Martyn Davies responded to my post about what VoIP is. After re-reading his post, something in particular caught my attention:

The fact that so many technologies have converged on SIP means that all the things Dameon talks about: video, im, presence, voice can all arrive in your software platform via the same mechanism, which in turn means that what you do with those streams becomes only a software problem, and not a hardware one.

It is true that SIP can accomplish all of these things, though in some cases, it would be a sub-optimal solution. However, the real point is that much of what we used to communicate happens over open protocols like SIP. That means new communication "solutions" can now be done in software by anyone with the inclination to write it.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments.