March 2007 Archives

Belkin has introduced innovating "in desk USB hubs" that are designed to slip into those grommet holes on most desks that are typically used to snake your monitor VGA cable, network wire, and mouse and keyboard cables. The lien of products includes two USB hubs (including a 4-port model) and the Belkin In-Desk dock for iPod. By adding a USB hub or iPod docking station into the grommet hole, you certainly reduce clutter and maximize your desk workspace area. To me this product seems to be for the truly anally retentive organized folks that have desks so well organized and clean with no clutter they make The Pottery Barn look like a pigsty in comparison. Unfortunately, I don't fall under that camp - I have very little usable area on my desk due to the clutter. But I do love gadgets and maybe the extra 6 inches of space I'd get back might be worth it. The Belkin is the In-Desk dock for iPod allows you to charge and play your Apple iPod, sync to your PC and comes with a stereo in and out jack.

Source: EverythingUSB.com

According to CNet, the much-anticipated Apple iPhone release is sooner than you think. The CNet article states, "Cingular is confirming that the release date will be June 11. A customer service manager at Cingular (we called 800-947-5096 and were transferred to sales) gave us that date late Thursday, but, alas, said he didn't have any additional information beyond that. That date is no coincidence. It's the first day of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference."

Well then, let's hope riots, murders, and out of control eBay auctions don't hit the Apple iPhone launch like it did for the Sony Playstation 3.

Skype 3.2 Beta for Windows has just been made available for download at http://www.skype.com/go/windows-beta. Skype 3.2 Beta for Windows now has the new "Send Money" via Paypal feature. Sweet! The list of new features include:

Importing contacts from more sources – Users can now import their contacts from web based email applications such as MSN Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. This makes it even easier for users to find and contact their friends using Skype, as well as enabling users to "Share Skype” with those friends not yet using Skype.
Video Snapshot – Video-calling in Skype recently emerged from Beta and we’re enhancing the Skype video experience even further by allowing users to instantly capture photos of themselves. This means that users can further express themselves through personalized avatars, and also lets friends and family see a recent photo in users’ profiles.
Send Money – Skype users can now send money quickly and safely to friends and family they care about around the world, via PayPal. This makes it easy to pay back money borrowed from a friend, to chip in for a group present or to give someone a gift directly for a birthday or some other celebrated event.

Doing a blog redesign was long overdue. I liked the Kubrick theme which was originally designed for Wordpress and which I ported it over to Movable Type, but I didn't the narrow main body content. This limited the size of images I could place within articles. So I decided to make my blog much wider, from 820 pixels to 998 pixels, which should perfectly fit a web browser at full screen (maximized) without having horizontal scroll-bars at the bottom. The layout was designed with the most common screen resolution - 1024x768 so if you use a higher resolution (i.e. 1152x864, 1280x720, 1280x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1400x1050, 1600x900) you'll see grey borders on the left & right, but still no annoying horizontal scroll-bars.

If you are one of those rare PC users running at 800x600 resolution you will get horizontal scroll bars, but hey, you should be running at higher resolution! Actually, my father runs his at 800x600 because he has poor eyesight, so I guess if he reads my blog he'll just have to deal with the horizontal scroll-bars. It's still very readable at 800x600. Also, as part of the blog redesign, I had our Art Director, Alan Urkawich design a new blog header image with lots of gadgets, including the new Apple iPhone and a nice deep blue background, and a cool glowing TMCnet logo in the background. I'm pretty happy with the redesign and I hope you are too. Post a comment and let me know what you think.

After two years in stealth mode, reviewing, cataloging and analyzing VoIP and SIP vulnerabilities, Sipera VIPER Lab (cool name by the way, since I drive a Viper myself - photo to right ) today released at CTIA several threat advisories for WiFi/dual mode telephones from vendors including RIM, HTC, Samsung, Dell and D-Link. Sipera VIPER Lab also released information about a number of SIP vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities can disable phones calling features, disconnect calls, and freeze phones, causing significant enterprise communications disruptions.

According to Sipera, they proactively identify VoIP threats through its Sipera VIPER Lab, which is comprised of experienced VoIP application developers, architects, and engineers, operating 24/7/365 from Richardson, Texas, and Hyderabad, India. The VIPER Lab researchers identify new vulnerabilities and potential exploits in VoIP protocols, VoIP equipment and phones. They also scan web sites, blogs, discussion groups, and media outlets for evidence of known, suspected and new VoIP vulnerabilities and attacks. These vulnerabilities are posted at http://www.sipera.com/viper as a service to Sipera's customers and the general public. Sipera VIPER Lab follows a disclosure policy which notifies equipment vendors, in advance, of the potential vulnerabilities and works with each of these vendors to publish a response/fix or identify other solutions to these security issues.

"VoIP security is just beginning to get more attention now that VoIP adoption has reached a tipping point in the last year. It is refreshing to see Sipera's launch of VIPER Lab that will assuredly help promote and advance the state of VoIP security research and help raise the overall awareness of VoIP threats and corresponding best practices," said David Endler, chairman of the Voice over IP Security Alliance (VOIPSA), an industry consortium created to drive adoption of VoIP by promoting the current state of VoIP security research, VoIP security education and awareness, and free VoIP testing methodologies and tools.

The major threat advisories issued today that affect WiFi/dual-mode phones include:
-- A format string vulnerability in RIM Blackberry 7270 SIP stack may
allow a remote attacker to disable the phone's calling features (VIPER-
2007-023).
-- HTC HyTN using AGEPhone is vulnerable to malformed SIP messages sent
over WLAN connections, which may cause active calls to disconnect
(VIPER-2007-0026).
-- A buffer overflow vulnerability in Samsung SCH-i730 phones running
SJPhone SIP Client may allow an attacker to disable the phone and slow
down the operating system (VIPER-2007-0029).
-- Dell Axim running SJPhone SIP soft phone is vulnerable to denial of
service attacks, which can freeze the phone and drain the battery
(VIPER-2007-0030).
-- A vulnerability in the SDP parsing module of D-Link DPH-540/DPH-541
WiFi phones may allow remote attackers to disable the phone's calling
features (VIPER-2007-031).

For additional details on these vulnerabilities or to see the complete list, visit http://www.sipera.com/viper.

Recently I stated that Microsoft would launch the public beta of Office Communications Server 2007 later this month. Well, Microsoft gave me a heads up on the launching of their public beta of Office Communications Server 2007 which is available later today. The Public Beta code for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 + Communicator 2007 (client) will be available for download as of 10AM PDT (1PM EDT). Virtual PC images plus video demos will be available following week, which will allow IT staff to more easily trial OCS 2007 as a "virtual" turnkey solution. I plan on testing OCS 2007 on Windows 2003 R2 x64 Enterprise Edition very soon, so keep your eye out for that. For now, let me give you my thoughts on what I know so far about OCS 2007, including some interesting insights from my meeting with Microsoft two weeks ago in NYC. First, Microsoft is getting into the IP phone business - look out Cisco! Technically, Microsoft will be licensing the Office Communicator client to run directly on VoIP phone hardware, such as this unannounced IP phone below: (click for full high-res version where you can see how similar the functionality on LCD GUI is to the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007.)

Similar to the Microsoft Office Communicator client, the phone features colored presence indicators that let you know the status of your coworkers, friends, etc. I asked Microsoft who made this IP phone but they said it was still unannounced, but would be released sometime this year. There is another phone that integrates with Microsoft OCS from Polycom, as seen to the right. I'm not sure the model of this new Polycom phone, but it too should be out sometime this year. Looking at these two "presence-capable" IP phones, it got me thinking - why would anyone buy a phone that doesn't have presence? I know I am more productive when I can IM a coworker and I know I can receive an instant response, so why shouldn't this be extended to voice? Imagine you are a sales rep about to close a major deal but you need to get a manager's approval for a 15% discount. You put the customer on hold and try and conference in your manager, but he's not there. You then try another manager, and she isn't at her desk either. Assuming you haven't hung up on the customer with all these conference attempts, these communication attempts are not only time-consuming, but it gives a bad impression of your organization. If the sales rep in this scenario could see the presence of all the managers, he could have quickly conferenced in an available manager. Folks, this kind of "presence-capable" phone is the future. Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, and all the others will have to provide this functionality or lose business to those that do. Watch for tons of presence-capable IP phones in the next 18 months - that's my prediction.

Microsoft's Secret Codec Weapon?
One fact that hasn't gotten any attention from the mainstream media (& tech media) coverage of OCS 2007 is the VoIP and video codec Microsoft is using. During my conversation with Microsoft they kept talking about how Office Communicator's VoIP works well not only in broadband environments, but also in limited bandwidth narrowband environments, i.e. dial-up -- and even on Windows Mobile 5 devices. They stressed how their codec works well even with high packet loss due to Forward Error Correction (FEC) and other algorithms. I inquired whose codec they were using and they said that they developed it themselves. This was a bit of a surprise since there are at least two well-known adaptive VoIP codecs available, including Spirit DSP, and Global IP Sound (GIPS), which is used by Skype, Google Talk, and a plethora of other softphones. When I asked if Microsoft considered using/licensing the GIPS codec, Microsoft stated that they were in talks with Global IP Sound, but chose to go their own way, to avoid the licensing costs, but more importantly Microsoft stated that their own performance benchmarks showed their codec performed better. Relatedly, Psytechnics said Microsoft's codec performed better than Cisco 7961 IP Phones. Wow, score one for software-based digital signal processing (Microsoft) over a hardware DSP (Cisco). I meant to ask Microsoft is they planned on offering their software codec for license, which would compete with Spirit DSP and GIPS, but forgot. However, just from various conversations, it didn't seem like that was their goal. But if Microsoft did license their technology or worse - give it away for free, then Spirit DSP and GIPS could be in trouble.

I asked what they were using for NAT traversal and they stated they were using ICE, which I actually covered in my 2005 blog post, Microsoft and Cisco think ICE is Cool.Stuff! It was interesting to see two arch-competitors, Cisco and Microsoft team up to announce their endorsement of Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) – a draft standard. under consideration by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to enable media traversal of NAT /firewalls. With ICE built-into OCS 2007 and the Office Communicator client, you don't need to setup a VPN to connect to the office network. Of course, there are plenty of IT folks that aren't happy with their employees installing Skype, which is notoriously good at penetrating corporate firewalls, so it will be interesting to see which company develops the first firewall to block ICE or at least be able to set ICE policies. Also security-related is that all OCS 2007 communications are encrypted by default and the media stream uses SRTP (Secure Real-time Protocol) to prevent unauthorized packet capture and playback of conversations.

I will have much more on Microsoft OCS 2007 once I get a chance to install and test it. In the meantime, here are a couple of screenshots just to "wet your whistle" until I fully test it. The first screenshot is from Outlook 2007 - notice how their are colored presence indicators next to each name in the To: and Cc: lines so you can easily figure out if someone is available, and then initiate a call, IM, video session from within an email message. The 2nd screenshot is the Office Communicator client initiating a video call.

Acuity Mobile, a provider of mobile marketing content delivery technology, announced today its EMAP technology has been selected for the embedded mobile advertising for Traffic.com, a NAVTEQ company. Traffic.com, a leading provider of real-time personalized traffic information for drivers coast-to-coast, was recently acquired by NAVTEQ, a leading global provider of digital maps for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions. Just what we need right, advertisements on our GPS units! I'm still waiting for my p2p GPS traffic idea to take shape, since I hate traffic with a passion.
 
Acuity Mobile’s EMAP technology delivers Spot Relevance -- content based on time, context, location and user preference.  This patented technology will enhance Traffic.com’s delivery of targeted real-time advertising to mobile devices with live local traffic information for the nation’s top 50 most traffic congested metropolitan areas.  Through this agreement, Traffic.com has the exclusive license to implement Spot Relevance with mobile traffic content.
 
“Our focus continues on the creation of innovative advertising solutions for advertisers looking to reach consumers in-the-moment when buying decisions are made,” said Christopher Rothey, chief operating officer of Traffic.com. “After surveying the market, we selected Acuity’s EMAP platform to extend the power of our mobile advertising services with unique hyper-local targeting enabling us to send advertisers’ messages at the right time and in the right place. Acuity Mobile will help us make this happen.”
 
EMAP technology will increase the relevance and impact of Traffic.com real-time customized traffic reports. The agreement with Traffic.com will deliver a new level of dynamic marketing for advertisers and help fuel the next generation of location-enabled applications.    
 
“NAVTEQ’s Traffic.com is a leader in the delivery of highly relevant personalized traffic content, and we are very pleased they have chosen our EMAP platform,” said Alan Sultan, co-founder and president of Acuity Mobile. “More and more organizations are recognizing that in order to capture the value inherent in mobile marketing, content and advertising must be tailored to each customer’s actual location, interests and time of day. Anything less is more likely to be seen as spam and quickly abandoned by consumers.  Working with an industry leader like Traffic.com gives us an incredible opportunity to showcase the value of Spot Relevance in practice.”

Federal District Judge Claude Hilton has told Vonage to stop using Verizon patents, and has just two weeks to comply with the judge's order. As far as I can tell, without access to these patent rights, Vonage will be forced to shutdown. Vonage's stock tumbled after this news hitting just $3.00 ($-1.05) for a drop of -25.93%.

“They could not have been commercially successful if they had not taken these patents we have and put them into their technologies,” Dan Webb, an attorney for Verizon, said at Friday’s hearing on the injunction request.

So  what does this mean for Vonage's customers in 2 weeks? With the FCC getting in on the whole e911 emergency services thing awhile back, (as well as Congress) I wouldn't be surprised if the FCC has to step in to guarantee that Vonage is able to provide service for their customers regardless of the federal court's order. Can you imagine if Vonage is forced to shut down the phone lines for millions of customers? Imagine there is a 911-emergency for Vonage customers and they have no dialtone. Who's to blame? Vonage or Verizon for forcing Vonage offline? Who is liable? This doesn't bode well for Vonage, but Verizon isn't exactly smelling like a rose in all this. Congress, the FCC, or someone else in government will have to issue a stay on this order until customers can migrate to alternative solutions. Or perhaps Verizon is just using this as leverage to force Vonage to pay higher patent "extortion" fees to stay in business. Stay tuned...

Update: (15 min later)
I was just thinking about this some more and it occurred to me that Vonage must have contingency plans in place to work around the Verizon patents. Indeed according to Vonage's chief lawyer, Sharon O'Leary, she told Reuters outside court that "Vonage customers would not be affected by the case". However, she declined to comment on the sealed documents the company filed with the court. She added, "We will get the stay, either through the district court or the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals," O'Leary said.

So it is premature to say Vonage could be shutdown in 2 weeks, even though I have a "?" at the end of the blog title "questioning" whether Vonage could indeed be shut down in just 2 weeks. I think Vonage will most likely get a stay in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, but may have to incur daily penalties (issued by the court) for patent violations should they eventually exhaust all their legal options.

Skype will soon allow users to send money to other Skype users via PayPal, a popular online payments system -- all from within the Skype client. This was announced by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom during a speech he gave. Both Skype and PayPal are owned by eBay, so the integration makes sense. “You can send money over Skype,” Mr Zennstrom said of the upcoming service plan. “This is basically connecting the Skype community over PayPal. All the user needs is a PayPal account.” This news follows the recent Skype Prime news that enabled Skype users to "charge" other Skype users for the right to speak to them, i.e. consulting, "VoIP phone sex", etc.

Zennstrom said the company is working with PayPal, but initially declined to say exactly when the service would be made available to Skype's users. However, it was later confirmed that an official launch of the service would come soon, perhaps within a month. Wonder how long before the first Skype-to-Paypal fraud occurs?

A U.S. appeals court today upheld a decision that exempted VoIP telephone companies such as Vonage, Sunrocket, Packet8, and others from many state regulations and oversight.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit backed a 2004 decision by the FCC that exempted VoIP telephone companies from rate regulation and from being required to seek certification before offering service.

The court upheld the FCC's order and said an issue raised by the state of New York on state regulation of fixed Internet phone services was "not ripe for review." Several states have demanded that Vonage obtain state certification, be subject to rate regulation and offer emergency 911 services equal to that of PSTN landlines.

"After carefully considering the positions presented by both sides of this dispute, we conclude the FCC did not arbitrarily or capriciously determine state regulation of VoIP service would interfere with valid federal rules or policies," the court decision said.

The court decision is certainly some very welcome news for Vonage which in addition to its IPO failure and other financial difficulties, the company also recently lost a $58 million patent infringement lawsuit to Verizon.

Today at the second annual Microsoft Small Business Summit, Microsoft Corp. unveiled a small-business Internet protocol (IP) phone system, code-named “Response Point,” designed for ease of use and manageability. The new system comes in an easy-to-install box, supports both voice over IP (VoIP) and traditional phone lines, and includes a voice-activated user interface.

Now in beta testing, “Response Point” will be generally available later this year in three models: D-Link DVX-2000, Quanta Syspine and Uniden Evolo. Microsoft designed the “Response Point” software to empower small-business customers to manage system changes themselves. “We know from years of networking experience that many small businesses want an IT specialist to install their networking infrastructure,” said Keith A. Karlsen, executive vice president of D-Link Systems Inc. “But they also want to manage simple things like moves, adds and changes on their own.” With the user-friendly, PC-based “Response Point” management console, tasks such as adding a phone for a new employee or creating a call distribution list can be completed in a couple of minutes. These new products lend more credence to Microsoft's recent statement that they plan to make billions on VoIP. Specifically, Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division said, "Microsoft sees the shift by business organizations to Web-based phone systems running on its software to generate "billions" of dollars in revenue for the company."

The “Response Point” phone system software makes the voice communications experience much easier for end users. “The ‘Response Point’ voice commands and speech-enabled auto-attendant will offer users a powerful experience that differs radically from other small-business phone systems on the market,” said Rich Tosi, president of Uniden America Corp. “A small-business employee can press one button on the handset of a cordless phone and then access anyone in the company directory, anyone in his Outlook contacts, and a range of calling features with a few simple words. That is a very powerful user experience.”

Recognizing that phone systems are a critical part of day-to-day operations for small businesses, the “Response Point” team created a specialized architecture designed to optimize system reliability. “We worked closely with the ‘Response Point’ team to develop the Quanta Syspine phone system,” said Mike Yang, vice president of Quanta Computer Inc. “‘Response Point’ makes Syspine an intelligent, turnkey solution and complements our strengths in hardware design and engineering.”

“Response Point” is one of the strategic initiatives supporting Microsoft’s vision for VoIP communications. “The ‘Response Point’ voice-enabled user interface is a great example of how innovative new technology can be applied to solve everyday customer problems,” said Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Research at Microsoft.

In addition to “Response Point,” Microsoft delivers an extensible, software-based VoIP foundation through Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007. Microsoft will distribute the public beta versions of Communications Server 2007 (OCS 2007) and Communicator 2007 later this month. The Beta 2 release of “Response Point” is scheduled for early April. I'm on the beta for OCS 2007, so I'll see if I can get my hands on the D-Link DVS-2000, Quanta Syspine or the Uniden Evolo to test with OCS 2007. Should be a fun review!

Of course, does anyone remember the failed Microsoft Cordless Phone System, which features speech recognition, TAPI-integration with Outlook, etc? I actually reviewed it way back in 1999. I still have this phone system somewhere in my home lab. It wasn't a bad system, but it required the PC to be on and connected for the functionality to work - a major drawback in my opinion.

Jaxtr tomorrow will launch the public beta (previously a private beta) of their service that brings voice to social networks and blogs. You can now sign up to receive a free jaxtr account that links your mobile or landline phones with your online blog or social networking website. You simply add their jaxtr widget to your online profile or blog, which allows users to hear from callers worldwide while keeping their existing phone numbers private. Jaxtr currently works with many popular social networks and communities, including MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Craigslist, eBay, LiveJournal, and Blogger. Jaxtr does not charge users for unlimited outbound international calls from their mobile phone and also provides users with unlimited voice mails.

With the launch of the public beta, jaxtr is introducing a host of new features, including:
· VoiceBlast: lets users record their own voice to greet and update people who visit their profile or blog
· Voice and Text Messages: allows callers to send voice or text messages in addition to making phone calls
· Blog Widget: bloggers now have a widget specifically designed for adding into the sidebars of blogs
· Worldwide Support: jaxtr users can now receive calls from people in over 200 countries
· Local Numbers: adds thousands of direct-dial numbers in the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia

Jaxtr‘s PrivacyShield enables users to control on a caller-by-caller basis whether someone can ring their phone, leave a voice mail or gets blocked even from leaving voice messages. They can also decide whether their home, work or mobile phone should ring when an approved person calls them. Jaxtr users also get access to visual voicemail, a Web-based application that enables them to review and manage voice messages just as with Web-based email accounts.

Callers can reach a jaxtr user without having a jaxtr account of their own. Once the first call is initiated, jaxtr provides the caller with a unique and permanent number, which they can use to call the same person in the future, even when neither person is online or even near their computer. Because the new number is typically local for the caller, he or she will be able to reach that jaxtr user without incurring long distance charges on both domestic and international calls – even when calling from a mobile phone. This toll-saving feature was so popular in the private beta that many users shared their jaxtr link with family and friends via email, so that they could call them from their mobile phone without paying expensive international mobile rates.

SanDisk introduced an 8-gigabyte SD High Capacity (SDHC) card—the highest capacity now available in the SD format. The new 8GB SDHC card holds more than 4,000 high-resolution pictures, as many as 2,000 digital songs or up to 15 hours of MPEG 4 video. The 8GB SDHC card will come bundled with a SanDisk MicroMate USB 2.0 reader free of charge. SDHC cards require an SDHC-compatible reader, so providing the USB-based SDHC reader with the card ensures that users will be able to connect the 8GB card to their computers. The MicroMate reader also works with standard SD cards. 8GB of storage packs a pretty mean memory density "punch" for a memory device thinner than a Saltine cracker and about the size of a quarter.

As SD cards get larger memory storage they will not only be used in mobile phones, but they will perhaps replace hard drives in MP3 players, such as the Apple iPod. Of course, the first MP3 players to market used Flash memory cards before the Apple iPod even existed. I had a Creative Labs Nomad II with 64MB of Flash RAM. However, the iPod, a hard drive-based mp3 player, took off and smaller Flash-based storage MP3 players took a backseat. Now with larger 8GB cards available, the advantage is starting to lean back towards Flash memory MP3 players. Why do you ask? Power. Hard disk drives suck power faster than a Dyson vacuum cleaner! SD cards are much more power efficient, so you can listen to your music player much longer before recharging.

The SD High Capacity or SDHC card format was originally developed by SanDisk, Matsushita, and Toshiba for use in portable devices. SDHC is the new designation for cards in any SD format larger than 2GB that adhere to the new SD 2.0 specification. Previous specifications for SD cards limited capacity to 2GB, while SDHC supports capacities up to 32GB. The specification was developed by the SD Association, an industry standards organization, which also defined three classes for speed and performance capabilities. The 8GB SDHC card adheres to the SD Speed Class 2 rating, which guarantees a minimum data-transfer rate of 2MB/sec.

“As consumers add more digital entertainment and memories to their lives -- especially when they start shooting video with a digital still camera or digital camcorder -- they need more storage capacity in flash memory cards,’’ said Susan Park, retail product marketing manager at SanDisk. “The new 8GB SDHC delivers twice the capacity of what was previously our biggest SD card -- the 4GB SDHC -- introduced just eight months ago.”

The 8GB SDHC card with MicroMate USB 2.0 reader will be available in April in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The bundle will be available in Japan and elsewhere in Asia later in the second quarter. In the United States, the bundle will carry a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $189.99.

Want a SIP-based presence application that monitors all your various SIP phones and centralizes the presence information to provide centralized presence management? Well, Vonalink's TeamOnCall is a new real-time call status display software that works with any VoIP phone system based on the SIP standard to provide real-time display of call status. Put into context of the hosted presence solution Tello, which recently bit the dust, this just shows you that presence-based solutions are still in high demand.

According to Arcosoft, "While VoIP phones are being adopted by small and medium sized businesses at a growing rate, the tools to make effective use of the phones are lacking. In a business environment where a receptionist receives an incoming call and needs to transfer the call to the appropriate representative, the receptionist has no way of knowing which representative is free, unless the company has deployed a costly and complex call center solution."

• Works with any SIP based VoIP system, including hosted services such as Voipfone or Vonage
• Use with soft phone, hard phone, or analog phone via an adapter
• Web server based
• Automatic discovery of all phones
• Real-time display of call status including remote caller and name
• Flexible grouping of phones
• API accepts Do-not-disturb notifications from IP phone
• Ethernet network switch with port mirroring (more than 6 phones) or a hub (6 phones or less)
  

Based on one customer's feedback, TeamOnCall was created specifically to address this business pain, says Tony Leung, Director of Arcosoft.  It utilizes passive network packet monitoring, to automatically discover all the phones on your network and tracks their call status. A receptionist using a web browser can see in real-time if a phone is idle, or in use. No longer will the receptionist blindly try an extension only to find it busy. The customer's call is transferred quicker, with less wait time for the next customer.

VONaLink TeamOnCall works with any SIP based VoIP system, including hosted services such as Voipfone or Vonage. TeamOnCall runs on Windows Vista, XP Pro, 2003, and 2000. Pricing starts at $299 USD for up to 5 phones. An evaluation version is available from www.vonalink.com

Fonality's release of their Linux-based trixbox appliance certainly is creating some buzz in the Asterisk community. According to Fonality, the trixbox appliance has the following features:

• The appliance comes with a 4-port network card, so (just like the Digium appliance) you can do your office networking on it.
• It comes pre-loaded with the trixbox software – which saves you time
• It comes with two 80GB hard drives so it has lots of storage (the Digium appliance comes with 1 1GB flash drive).
• The appliance comes with a powerful Intel processor (vs. a small Blackfin processor).

You can check out the full feature-set here: http://www.trixbox.org/appliance

It certainly would be interesting to compare/contrast the trixbox appliance vs. the Digium appliance. Something certainly worthy of adding to the TMC Labs review queue. The original news story was updated with a product image of the trixbox appliance, which is an interesting fluorescent green color, so go take a gander at the updated article.