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Some good internal news at TMC. Technology Marketing Corporation today announced that Digium CEO Danny Windham has accepted its invitation to deliver a Keynote Address at ITEXPO East 2010, taking place Jan. 20-22, 2010 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, Florida.

Windham's presentation, which takes place Thursday, Jan. 21 9:45 a.m. EST, will address the evolution of Open Source as a mature telephony platform that is experiencing extensive growth in enterprise, government and carrier markets. Open to all ITEXPO attendees, this session will also be a centerpiece of the fourth annual Digium|Asterisk World conference, which is collocated with ITEXPO East 2010.

ITEXPO is the world's largest conference and trade show focused on communications and technology. Launched in 1999, the event is expected to draw as many as 200 exhibiting companies and more than 7,000 attendees to Miami.

"Developers, resellers, IT professionals and executives will benefit from hearing Danny's views on the increasing number of opportunities based on Asterisk, the world's most popular open source telephony software," said Rich Tehrani, CEO and group editor-in-chief of TMC. "ITEXPO and Digium|Asterisk World will expand on this notion, with three days of content, education and training for anyone interested in learning more about open source telephony."

Digium is the creator, sponsor and primary developer of Asterisk. Digium offers Asterisk software free to the open source community and offers Asterisk Business Edition and Switchvox IP PBX software to power a broad family of products for small, medium and large businesses. The company's product line includes a wide range of hardware and software to enable resellers and customers to implement turnkey VoIP systems or to design their own custom telephony solutions.

Windham joined Digium in February 2007 as CEO. He is responsible for setting the company's corporate strategy, and executing its day to day business operations. Prior to joining Digium, Windham served as president and chief operating officer of ADTRAN, a global provider of networking and communications equipment. He joined ADTRAN in 1989, following ADTRAN's successful acquisition of Processing Telecom Technologies, a company Windham co-founded in 1986. Windham holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Mississippi State University, where he was named a Distinguished Engineering Fellow in 2001 and he also holds an MBA from the Florida Institute of Technology.

"Whether building a corporate phone system from the ground up, or extending the functionality of a legacy telephony system, organizations of all sizes are increasingly turning to open source VoIP as a flexible and inexpensive solution," said Windham. "I'm honored to be delivering the keynote at ITEXPO East 2010 and sharing some of the great accomplishments of open source in the enterprise with attendees."

Registration for ITEXPO and Digium|Asterisk World remain open. Vendors interested in participating in ITEXPO or Digium|Asterisk World should contact Joe Fabiano at 203-852-6800 x132.

In December, Skype will announce some new features for Skype for SIP (beta), which will make it more business-friendly. Skype for SIP, which is now part of Skype's Business Control Panel (BCP). Skype for SIP will support DID routing by supporting the SIP To field. You will be able to add an extension number to a Skype name you used in the Skype for SIP profile. When a call is routed to the SIP PBX the extension number will be in the To field for direct routing of the call to an extension.

One fascinating feature Skype is working on is "silent keyboard", which will automatically silence your keystrokes from being sent to the remote party. As far as I know you can't decrypt the keystroke sounds into the corresponding keys, so really Skype is doing this for a better user listening experience. Kind of a cool feature, especially if you're half listening to the caller and are Tweeting, checking your Facebook page, and sending emails.

Nimbuzz, has entered the PSTN termination business with the announcement today of NimbuzzOut. I use Nimbuzz on my iPhone because it's a great aggregator of various VoIP, IM, and social services, including Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk (Orkut), AIM, Facebook, MySpace and more. Nimbuzz had been leveraging other networks such as Skype for voice, but this marks the first time Nimbuzz offers their own termination. Finally, a business revenue-generating model??
 
NimbuzzOut Credits will be available for purchase at www.nimbuzzout.com, and is available on Symbian, iPhone and iPod Touch handsets and rolling out to others later this year.

Nimbuzz claims, "more than 10 million registrations of the application since launch, a current growth rate of more than a million new registrations each month (that's a new Nimbuzz user every 3 seconds!), a daily active user base of over 30% and an international user footprint covering every corner of the globe."
 
Nimbuzz founder & CEO, Evert-Jaap Lugt said of the NimbuzzOut launch: "High value, high quality voice calling is positioned at the heart of our value proposition, making NimbuzzOut the most natural commercial extension of our product.  This offers fantastic value to our users, especially those who wish to communicate regularly with friends and family abroad at the lowest possible prices.  This is all part of our strategy to give Nimbuzz users control of their mobile lives and the freedom they want and deserve."

Skype Journal wrote about one of the coolest mashups I've ever seen. Certainly one of the coolest VoIP mashups. Skype Journal explains PhoneFromHere Tim Panton's demo that he gave at Astricon where Tim mashes up Google Wave, Skype, Asterisk running Skype for Asterisk and Ibook to make Skype calls from within a browser-based Google Wave.


Not only is it sans Skype client, but it has recordings (labeled by person speaking) of individual utterances, so you can quickly playback what a particular person said at a certain point in time.

It's amazing to make a Skype call from a browser without running the Skype client. How do you ask? Well, it uses a browser-based Skype client using a IAX2 Java client to communicate with Asterisk which then communicates with the Skype network cloud. On top of it all you get Google Wave's powerful collaboration capabilities.

Perhaps some IP address geocoding combined with Google Maps to show the speakers' locations might be nice addition to this mashup. Or even pulling down Facebook profile pictures. There is definitely some awesome potential for this. Maybe Google can even stick your Google Wave/Skype/Asterisk collaboration sessions into their newly released, centralized, Borg/hive, data-collecting, privacy-busting Google Dashboard?

Gigaom reports that there is a good chance that a resolution of the lawsuit between the Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis and eBay's Skype could be announced as soon as this week.

According to Gigaom, a group of private equity investors led by Silver Lake Partners are close to settling their legal dispute with Niklas and Janus which will allow eBay to sell 65 percent of Skype for around $2 billion. This means that Index Ventures and Michelangelo Volpi, former CEO of Joost are on the "outs" to buy Skype. It's important to note that Joost also uses the proprietary P2P protocol that is the core engine used in Skype. With this knowledge of the core guts of the P2P engine, Volpi attempted to bid for Skype along with Index Ventures.

There is no love lost between Volpi and the founders of Skype who also founded Joltid.  JoltId accused, "Volpi has repeatedly failed to comply with Joost's demands that the return his computer and all Confidential Information he obtained in the source of his fiducisary relationship with Joost."

According to Om, "Zennstrom and Friis will have a board seat on the newly independent Skype, which would be allowed to use JoltID's technology."

Slashdot was abuzz with the news that Skype was going open source. Not so fast my friend. Have you not forgotten Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis who now run JoltId are in a legal fight with Skype?

Surely Skype wouldn't be so bold as to release their P2P 'secret sauce' while still in court litigation with JoltId. Who would want to thumb their nose at the all-powerful judge? In fact, the lawsuit reads: "A source code version of the GI Software (Global Index Software) is licensed by Joltid to Joost, allowing Joost to be the first company to successfully deliver television and other video content in real-time over a peer-to-peer network. An executable-only object code form of the GI Software was licensed by Joltid to Skype, a well-known Internet-based company that providers users throughout the world with free or low-cost telephone services over the Internet. Skype did not obtain a license to the GI Software source code, however, and the license it did obtain was terminated based on Skype's breaches of the license agreement."

Well, it turns out Skype doesn't have balls of steel, but rather they are making the GUI open source on the Linux platform. Whoopdeedoo. So the graphical user interface is going open source. Move along, nothing to see here.

Blabbelon, the cross-platform web-based VoIP app designed for video gaming, which I tested yesterday and posted a review today released an official statement about their new offering. I thought I'd share it since it has some good info to compliment my review posted this morning:

Stop Venting: Blabbelon Opens a New World for Gamers
Free, one-click, push-to-talk chat service eliminates Ventrilo frustrations;
No downloads, server rentals or limits on groups; Super wideband audio-quality voice chat using Skype's SILK audio codec

New York, NY- November 3, 2009 - You're about to jump on a MMOG and need to bring other players into a voice chat session. After time-consuming downloads, complicated invites and discovering that your best player can't join the chat because he's on a Mac and not a PC, you finally begin playing - just as your game is rudely interrupted by loud team members. Your voice chat system, which should be providing you with a better gaming experience, has become more trouble than it was worth. Now, Blabbelon is removing the headaches associated with antiquated voice chat services and offering users a new gaming experience.  

In just one click, Blabbelon users are up and running with the Internet voice chat service using Skype's SILK  super wideband audio codec - offering a free, high-quality push-to-talk voice service that uses approximately 50 percent less network bandwidth than previously required. Once a user enters a chat or "Blab," they can invite participants to join in numbers far greater than other push-to-talk services and easily manage their various groups through Blabbelon's extensive built-in administration features.

"I come from a family of avid gamers, and we were all frustrated with our options for online voice chat. I didn't understand why I couldn't just register once, click and talk and at the same time have the ability to easily invite people to join me, manage my various groups, and control my game through better quality communication. And so Blabbelon was born," said Ed Ikeguchi, founder and CEO of Blabbelon.

Acting like a giant walkie-talkie, Blabbelon is perfect for MMOs and other online gaming environments. Designed to overcome the range of limitations that come with other push-to-talk systems like Ventrilo, Blabbelon offers users: 

- One-Click Entry with No Downloads: Users register once for the service, and can start new chats (called Blabs) through a URL. Chats are run through a Web browser with no complicated start-up procedures and no software downloads, allowing other applications to run simultaneously while the Blab runs in the background.

- Fast Push-to-Talk/Low Lag: Blabbelon provides minimal delays in push-to-talk timing, ensuring quick reaction time to any in-game occurrences and lower lag times, while still providing superior voice quality with less bandwidth consumption.

- Party Control: Each user within a game is placed within a specific stereo space, giving administrators more control over their groups. Blab leaders can be assigned dominant push-to-talk capabilities- allowing features such as better management of unruly users and ensuring that sessions run smoothly without forcing session members to mute offending parties. Also, Blabbelon allows administrators to permanently ban unwanted users

- Party/RAID/Guild Security: Purchasing a server with other services often means that "chat leeches" continue to use the server without permission, but Blabbelon enables the administrator to set a wide-range of group security measures. Through Blabbelon, administrators can easily reset a URL, keeping leeches from re-navigating back to a voice server as with other services such as Ventrilo. 

- Multi-Platform Control: Blabbelon works on Windows, Mac, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome without the need to download any content, install new browser toolbars or submit passwords.

- Scalable: Each Blabbelon session can handle several thousand users.

- Privacy: Blabbelon is a personalized and private environment. Only invited and known users are allowed to join, and users can maintain complete anonymity through the use of in-system aliases.

"I used Ventrilo for years, but since trying Blabbelon for about a month now - I've converted my entire Guild - and we're all telling our friends about it. There's no comparison, really. It's easier to use, simpler to manage, sounds great - and it's free. What more could you ask for?" said Lance Hurd, guild master of True Blood of Malkier, Alliance Mok'Nathal.

Ribbit today announced the release of Ribbit Mobile, a free communication suite designed for mobile professionals who need to be able to easily manage all of their phone numbers, communication devices, and how & when they are contacted.

Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based service that lets you manage calls, messages and phones. It's hard not to compare this new offering to Google Voice. One advantage of Ribbit Mobile is that it can make calls from within your browser using their Flash-based software client. Ribbit Mobile features include voicemail transcription, smart call routing, and web-based calling. During the introductory (beta) period, Ribbit is making their "Professional" package free.

Since it leverages Ribbit's open VoIP platform, it can even call your Skype, MSN or Google Talk account, as well as SIP devices. Additionally, when a new voicemail arrives, Ribbit can notify you via email, Google Talk, Skype, or SMS. Ribbit Mobile transcribes voicemail to text and sends it to you via SMS and email. It also provides a web portal inbox where messages can be managed and stored forever. No voicemail retention limit which is nice.

Ribbit Mobile also has something they like to call "Caller ID 2.0" which links your Ribbit contacts address book with your contact's Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr accounts. You can see recent updates made by your contacts to their social networks and pictures of your contacts as seen here:

Video gamers love VoIP in video games but have often been disappointed with poor voice quality - including jitter, lag, and choppiness, inability to continue to talk via VoIP once you close the game and just an overall poor user experience. Well, Blabblelon aims to change all that with the launch of their browser-based VoIP application which uses a mix of Java and Flash to VoIP-enable any PC, Mac, or Linux computer. The beauty of Blabbelon is that it works at the browser-level, so you can VoIP your friends whether you are inside the video game or not. With Blabbelon, you can blab all you want - even start your own blab-a-thon if you want.

Blabbelon is not to be confused with Babylon where the story goes that God wasn't too pleased with the Tower of Babel the people built, so he took one common language and confounded it into many so they couldn't understand each other. Well, Blabbelon may not be a Star-Trekkian universal translator-- or some anti-Tower-of-Babel gizmo helping you to understand what that French guy who just fragged you said, but it will give you crystal clear wideband HD voice.

Leveraging Skype's wideband SILK codec the audio quality is superb. In fact, as far as I know, this marks the first time anyone has embedded the SILK codec into Java. When I interviewed Blabbelon, I asked them if anyone else had successfully embedded Skype's SILK codec within Java and they confirmed they are the first. They pointed out that it took serious coding and some tricks to get the SILK codec embedded into Java. Dean Elwood, CEO of telecom provider Voxygen Limited and chief technology strategist of Blabbelon explained they are using a LAMP architecture on the back-end and the front-end is a combination of Java and Flash. Dean said, "Because Skype is only releasing binaries and not source code. The naked binaries are not Java, so we had to do a few tricks to get Java to work nicely with binaries for Mac and Windows. It's not an easy thing to do. Getting it into the browser we had to do some work."

The browser-based VoIP chat tool not only leverages Skype's SILK super wideband audio codec, but it can handle thousands of simultaneous users - up to 7,000 in fact. According to Blabbelon, "Blabbelon provides a platform for a wide variety of users such as: gamers securely competing in team-based quests; businesses running 7,000 person global conference calls; or grandparents taunting grandkids over a game of Facebook Scrabble."

I took it for a test drive and it worked pretty well with very good voice quality. I was able to hit a "hot key", by default the right Ctrl-key and then talk to my other test account. Here's a screenshot (click for larger image):

Ring2Skype, a new startup, brings yet another way to have free calling by leveraging both Skype and the PSTN. Ring2Skype allows you to have a free local number (in NYC, London, Madrid, etc.), forwarded to your Skype (wherever you are) -- once again for FREE.

I should point out that Skype charges you for a PSTN telephone number while Ring2Skype offers you a free number. Also, Ring2Skype provides numbers in more than 100 destinations, while Skype only has about 20. You just need to select the city where you want the number and Ring2Skype emails you the telephone number, which you can share with family and friends. Example: 212-555-1000 x1000. The local phone number assigned is shared amongst other Ring2Skype users, so you have to enter an extension, but hey it's free, so you can't complain!