The Sublime Frustration of Convergence

I occasionally get cranky about converged communications channels - thing like merging Email and SMS or merging SMS and IM. For starters, I don't like how it tends to blur the "appropriate forms of address" lines for a given communications medium. While "RU ther" is almost OK in an SMS, it's less so in an IM and pretty much not tolerable in an Email. The other thing is, convergence means too many things jangling and, when there's errors, it's even worse.

Three times, today, I had convergence-related issues:

• Buddy calls me to thank me for his Christmas present. I, first, get an inbound call-notification on my laptop's GV/Hangouts browser-plugin. I answer on my cellphone as soon as it rings (hate trying to voice-chat via my laptop - also, see not about "too many things jangling") Just as I'm picking up the call on my cell, the VOIP line starts ringing ...and then continues to ring and ring while I'm starting my conversation on the cell. Wife comes up to find out why the hell the landline's ringing off the hook. I tell her "GV's being a butt". I'd yet to try to deal with the VOIP line as I'd noticed my cell's battery was down (apparently, I'd not snugly seated the charging plug, previously) and was tied to the wall by the (now seated) charging-cable. So she does us both a solid by tracking down a VOIP handset and terminating the errant ring-through.
• Boss tries to arrange an after-hours video call. "After hours" is about the only time everyone on my scattered team is available to talk since our "scattered" is across time-zones and, even those of us in the same time-zone are frequently working places where we can't do phone-calls (let alone video chats). His initial invitation to everyone had apparently gone awry, so he SMS'es me to ask if I'm available. I SMS back to affirm that I am. He states that he'll send out an invite to the video chat. The scheduled time for the call to start passes and still no email-invite. I assume it's gone into the Ether, so I SMS him again to ask what's up. He "dials" me into the video conference. This time, my cell rings before my browser starts jangling. I pick up on the cell and I'm in the video call. The cell isn't really stable for being on camera, so I'm a touch put out that what I'd *thought* was my cell ringing for a call was actually ringing for a video chat. My annoyance is subsequently eased when the invitation email finally arrives and I'm able to switch over to my laptop for the video-conference.
• While the video-call is going on, my messaging widget pops up a long-assed text message. It was from the customer-lead for one of the projects I work on. I reply with an SMS - failing to notice that the text message was actually a transcription delivered via the text messaging component of the messaging widget. Worse, he'd called from a land-line rather than his cell, so my SMS gets delivered to the Ether.

Actually, three and a half times...

While working on one of my projects, I encounter a mis-documented security-fix. I go to call one of my co-workers about it. Both he and I have ZRTP widgets on our cellphones and our phones each "know" that the other's phone is ZRTP-capable. When I got to hit the call button, my phone helpfully asks, "do you want this to be an encrypted call". I think, "sure - it's about a security-related documentation-bug, so why not do the call encrypted". His phone rings and rings with no answer. It occurs to me that the ZRTP widget actually doesn't dial to his VMail-enabled "number". So, I hang up, re-start the call and select "no" when asked if I want to encrypt the call. Eventually, the call rings through to his voicemail (DAMMIT). I leave a message for him to call me back.

An hour or so later, he IMs me to tell me that he got the call but the voicemail was garbled. Irony: the encrypted VOIP calls frequently have better sound-quality than the PSTN calls do.

Just convergence-annoyance all over the damned place, today.

ümi: I Just Don't Get It

So, I'm watching The Mentalist on CBS (don't you judge me!) and a commercial for Cisco's new ümi product came on. Curious, I went to Cisco's site to see what it was about. I clicked on the "what you need page". On the page was the following graphic:

I mean, we've already got a number of free video chat options out there. If I want to use my laptop - be it Windows, Macintosh or Linux - I can use Skype or Google video chat options. Apple joined the game with their FaceTime option on the newest generation of iPhones (and presumably all future hardware offerings). All I need is an iDevice and a cellular subscription. MicroSoft has a video chat offering via their new Kinnect device - all I need is the Kinnect and, presumably, XBox Live gold.
What I don't get is how ümi fits in? I mean, that they're advertising it on TV during regular programming. So, presumably it's aimed at "regular people". And, judging by the price shown in the above graphic, it's meant to be within financial reach of "regular people". But, there's the matter of all those other video offerings. All of those other offerings are an easy sell. I mean, how can you beat the "free" of Skype or Google (and presumably other stuff for your PC)? And, even if you want something that doesn't require your PC, you have offerings from Apple and Microsoft that leverage other multi-use products that have a decent (and rapidly growing) installed base.
So, what's the compelling case for ümi? I mean, it's not free - in fact, it costs me more than my Vonage subscription. Presumably, since the commercial (and the web site) don't mention that they work with any of the previously named incumbent competitors, what's the value proposition. I've got to buy a dedicated-purpose device. I've got to spend $25/mo. on top of my other monthly bills (in my case XBox Live Gold and Vonage) for products I already own and that already allow me to run competing video-chat products. You don't seem to be offering interoperability in an already splintered market - you're just trying to splinter it further. So, "what's up Cisco? Why would I possibly want the ümi?"