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Overall PBX/KTS revenue down 2%, IP PBX up 1% in 1Q06
Despite a seasonally down quarter for the overall enterprise telephony market, the slow and steady move from circuit switching technology to packet switching technology remains evident, with worldwide TDM system revenue falling 11% and IP PBX revenue inching up 1% between 4Q05 and 1Q06, says Infonetics Research in its latest Enterprise Telephony report.
Combined, worldwide TDM and IP PBX systems revenue dipped 2% to $2.1 billion in 1Q06, but is 15% higher than a year ago.
There's sure been plenty of coverage of Microsoft's announcement earlier this week of beta 2 availability of three of the company's flagship products -- Windows Vista, 2007 Microsoft Office and Windows Server (code-named "Longhorn" or "long time").
Speaking at the Microsoft Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2006, Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect (some title?!) Bill Gates said: “The release of these three betas is a significant milestone for Microsoft and a major step toward delivering the platforms that will drive the next decade of computing. The combination of these innovative platform technologies and the new hardware and software being developed by our partners will make PCs and other devices more powerful, more useful and more intelligent for businesses today and into the future.”
Seems like Dell, which defined a new direct sales ("pay for it and we will build it for you") model is now moving away from that a bit with more retail presence.
Apparently, Dell is adding to their kiosk presence in various spots, but will not actually sell products from these larger retail spaces (don't want to copy the failed model of the Gateway stores, I'm sure).
Failing to meet Wall Street expectations is behind this latest move -- retail customers will still have to order online and buy a Dell (sure they want move away from all of those HP and other computers begging to be bought at Circuit City, Best Buy, etc.).
BTW, whatever happened to the Dell Dude?
According to a variety of published reports, including Internet Week, Central Park in New York could have wireless access as early as July.
City leaders are trying to provide public access to wireless networks in parks in all five boroughs, not just Manhattan (yes, there is life outside of Manhattan).
Several open outdoor areas, including Bryant Park and the South Street Seaport, already have public wireless access through private companies and the government is still not funding these public projects.
SIPPhone today announced the delivery of Gizmo Project 2.0, highlighted by its support for Asterisk PBX software. Giving Gizmo Project users the ability to log into Asterisk means they can now be universally reachable via their Asterisk PBX or directly through the Gizmo Project network. The option to seamlessly receive calls from their office PBX while anywhere in the world leverages Gizmo Project's advanced NAT (“network address translation”), firewall and router traversal features and server infrastructure.
Microsoft is partnering with telecommunications providers in emerging markets to offer pay-as-you-go and subscription computing to its customers. Today Microsoft announced the industry’s first pay-as-you-go personal computing offerings powered by Microsoft FlexGo technology. The initiative is targeted first at emerging markets around the world, where unpredictable income, inadequate access to consumer credit and high entry costs prevent many customers from owning a PC. Under this model, customers can get a full-featured Windows-enabled PC with low entry costs, and pay for the PC as they use it through the purchase of prepaid cards or tokens.
With the opening of Apple's new store in New York City just a little over a day away (T minus ... and counting), I wanted to give you all a chance to see a little bit of the the type of public relations work that goes into all of these house-hold brands' marketing efforts.
(And what does the Louvre in Paris -- in the photo to the left -- have to do with all of this? Can you tell me?)
Why can't a house, particularly a "green" house built as a Near-Zero Energy Home, be considered a giant gadget? (Anyone remember when BASF made audio and video tape?)
What makes me think this is BASF's demonstration of a home that is 80 percent more energy efficient, more durable and faster to construct than conventionally built homes in Paterson, NJ.
BASF, along with more than 150 of its customers and strategic allies, built the Near-Zero Energy Home-Paterson, N.J., to exemplify how BASF chemistry helps further energy-saving, durable, sustainable and affordable building practices.
RuneScape launched its latest game engine upgrade today! Here's the details from www.runescape.com:
"This is the biggest upgrade to the underlying engine which runs the game since we launched the new 3D engine two years ago, and I've been working on it for literally months.
Sometimes you wonder why brands associated with one particular slice of life take so long to figure out how to extend themselves into new (but not foreign) territories.
This is how I see MTV's announcment today that it will enter the online music business with the launch of its new download service called "Urge." Remember, this is the cable network group that helped popularize music videos two decades ago ("Video Killed the Radio Star").
Making its debut (albeit a public beta) on Wednesday, Urge comes integrated into the newest version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player, which users of Microsoft's Windows will receive in coming weeks as an upgrade.
Expect to see more and more "ad-monetized" mobile games, where advertisers wiil place display or video spots before or after users download popular casual games to their mobile phones.
According to a report in today's MediaPost, a company called Greystripe places pre- or post-roll ads next to casual video games that users can download onto their cell phones. Currently, the network has three major advertisers signed -- Zagat Survey, Modtones, and GPSHopper.
The interface is self-service, and advertisers who have signed up can access the ad-serving system using a Web-based service.
Sure your cardio workout generates a good healthy sweat, but are you maximizing your heart’s potential? Are you making the most out of your workout -- raising your cardio and elevating your well-being?
Mio's new Zone Plus will tell you if you are. Customizable heart rate target zones help you maximize workouts; you get ECG-accurate heart rate measurement anytime, anywhere -- and without the chest strap typical of so many other heart rate monitors!
Sangoma's engineering uses a common printed circuit board to host hardware-based echo cancellation and voice enhancement
TORONTO – May 10, 2006 – Sangoma Technologies Corporation (TSXV: STC) (www.sangoma.com), a leading provider of connectivity hardware and software products for VoIP, TDM voice, WANs and Internet infrastructure, has introduced its new A108 Series PCI cards to support high density voice and data applications. At 8 T1/E1 ports, the A108 has the highest T1/E1 density available on a PCI card.
As with other Sangoma PCI cards, the A108 is available in an A108d version especially built for the soft telephony industry. The A108d supports voice enhancement capabilities including G.168-2002 echo cancellation with 1024 tap/128ms tail per channel on all channel densities, DMF encoding/decoding and tone recognition, voice quality enhancement and adaptive noise reduction.
Use of Voice over Internet Protocol and Messaging over Internet Protocol is prohibited by T-Mobile. If use of either or both of these services is detected T-Mobile may terminate all contracts with the customer and disconnect any SIM cards and/or web ‘n’ walk cards from the T-Mobile network.
And today our tip of the hat goes to Francois Aucamp from South Africa who has single-handedly reengineered Carnegie Mellon University's open source speech synthesis engine (Flite) to work with Asterisk@Home and restored voice synthesis to its rightful place as an indispensable component in the Asterisk@Home bundle. We'll show you how to install the necessary components in less than 15 minutes, and your Asterisk system will once again be speaking to callers whenever you need it to.
Say what you want, Electronic Arts (EA) is still one of the top producers of video games (been so for a long time, too) for every platform.
EA is using E3, which opens today in LA (and runs through May 12) to showcase the following games:
EA officials say The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II for the Xbox 360 will bring players into the heart of Middle-earth to live the battles seen in the blockbuster New Line Cinema films and classic J.R.R. Tolkien literary fiction.
NCAA Football 07 on the Xbox 360™ features detailed graphics relaying the authenticity of the stadiums, mascots and marching bands of college football.
What better gift for the mom who has everything on Mother's Day than a gadget? (Bet she doesn't have too many of those ...) BTW, it's this coming Sunday in case you didn't know the date ...
Sure she has a cell phone, but how about a pink Motorola phone? (Don't like pink or think it's too stereotyped?
Uniden UIP1869V Box shot
Uniden Firewall Web interface
Uniden came across my rant on my Vonage hang-up fast-busy problem and they noticed I was using a Uniden 5.8GHz TRU8885-2 phone system. They offered to send me a Uniden UIP1869V which is nearly identical in functionality to the TRU8885-2 with the added bonus that it comes preloaded with support for Vonage. They also sent me a Uniden UIP160P Packet8 Compatible 5.8GHz phone system which I will review at a later date.You know from an earlier blog that I’m a big fan of American Power Conversion’s (APC) power availability and protection solutions.
Wanted to update you on its new Universal Notebook Battery 65 Wh (UPB60), which was introduced earlier this year along with its Universal Power Adapter and Power Port Accessory.
The Universal Notebook Battery is a thin, lightweight, portable notebook battery that provides up to six hours of runtime, depending on a computer’s size and configurations.
Everybody may talk about how great their HP printers are, but there are some very good choices out there if you want to break away from the crowd. I’ve been testing the Konica Minolta Magicolor 2450 for some time now, and this one color laser printer that provides “workhouse” capabilities at 5 pages-per-minute (PPM) color and 20 PPM black & white.
A true desktop printer that fits easily into any environment, the Magicolor 2450 is designed for easy use. The pre-installed 4,500-page toner cartridges mean the machine is up and running in just a few minutes.
Amid all of the large broadcast equipment at last week's NAB Convention, Qualcomm had a large booth, but small equipment, to demonstrate its new MediaFLO System.
Called a comprehensive, end-to-end solution designed specifically to address the inherent challenges of efficiently and cost-effectively distributing mass volumes of high-quality mobile multimedia to wireless subscribers, the NAB demo has surprisingly simple. Touch an icon on your mobile phone to launch the application, view the 20-channel guide (much like the one provided by your cable TV company) and then select a channel. We watched ABC News live on the small phone screen just like we would have watched it on any larger screen.
