Aswath has created a bit of a stir with his recent post regarding Gizmo and Pulver Communicator. Jeff Pulver had something to say about Gizmo on his blog as well. All in all I think we need to remember that the key to creating a good IP communications client will rest in the features and interop. Interop means incorporating open standards like SIP and using royalty free codecs [preferably open source]. With Video it’s H.263++ [for now] and for audio it’s Speex Wideband. H.263++ provides close to 264/AVC quality with the codec royalty and uses far less CPU. Speex-wb provides for excellent sound quality, so much in fact Yahoo! decided to implement it.
Om Malik, Andy Abramson and of course Stuart Henshall all had things to say about Gizmo.
Remember, when building these new IP communications clients, interop is key. If it you are not building something that will work with the open standards proposed by the IETF you are not building something that will stand the test of time. If you want to deliver something new where there is no standard, then work with someone to create it!