Reviews

Plantronics Voyager PRO

April 23, 2009

The Plantronics Voyager Pro is the successor to the much-loved Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset, which goes on sale today, although, Best Buy started selling its stock a bit early. I have a review unit which I plan on testing and giving my thoughts/opinion on in the new few days. I reviewed its predecessor, the Plantronics Voyage 510, which had a cult following. I was a big fan of the Voyager 510 and have one on my desk.

Posted in Accessories, Gadgets, Headsets, Mobile Phones, Reviews, Skype, VoIP, Wireless

Microsoft Roundtable is now Polycom CX5000 Unified Conference Station

March 30, 2009

Polycom and Microsoft today announced that "as part of Microsoft's vision to broaden the availability of Microsoft RoundTable, Polycom has licensed the right to distribute RoundTable, effective April 13, 2009." The product, renamed the Polycom CX5000 Unified Conference Station, will be available through Polycom and its channel network.

Polycom has 'exclusive rights', to sell the CX5000, which is a huge win for them. Although I have been a huge fan of the Microsoft Roundtable with it's cool 360 panoramic video, my guess is that Microsoft has had difficulty selling this expensive ($4300) videoconferencing equipment.

The CX5000 when used in conjunction with Office Live Meeting service, or as part of Office Communications Server 2007, it combines content, a panoramic 360-degree view of the entire meeting room, and a separate view of the active speaker for a unique and engaging voice and video experience.

The Polycom CX5000 will be available beginning April 13, 2009, at a list price of U.S. $4,300. The CX5000 will be available in 27 countries through Polycom's extensive channel partner network and will be available for shipment in late April.

Posted in Microsoft, Polycom, Reviews, SIP, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

IPEVO Wi-Fi Phone for Skype Review

March 27, 2009

The IPEVO Wi-Fi Phone for Skype launched just last month and IPEVO sent me a review unit to check out, which I've been testing for a few weeks.

Installation
Installing the IPEVO Wi-Fi Phone was a snap. Although it only has a numeric keypad for entering in alphanumeric characters for entering in the WEP/WPA/WPA2 key. As you hit a key, it shows you the current key where your cursor is located, but it also shows you a horizontal list of all the characters that key can produce and highlights the current key.

Posted in Gadgets, Mobile Phones, Reviews, Skype, Video Conferencing, VoIP, Wireless

Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 7.0 with WebEx integration Review

February 5, 2009

Here is a preview of the TMC Labs review of Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 7.0, which is scheduled to be published in the March issue of Internet Telephony Magazine. Enjoy!

Cisco Systems, Inc.
Web site: http://www.cisco.com

Pricing:
40 concurrent user licenses (750 users), audio conferencing, includes application server software and media server hardware for voice conferencing - $79,999 ($2000/concurrent user)

100 concurrent user licenses (2000 users), audio conferencing, includes application server software and media server hardware for voice conferencing - $127,999 ($1280/concurrent user)

In both sample pricing scenarios, it also includes 6 concurrent web and 6 concurrent video licenses (customer needs to purchase video blade to use video licenses)

Note: As seen by the two example prices the concurrent user price comes down quickly as the system size grows.
Additionally, the customer would also need to purchase a $12,000 Cisco Media Convergence Servers, which is a standard server running Linux

//////////////////////////////////
RATINGS (0-5)
Installation: 5
Documentation: Not tested
Features: 5
GUI: 5
Overall: A
///////////////////////////////////

Unified communications is all the rage these days, especially when businesses are looking to optimize productivity and reduce costs. But what really is "unified communications"? You might be surprised at the different answers you'd get from various people.

Posted in Cisco, Reviews, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Verizon Hub News

January 23, 2009

As I wrote a few days ago, Verizon plans to launch the Verizon Hub. I just learned the Verizon Hub will launch February 1st. As I also was the first to point out, my source told me that the Verizon Hub is essentially the same thing as the Verizon One (created by OpenPeak), which I wrote about in March 2007. In my post from a few days ago, I wrote, "One of my sources told me that the Verizon Hub is the same thing as the Verizon One, but apparently Verizon changed the name to the Verizon Hub deskphone."

The Verizon Hub is the evolution of the Verizon One. As part of that evolution, I hope they no longer restrict you to surfing specific websites. Or if they do have to limit it, I hope the list of allowed websites includes YouTube, Digg, Yahoo!

Posted in Home Entertainment, Internet, Reviews, TMCnet, Technology and Science, Unified Communications, VoIP

New HTC Touch Cruise

January 22, 2009

HTC today announced the HTC Touch Cruise, a mobile phone that is optimized to run as a personal navigation handset with its inbuilt GPS and ability to geotag places you go with a photo and audio notes. The new HTC Touch Cruise is an update to last year's popular HTC Touch Cruise model, but it sports a more compact design and several new features.

Of particular note is HTC Footprints, an application that enables you to chronicle places you visit by capturing "digital postcards" on the phone that includes a 3.2MP photo, along with the ability to attach notes and an audio clip to remind you of the location's significance. Footprints will automatically geotag the specific GPS coordinates, and even auto-names each "postcard" with its general location or area.

The HTC Touch Cruise can also be used as an advanced in-car navigation system. Just stick it into its car cradle and the HTC Touch Cruise automatically transforms its user interface into an easy-to-use, one-touch interface with turn-by-turn directions.

It sports a decent 2.8 inch QVGA display along with HTC's TouchFLO technology. Because it's only QVGA, tt's not TouchFLO 3D, but rather TouchFLO 2D. Still, the TouchFLO 2D UI for Windows Mobile 6.1 is an improvement over the regular UI.

Posted in Digital Cameras, GPS, Gadgets, Mobile Phones, Reviews, Wireless

AT&T TL7610 headset review

January 19, 2009

AT&T sent me their new TL7610 DECT 6.0 headset for review last month and I finally got around to writing up the review. My first impressions were very positive. It sported a nice sleek and ergonomic headset base with well-labeled buttons and LEDs for figuring things out without need for the manual. Like the base, the headset piece was also sleek and ergonomic with a slight curve to the microphone piece.

Posted in Accessories, Gadgets, Headsets, Reviews, Wireless

BlackBerry OS Running On Windows Mobile HTC Touch Pro

December 16, 2008

From the "Oh no you didn't!" department, BerryReview.com has an article and some sweet photo goodness showing a Windows Mobile HTC Touch Pro running a virtual BlackBerry operating system. The Windows Mobile OS running the BlackBerry OS? What's next, the iPhone running Windows Mobile? Soon there will be human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

The BlackBerry OS runs as an application on Windows Mobile allowing you to run your favorite BlackBerry apps. Similar to other "virtualized" software out there that lets you run other operating systems. BerryReview claims it should have all of the BlackBerry 4.2 OS features in it.

More...

Posted in Gadgets, Microsoft, Mobile Phones, Reviews, TMCnet, Wireless

Fonality Launches PBXtra Unified Agent on Salesforce.com's Force.com AppExchange

December 9, 2008

Back in September I wrote about Fonality's trixbox Unified Agent Edition (UAE) and how it can automatically match all inbound and outbound calls with the corresponding record in salesforce.com's AppExchange, and call data is captured and logged. Apparently, this was still a yet-to-be-announced product I wrote about that resulted in a call from Fonality's CEO Chris Lyman asking how I found out about it. Woops, my bad, Chris.

Well, today, Fonality has officially launched UAE.

Posted in Asterisk, Avaya, Call Center and CRM, Reviews, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Yahoo Mail - Defer this! %#$^@$

November 13, 2008

I'm getting mighty ticked off with Yahoo! Mail lately. I have industry contacts, family, and friends that use yahoo.com email accounts and I've been getting this "defer" messages lately. Yahoo is using an anti-spam tactic where they "defer" the message from your SMTP server. It's also known as "greylisting".

Posted in Internet, Reviews, TMCnet

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