June 2007 Archives

you're an Apple employee. Steve Jobs is giving all of his 20,000 Apple employees an early Christmas/Hanukuh/<insert your holiday> present by giving them all free Apple iPhones! Sweet!

Each iPhone is valued at $599 (£299) which when multiplied by 20,000 employees equates to a retail value of $12 million. Forget stock options when working for Apple, all you need is an iPhone option, a video iPod option, iMac option, etc. etc.

Truphone, which I recently awarded a TMC Labs Innovation Award, has just released Truphone 3.0. The latest release adds a suite of advanced features to its beta VoIP service for mobile phones, and simultaneously extended until the end of 2007 its offer of free calls to 40 countries. The new SMS over IP capability brings unlimited free SMS messages between on-net Truphone users and a flat-rate tariff of GBP0.07/USD0.15 to all other regular mobile numbers worldwide.

James Tagg, Truphone's CEO, said:

We were the first company to demonstrate SMS-over-IP in our preview version at the beginning of June and we've been delighted at the feedback we've received. People love free and low-cost text messages. Today, the new Truphone service is ready to download for everyone.

The ability to see presence - to know a contact is online and callable for free - has particular significance for mobile users, because there are far greater savings to be had. Now you know for sure when that mobile call to your uncle in Australia is free.

The introduction of these new IP-enabled services gives a glimpse of the potential for pure IP mobile telephony and demonstrates the clear benefits of true IP telephony over bridging solutions. We envisage a world where content-rich, location-based services and much more will be possible via Truphone.

Here's a summary of the features:

- Presence functionality enables users to know exactly when they can make a free call or send a free text message to another Truphone user.
- Smart log-on means a Truphone-enabled handset now 'takes care of its owner' by automatically connecting to previously used Wi-Fi access points.
- Truphone over 3G is made available at the request of customers with suitable 3G tariffs. While this allows low cost VoIP calls from many more locations, Truphone still recommends VoIP over Wi-Fi as being of higher call quality and less susceptible to high charges data charges.
- Multi-SIM capability means Truphone supports travelers who take international SIM cards with them abroad. Calls to their Truphone number will reach them whichever SIM they're using at the time.
- Truphone 3.0 also brings compatibility with a greater number of routers, reducing the likelihood of port-blocking; a simplified, more intuitive installation process; and a significant number of bug-fixes. I wonder if "reducing likelihood of port blocking" helps solve the issue where T-Mobile UK is blocking Truphone? I doubt it since I believe T-Mobile is doing much more than simple port blocking.

Existing Truphone customers and anyone signing up for Truphone before September 30th can make free Truphone calls to 40 countries until the end of 2007.

Finally, anyone can get Truphone by sending a text message with the word 'Tru' to +44 7624 000000. Do it now and Truphone will credit your account with £2 or US $2. Hey, free money, sounds like a sweet deal to me!

AT&T customers are seeing a sudden boost in EDGE speeds - reaching 200kbps, seemingly coinciding with the Apple iPhone launch. EDGE users are ecstatic over the speed bump. In fact, I overheard some iPhone users saying "Prepare iPhone for 2.5G EDGE speed. No no no, 2.5G EDGE is too slow. 2.5G EDGE too slow? Yes, we're going to have to go right to 'ludicrous 3G speed'. [gasps...] Ludicrous speed? Sir, we've never gone that fast before. I don't know if the iPhone can take it."

To hear the original hilarious "Ludicrous Speed" sound clip from SpaceBalls, click Play below:

The AT&T speed upgrade was codenamed "Fine EDGE", an ongoing two month upgrade which added bigger pipes going into the poorest performing towers to boost the bandwidth available to the EDGE network, thus bringing it closer to the theoretical 200kbps maximum speed. The iPhone has been knocked harshly from many reviewers for using EDGE due to its slower performance. This bandwidth boost will now help assuage the concerns of users which were sitting on the "should I get an iPhone?" fence.

Apple has stated that the iPhone can sync with Exchange Server using IMAP4. According to eWeek, Microsoft released Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Rollup 3 just in time for the Apple iPhone. Rollup 3 fixes several issues including issues that affect Apple Mac Mail when connecting to Exchange 2007. The issue supposedly fixes an incompatibility between IMAP version 4 and Exchange Server 2007 that affected Apple Mac Mail users and could affect iPhone users as well. Bill Gates having his engineers work furiously to have Exchange Server 2007 work well with Steve Jobs Apple iPhone in time for today's iPhone launch? Go figure... But nice to see that the iPhone should work well in many enterprises right off the bat.

Engadget has a photo purportedly taken from ThinkSecret.com (site is down) displaying an Exchange tab within the iPhone interface, as seen here:


Interesting how the screenshot shows it connected to Cingular and not AT&T, considering AT&T is the exclusive iPhone service provider. Must be a fake.

Oh wait, Cingular is AT&T. Gosh darn it, I keep forgetting all these damn acquisitions. Maybe Steve Colbert can explain that to me again:

Here is a a list of issues that update Rollup 3 fixes if curious:

Update Rollup 3 for Exchange 2007 fixes the issues that are described in the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:  
931328 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931328/) An integer is added to the end of the legacyExchangeDN attribute of a newly created mailbox in Exchange 2007
930468 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930468/) The attachment is not displayed when you use Outlook 2003 to open an e-mail message that contains an attachment
931842 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931842/) Error message when the sender or the receiver of a meeting request has a double-byte character set (DBCS) display name in Exchange Server 2007: "The requested property was not found"
932207 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932207/) Error message when a user tries to open a forwarded message to accept or to deny a resource request in Exchange Server 2007: "Cannot open the free/busy information"
932515 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932515/) You receive a 5.2.0 non-delivery report (NDR) message when you send an e-mail message to an Exchange 2007 server that is running the Isinteg.exe tool in a dismounted mailbox store
934887 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934887/) DBCS characters are converted into two question marks in a forwarded e-mail message in Exchange 2007

The first official Service Pack for Exchange Server 2007 is expected some time later this year.

Maybe the rush to get Rollup 3 in time for the iPhone launch is because Microsoft engineers themselves plan on buying one. Or maybe even Bill Gates himself!

Some fellow TMCers were emailing back-and-forth about the Mitel lawsuit against Shoretel just before Shoretel launched their IPO. A few moments later, Jon Arnold emailed me, a bunch of TMCers, Om, VoIPCentral, Ken Camp, Russell Shaw, and a few other bloggers & journalists about this bit of news and what it meant. Go check out Jon's post here where he makes an analogy to the Verizon lawsuit against Vonage, another VoIP player around the time of their IPO.

As a result of the lawsuit, the ShoreTel IPO is up in the air.

My email response to everyone in the thread was "Interesting indeed.. -that is, for mid-tier IP-PBX vendors fighting over the scraps that tier-1 IP-PBXs such as Cisco are leaving behind."

And then you have up-and-coming whipper snappers like Asterisk and Asterisk-based solutions such as Fonality, trixbox, etc. that have continued to take more market share in the IP-PBX space.

Andy wrote back "This is interesting and Tom's comment makes me think that we are at a point where innovation is slowing down."

What say you all? Is innovation in VoIP slowing down? Are we entering an era where VoIP players squabbling for the scraps from Longshank's (Cisco's & Asterisk's?) table? (Braveheart reference)

Just yesterday I mentioned free Wi-Fi on the 'Nokia' N800 and today I come across an article from jkOnTheRun about him seeing Skype running on the Nokia N800. Two nice pieces of news for this handheld computer device.

He noticed it at the Nokia booth just as he was about to leave the Digital Experience show. Goes to show you that you never know when you're going to find something cool at a tradeshow, so stay as long as you can!

Although great news for the Nokia N800, I'd much rather see a Skype client run on the Symbian OS and therefore on Nokia's mobile phones.

The image is courtesy of jkOnTheRun.

SanDisk announced 6GB and 8GB microSD High Capacity (microSDHC) flash memory cards one-upping their previous maximum capacity of 4 gigabytes announced in February.

SanDisk's Jeff Kost bragged, "any mobile phone with a compatible microSDHC slot will have just as much storage as the largest-capacity iPhone." The ironic thing is Rich Tehrani recently bought a 4GB microSDHC card for his Windows Mobile 5 phone (Verizon XV6700) and it only supports 2GB maximum, so he had to return it. So unfortunately, most existing phones won't support the new higher 6GB and 8GB capacities either. So buyers beware! Check your device's specs before you buy a microSDHC memory card.

But certainly newer phone models can take advantage of the extra storage. Of course other devices will also be able to take advantage of microSDHC such as mp3 music players, hand-held computers, and digital cameras. An 8GB microSDHC card can store more than 2,000 digital songs, or more than 5,000 high-resolution pictures, or up to 5 hours of high-quality MPEG 4 video.

Retail release of the cards and availability to phone manufacturers and network operators are planned for later in 2007. Pricing has not yet been determined.

Note: SDHC is the designation for any SD or SD-based card that is larger than 2GB and adheres to the new SD 2.00 specification required for cards and hosts to support 4GB to 32GB capacities.

With the Apple iPhone coming out Friday no doubt many people are wondering if you can install Skype or any other VoIP application on the iPhone. Well...

PIKA Technologies today released major hardware and software enhancements to their host-based media processing platform. Two new PCIe boards are added to their hardware portfolio and support was added for high-volume fax and advanced conferencing. PIKA boards can run on Asterisk, so fans of PIKA hardware that happen to also like Asterisk will welcome this bit of news. Asterisk has never been known to do well with faxing. I wonder if PIKA's high-volume fax hardware will improve that?

Anyway, here's the announcement:

Ottawa, ON, Canada - June 27, 2007 - PIKA Technologies, a designer and manufacturer of plug-in media-processing hardware and software, today announced that it has further strengthened its product portfolio by releasing two new network interface boards and added major features including fax and advanced conferencing capabilities to its host-based processing platform.

"PIKA continues to support its customers with the solutions they need to develop their applications using host-based media processing rather than the traditional, more expensive DSP-based media processing," said Terry Atwood, vice president, sales, marketing and customer care at PIKA. "By enabling developers to integrate fax and advanced conferencing into their applications and to connect their applications to digital and analog trunks and stations, PIKA is helping the market move to a more affordable, software-based media-processing landscape, without sacrificing functionality or robustness."

The hardware additions to PIKA's platform include a PCI express (PCIe) version of the Digital T1/E1 Gateway trunk board, and a PCIe Analog Station (FXS) board, from PIKA's Daytona analog family.

These two boards complete the full range of analog and T1/E1 hardware-based gateway products that PIKA has developed to increase the robustness and appeal of its AllOnHost software. The future of voice is recognized to be in IP, but the transition will not be immediate for most organizations. The PIKA hardware enables developers to design IP-centric applications that support the shift to IP but allow for a gradual migration that will incorporate a mix of new VoIP and existing TDM technologies.

"Our research indicates that in spite of over 70% of telephony lines shipped today being converged, the number of actual lines connecting to IP endpoints is considerably lower," said Krithi Rao, Industry Analyst - Enterprise Communications, ICT, Frost & Sullivan. "Many are next generation, hybrid systems that can support IP and TDM and pure IP systems. Further, the relative penetration of IP into the installed base is less than 20%. A large percentage of enterprise IP deployments connect to an analog or digital network and to analog and digital phones and is therefore driving TDM interface card deployments."

In addition to the expansion of its hardware portfolio, PIKA has released version 2.2 of its host-based media processing software, providing fax and advanced conference capabilities to developers.

Customers transitioning from DSP-based to host-based media processing have remarked about the high level of support received from PIKA, not only from a customer service standpoint, but also from the product development side.

"Our eurovoice objects application development environment has been based on PIKA's proven, reliable DSP hardware for many years," said Martin Steer, managing director, eurovoice limited. "In 2006, when PIKA released its initial host-based offering, we immediately designed it in. Since then, PIKA has consistently enhanced the density and robustness, as well as the feature content of their software. This release is another example of PIKA's commitment to meeting our requirements and helping us to meet the requirements of our customers."

Hardware
PIKA's PCI express (PCIe) version of the Digital T1/E1 Gateway trunk board, along with the PCI version, which was introduced last year, are both members of PIKA's PrimeNet digital family. These boards support up to four T1 or E1 spans, configurable in single span increments. They provide 24-120 ports of TDM digital network connectivity for applications such as IVR/self service, IP-PBX, fax broadcast and call center systems.

The PCIe Analog Station (FXS) board, a member of PIKA's Daytona analog family, has also been added to the product portfolio. Supporting the connection of up to 12 ports for traditional analog telephone devices, the board is designed to meet the analog telephone requirements of IP-PBXs and call center systems. An advantage over other competitive offerings, this new board derives its required power from the PC/server backplane, requiring no external power supply.

Both new interface boards conform to the 9.5-inch PCIe form factor, enabling them to be used in off-the-shelf industry standard chassis and PCs, which is vital as PC manufacturers decrease the number of PCI slots and increase the number of PCIe slots in their standard offerings.

A step ahead of most competitive solutions on the market today, PIKA's entire portfolio of host-based media compatible hardware is software expandable in the field. For example, a digital trunk board initially purchased and installed with a single span software license can be quickly and easily upgraded, in place, to a dual, triple or quad span. Typically, this upgrade would require an expensive trip to the site to open the chassis, remove the existing board and replace it with a new board.

Software
Version 2.2 of PIKA's host-based media processing software particularly benefits application developers who create large, single purpose broadcast fax systems, as well as those who need to fax-enable their existing IVR, self-service, messaging or IP-PBX application. PIKA provides 25% of the port capacity of the hardware as fax ports, at no additional charge. For example, a single span T1 board comes equipped with 6 free fax ports. PIKA's unique resource sharing architecture is ideal to support a large variety of fax applications.

IP-PBX and conferencing system developers will benefit from enhancements to the conferencing capabilities added in version 2.2. Features such as gain pad, summing, switching and DTMF clamping, previously only available in DSP-based architectures, are now available in PIKA's host-based environment as well.

MOBIVOX is celebrating the U.S.'s 4th of July Independence Day with $10 of free international calls. MOBIVOX states, "Declare your independence from long distance phone charges this July 4th when MOBIVOX offers free international calls from the U.S this Independence Day! MOBIVOX, the only provider to enable Skype on ANY cell phone, just announced a new promotion to celebrate Independence Day and to thank their growing user base for choosing MOBIVOX by offering free international calls from anywhere in the United States on July 4th."

"The United States has one of the biggest expatriate communities in the world, and we are thrilled to celebrate Independence Day by giving something back to our user community," said Stephane Marceau, CEO of MOBIVOX. "We hope that many will celebrate Independence Day with MOBIVOX and get the opportunity to enjoy free calls to friends and family all over the world."

Registered MOBIVOX users in the United States can make $10 worth of free international calls to anywhere in the world on mobile or fixed lines anytime from midnight EDT to 11:59:59 pm EDT July 4. So make your $10 worth of free calls - that is if you're not too busy grilling burgers & hotdogs, swigging beer or soda, or swimming. The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays, for the food, fun, & family. I'm headed up to Cape Cod myself next week, but I'll try and remotely blog via EVDO beach-side.

Assuming of course my wife doesn't make me put away the laptop and just enjoy the vacation.

Yet another reason to bet the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet - free Wi-Fi? An agreement between Nokia and Earthlink will allow Nokia N800 customers to access EarthLink's municipal Wi-Fi networks free of charge.

Earthlink today announced that Nokia N800 customers will be able to securely connect to EarthLink's Wi-Fi network directly from the device. To get started users click on the EarthLink Wi-Fi logo in the connections menu or through the Tableteer portal on the Nokia N800, and upon signing up for an account, customers have immediate access to wireless broadband service with download speeds of up to three Mbps and upload speeds up to one Mbps. Earthlink has major Wi-Fi initiatives underway in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Milpitas and Anaheim, CA and Corpus Christi, TX.

The Nokia N800 is a pretty cool device which Andy sent me awhile back. He also sent Rich one to try and both Rich and I tinkered with it for a bit together. We both liked the high-resolution screen and the near-desktop browsing experience due to it's built-in Opera 8 browser which can even play Flash. I wonder if it can play Youtube videos? I would assume it can.

I've been meaning to do a more detailed test of it. Just as an overview, the Wi-Fi enabled Nokia N800 Internet Tablet gives users access to Web browsing on a high-resolution screen, instant messaging, email, Internet calling with video, podcasts, RSS feeds, Internet videos, blogging, streaming music and much more, while being small enough to fit into your pocket.

Update: Hmm, Gigaom covered this fact back in late March. I believe the plan was announced in late March and today they are announcing it's available.

Skype today announced that Toshiba’s Digital Products Division will market Skype on Toshiba’s laptop computers, including the Satellite, Tecra, Portégé and Qosmio product lines. The Skype-featured Toshiba models will feature built-in webcams and microphones and customers will be able to see the branded offering with a Skype logo found adjacent to the units’ built-in webcam.

In addition, customers will be able to access a Skype icon available on the desktop to quickly and easily download the latest Skype client software from a co-branded Skype and Toshiba landing page. (I wonder how much Skype paid for this valuable piece of screen real-estate?)

Initially, Toshiba notebooks featuring webcams will include select configurations of the Satellite A215, Satellite X205, Tecra M8 and Qosmio F45 series.

These new Toshiba notebooks featuring Skype will be available starting June 26, 2007 through both retail and online channels in the U.S., including Toshiba’s online store.

It's only fair that I include Vonage's public relations response to my Vonage post on Friday where I discussed Vonage's $3.99/month for 1-year retention plan. :

Hope all is well. I saw your post on Friday about Vonage and just wanted to offer more information about the $3.99/month plan. Vonage has had this package for several years now (at least three, possibly four years), so this is by no means a new plan, and it’s used exclusively as a short-term retention promotion. There are fewer than one percent of customers on this program, so it does not significantly impact the company’s financial condition.

I was a little surprised that this offer has existed for so long. I don't recall being offered this plan when I canceled my Vonage service. There must be some magical phrase that the customer has to say in order to trigger something in the call script that causes Vonage retention rep to offer you the $3.99/month. If I recall, I was pretty adamant about canceling, so that may have pre-empted this particular offer.

I wonder if you keep calling to cancel every year when this $3.99 promo expires if they'll keep offering you $3.99/month? That'd work out to only $47.88 per year for phone service! Now that is a pretty sweet deal. I remember when my monthly phone bill was more than that.

According to an unconfirmed report on TechCrunch Grand Central may have been acquired by Google. Grand Central is a great application that gives you a single phone number identity and has some cool functionality, such as the ability to move a Skype call to a mobile phone without hanging up. Personally, I wish Google would improve their Google Talk application's feature-set which still lags far behind Skype and other VoIP applications. Integrating Grand Central into Google Talk would certainly compliment the feature-set.

So does this unconfirmed report mean Jangl, Jajah, Jaxtr, Talkplus, or Truphone are ripe for acquisition? The mobile VoIP space seems to be heating up!

Word is that Vonage is offering defecting customers $3.99/month for a year in order to retain them a Vonage customer. How can Vonage sustain profitability at $4 bucks per month? Anyone want to start the "Vonage files for bankruptcy clock" or should I?