Figure 1.4 PowWow Instant Messaging Screenshot (from Wikipedia)
By the latter half of the 1990s, high-speed Internet as well as corporate Internet-capable
e-mail was being implemented at a rapid rate within corporations around the globe. The
Dot Com boom (it feels funny to say that, doesn??™t it?) was really beginning to pick up steam.
Venture capitalists everywhere were throwing their money down the drain by the bucket
load, funding startups that had absolutely no idea what to do with all their newfound cash!
Religious battles between different mail solutions such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes,
Novell GroupWise, and various open source mail solutions were beginning.
At the turn of the millennium, something pretty astounding happened: Investors recognized
the fact that they weren??™t getting much (any?) ROI and started to pull back funding to
these startups. However, a very interesting side effect to this Internet ???boom??? took place: the
birth of true Voice over IP (VoIP) communication.
Unified Communications ??? Chapter 1 7
IP Communication: How It Works
and Why It??™s Revolutionizing Communication
Anyone familiar with early VoIP can tell you fi reside stories about the lack of quality, due
to many reasons including packet delays, lost packets, and packets that arrived out of order.
However, as companies (both vendors and end-users) really began to think about the potential
cost savings of integrating systems, more innovation regarding IP communication began to
occur.
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