帝國反抗君 - PowerOp

(This podcast is recorded using Skype and Call Graph on May 14th, 2008.)

Rajiv Poddar of Sedna Wireless talked about three solutions of his startup company:
* Call Graph, a Skype recorder http://callgraph.in
* ThinFone, a VOIP client software
* An Integrated Call Record Management solution that's currently in private beta
Language: English.
Location: Bangalore, India and Taipei, Taiwan.
Length: about 41 minutes.


License of this podcast: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Taiwan, same as this blog post.

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Show notes:
* Rajiv works in telecoms industry, worked with Tata Consultancy Services and Lucent Technologies India; he has been running a startup (Sedna Wireless) for two years.
* Call Graph brings me to know Rajiv. This Skype recorder software seems to be the only one that is totally free (as in free beer). Finally, I can record Skype calls into stereo (separate audio tracks for each side) without paying money :p
* Call Graph was released about two months ago, already mentioned by several popular blogs (1) (2) (3), but still not widely known yet.

* ThinFone, a VoIP thin client system that could talk all kinds of protocols.

* Currently Sedna Wireless hasn't release any source code in FS/OSS licenses, however Rajiv is a big fan of open source.
* Open source brings down the entry barrier of enterprise software.
* Austin is also in the telecoms industry (worked for Agilent Taiwan for almost seven years), so we talked about OSS adoption in telcos.
* Rajiv said there're lots of OSS activities in Bangalore, but not in telecoms yet.
* On the bright side, VxWorks by Wind River is the most popular embedded OS, but even Wind River has linux now, and it's marketed as a more robust platform than their long time flagship.
* MontaVista Linux, CELinux
* Adoption takes time in an industry with so many legacy systems.
* Motorola Ming and that whole cell phone series uses MontaVista Linux. EZX and OpenEZX
* Call Graph will have a linux port, should be available next month (June)
* Rajiv is considering open source Call Graph, referring to advantages such as help from community on porting, testing, etc.
* Austin argued that Call Graph falls into the same category of shrinkwrap software, which means that very little service is needed. How would it be possible to make money if they open source it?
* The monetize strategy is on the server side; Sedna Wireless is building an Integrated Call Record Management solution around Call Graph: a web service where you can see all your calls records at one place and search through them, play them back, share them with others, order transcripts etc. Rajiv is planning to launch the private beta of the service shortly.
* Austin asked if this service is English only.
* This web service uses Amazon S3 as the web hosting service.
* Rajiv use an open source speech-to-text engine to generate transcripts, then there will be real people to proofread it. To keep the content confidential, each audio will be scrambled and cut into sentences, then dispatch to three or four people to do the proofread.
* Austin suggested that podcasts under creative commons license could be uploaded to this web service, transcribed and indexed, so that it would be easier to search the context of those podcasts. (Currently this web service only accept it's own client to record - via Skype - then upload, so a dummy Skype call to playback those podcasts is needed, which is not very intuitive)
* This podcast is recorded using Call Graph, but Austin has to do the show notes by himself. Hopefully the web service will be available soon, so that Austin could pay a bit money to get the whole transcript of the conversation :)

[Update: 2008/5/29 I guess due to this podcast interview, I got to know Rajiv and his company, so I was invited to participate in the private beta of the Call Graph Call Record Indexing and Management Service (CRIMS). I have just registered that service, so consider this as my disclosure :)]