Wengo announced WengoPhone, an open source alternative to Skype.and Google Talk. And no, this is NOT the open-source softphone I predicted last week and asked blog readers to guess the company planning to launch an open-source softphone.
From their website:
Wengo is a European company backed by a major telecom player, totally commited to providing you with the most open platform for IP telephony, video conferencing, and more. Feel the love!
World, say Hello to OpenWengo!
It's a bit early for me to judge the WengoPhone, but WengoPhone has some interesting features including chat, SIP support, send SMS, video, and best of all it's open source. Gotta love that! Still, the softphone market is becoming mighty crowded. If all the non-Skype softphones (Google Talk, Earthlink Vling, Xten, WengoPhone etc.) join forces and allow SIP calls to each other then Skype might be in trouble. But if each softphone client is its own "silo" only allowing calls to its internal list of users then Skype will be the leader for the foreseeable future. My advice - federate with other SIP softphones, use the SIP standard and then watch the softphone market explode!]]>