----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark R Lindsey" <lindsey at e-c-group.com>
(There are some interesting points buried in this area about the fundamental "end to end argument in system design" and how that works for dynamically negotiated features. We'd all like to believe that we humans could specify standards and the two endpoints could negotiate the best common set of compatible features on each individual call. But we haven't proven that it's even possible.)
When you're evaluating a SIP access device -- phone or PBX -- you're working in this weird milieux of non-standardized-yet-important features, for which interop testing is the only compliance that matters.
I love Starting Conversations. :-) At that point, Mark, I should probably remind everyone why Interop got started. I went to a very early one, at the Georgia World Congress Center, and let me tell you, it was pretty impressive back then. I don't see why someone isn't doing a well publicized shootout at an annual event of some type, where each PBX vendor brings along their best people, and each phone vendor brings *their* best people, and a set of independent VoIP/PBX guys judge a shootout. Bring programming talent along and have a hackathon between first day and last day, and see how much you can fix. This isn't... rocket science. (NASA has a big Cisco install, presumably CM :-). Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274