Roger Wilco is one of the first

voice-over-IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...

program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

s designed primarily for use with online

multiplayer video game A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

s. Roger Wilco enabled online gamers to talk to one another through a computer headset or other audio input device instead of typing messages to each other. Within a year of the software's introduction, over 2 million online video gamers were using the application. ''

Roger Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ( ...

'' and ''

Wilco Wilco is an American alternative rock band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo following singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup changed frequently dur ...

'' are

procedure word Procedure words (abbreviated to prowords) are words or phrases limited to radio telephone procedure used to facilitate communication by conveying information in a condensed standard verbal format. Prowords are voice versions of the much older pro ...

s which, in

radiophone A radiotelephone (or radiophone), abbreviated RT, is a radio communication system for conducting a conversation; radiotelephony means telephony by radio. It is in contrast to '' radiotelegraphy'', which is radio transmission of telegrams (mess ...

communication, mean "I understood your message and I will comply".

Development and release

Roger Wilco was developed by a US startup company called Resounding Technology. Three of the company's four founders were roommates when they were undergraduate students at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

: Adam Frankl, Tony Lovell, and Henri de Marcellus. David Lewis, who led marketing and business development, was based in Silicon Valley and was responsible for growing the Roger Wilco community and managed partnerships with video game publishers who bundled Roger Wilco with their games. Plantronics, PNY, and other game peripheral manufacturers also bundled Roger Wilco with their products. The company began publishing pre-release versions of the software in the autumn of 1998; the first

general availability A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

release, Roger Wilco Mark I, followed in May 1999. The company distributed both the client and server as

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

. The server software, Roger Wilco Base Station, was developed for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in subs ...

, and

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems sc ...

. Development of a client for

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...

never progressed beyond the alpha phase. David Lewis demonstrated the product's server-less voice capabilities to

Mpath Interactive Mplayer, referred to as Mplayer.com by 1998, was a free online PC gaming service and community that operated from late 1996 until early 2001. The service at its peak was host to a community of more than 20 million visitors each month and offere ...

, a startup company in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

, who went on to acquire Resounding Technology based on their proprietary peer-to-peer voice technology. The company IPO'd soon after and renamed it to HearMe, Inc. In December 2000,

GameSpy GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1996 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for the game, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...

bought the Roger Wilco

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

. In early 2001, they integrated an updated version of the client software into their

game server A game server (also sometimes referred to as a host) is a server (computing), server which is the authoritative source of events in a multiplayer video game. The server transmits enough data about its internal state to allow its connected Client ...

browser,

GameSpy Arcade GameSpy Arcade was a shareware multiplayer game server browsing utility. GameSpy Arcade allowed players to view and connect to available multiplayer games, and chat with other users of the service. It was initially released by GameSpy Industries ...

. Players could use the Roger Wilco software if they bought a subscription to GameSpy's Game Tools suite. David Lewis licensed SDK versions of the voice technology to virtually every major game publisher including Activision, EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and others. The licensing arrangement with Microsoft enabled the use of the Voice SDK for Microsoft's Xbox and required that all multi-player Xbox game developers included in-game voice chat capabilities. Today, virtually every leading online multiplayer game includes voicechat due to the pioneering efforts by the Resounding team. GameSpy published the final version of the Roger Wilco client for Windows on July 8, 2003. That year, a vice president of consumer products at GameSpy Industries told ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' that Roger Wilco had about 5 million users.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Roger Wilco 1999 software GameSpy VoIP software Windows Internet software

Development and release

See also

References

Further reading

External links