world does change very quickly. We will be adding IM functionality to the product. Haven't started working on video. Will people really use it? It's fairly straightforward to add in for SIP and then setup video sessions. IM is the next big feature set we are adding. (Chris asks... how do I know it is recording. Skype is really missing the record feature). Now you can add sound effects while the call is happening. (Chris barfs....).

We are SIP based so we can use a regular phone to call any Gizmo client and vice versa. That is one of the benefits for connecting different networks from universities to small businesses. So you can dial direct using Gizmo. Want a real openness with our directory.

We are still in the earliest stage of VoIP. I talked to a major telco and they said we don't see the average consumer making calls on a PC. I got the same response years ago with people saying users won't play MP3's on PC's. Questioned about Mobile. The only hope to fundamentally compete with the wireless guys is WiMax. We need to watch how it develops and see how it delivers on its promise.

How long do you give Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft? Several examples today. eg Apple iChat that bastardizes SIP. MS Messenger and Windows use SIP but what it doesn't do is allow the tech details to go through firewalls. So far not done GIPS so voice isn't competitive. It astounds me that more people haven't taken a deeper look at Skype and followed a lot of their design choices like using GIPS.

You get free VoiceMail with Gizmo -- no charge it is included with your free account. If we tick advantages... recording the call, voicemail, we are not P2P like Skype so as an advantage we never commandeer your computer to route calls etc. We have chosen a different topography where we deploy relay servers around the world to assist in the routing of calls. Listen Skype has done a good job and they are a good marker. They do inflate their download numbers. We have an auto update feature built right in. We have a lot of catching up still to do. I do think that with the right partners we can close the gaps real quickly.

The challenge of the UI is to come up with the right balance between voice and IM. The challenge is how you balance these fairly different functionalities. We will have to make up a lot of it as we go on.