iPhone skins get Apple's shorts in a bind...

Seems as though Apple is already afraid that its new phone is 6 months out...

From the Sydney Morning Herald

Apple iPhone

Guess it is time to weigh in on the iPhone since everybody else is.

I think Apple could stick almost anything into a nice white case and it's fans (lemmings) would buy it. At $400 to $500 plus a 2 year contract I think I'd start crying when I got the first scratch on that nice shiny screen.

I think it is cool that OSx will be on the device but how much will that really open up the device? The wireless carriers have been holding back the phone vendors for quite some time with the Wifi stuff. It is certainly good to see that trend disappearing.

6 months from now will be the true test... that's a long time in technology land. I'm sure Motorola & Nokia will be up for the fight.

In the end the iPhone will help the consumer win... more apps, more open... whether it's the iPhone or not.

New phones from Aastra on the way

Aastra is set to release some new phone models. The 55i, 57i and 57i CT will be available in the near term.

The 55i features a decent size LCD display with a small 6 button paper template at the top.
The 57i has a large LCD for desi-less operation. There is an optional 20 button side-car for the phone (up to 3 can be used) which has the same large LCD on it. Additionally there will be a 57i CT with a cordless handset (a la 480i CT). The handset looks identical to the handset that comes with the 480i CT.

The 480i and 480i CT are expected to be kept on and possibly renamed. Pricing is not available at the moment.

What's going on with Microsoft / Nortel / Mitel

Allright, things are getting a little crazy in VoIP world.

Microsoft's new Exchange 2007 server can be a Unified Messaging Server / Media Server, Live Communications Server (soon to be Office Communications Server) is an Instant Messaging / Presence and SIP proxy and both Nortel and Mitel are claiming to be the 'chosen' ones working with Microsoft.

Nortel outlines roadmap for Microsoft partnership

Microsoft Technology Centers Showcase Unified Communications with Mitel Solution

I think both vendors see the writing on the wall... With 60% of the enterprise mail server market, Exchange is a force to be reconed with. Let's face it, a large portion of that will upgrade to Exchange 2007 at some point. Why, if I have Exchange and have already purchased Exchange CALs and it will work as my VM server, should I go and spend big $ on a different UM solution and fight the integration battle.

MS Outlook owns an even higher percentage as the e-mail client of choice.

Microsoft is trying to position Office Communications Server (LCS follow-on) and the Office Communicator in the same mold. Office Communicator may become the softphone of choice as Outlook is the e-mail client of choice.

It is a pretty easy bet that MS will continue to own the desktop software market. The traditional phone vendor world has also done a terrible job with their desktop integrations. I don't think there will be a question as to whether MS can rule the desktop softphone market and thus drive their server software LCS sales.

I think the question will really be, how long will Microsoft need to keep those relationships around... if they are really even "real" relationships to begin with or just old school vendors trying to hang on to those licensing dollars.

Pingtel Announces Amazon.com installing sipXchange ECS

Pingtel has annouced that Amazon.com will be running their communications through Pingtel's Open Source sipXchange Enterprise Communications System (ECS).

The deployed system is a High Availability implementation utilizing 2 registration / authentication proxy servers with a separate media server for voicemail and auto attendant.

http://www.pingtel.com/page.php?id=70&view=122

Windows Mobile 5.0® SIP-Based Dual-Mode Phone: hipi-2200™

Paragon Wireless introduces the world’s first SIP-based Windows Mobile 5.0® dual-mode handset—the hipi-2200. The hipi-2200 is the next generation in integrated dual mode handsets. Utilizing the proven VoWLAN / GSM dual-mode voice technology, the hipi-2200 adds the Windows Mobile 5.0® operating system to further expand the usability and functionality of this extremely versatile handset. With the built in 2.0M pixel camera, the MP3/MP4 player and the camcorder/recorder on a Windows Mobile® platform, users can access the Internet, listen to music and take and review pictures all from one easily carried handset, that also serves as their mobile phone. The 1100mAh Li-ion battery offers users up to 4 hours of talk time, or 100 hours of standby time, making the hipi-2200 the only handset they need to carry.

Here's a link: http://www.parawireless.com/hipi-2200.htm

New Polycom 650 phones

Saw and played with these at VON. Sound quality is awesome!

Here's some of the marketing stuff...

Revolutionary Voice Quality The SoundPoint IP 650 is the first IP phone to use Polycom’s revolutionary HD Voice technology that delivers voice communications of life-like richness and clarity.

Advanced Features and Applications The phone’s SIP 2.0 software fully supports Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 for telephony and presence, and integrates with Microsoft Office Communicator instant messenger client. The SoundPoint IP 650 features a USB port for future applications.

Enhanced Call Handling Capabilities The SoundPoint IP 650 accommodates 6 lines in a standalone mode and up to 12 lines when equipped with SoundPoint IP Expansion Modules, as an attendant console. The phone supports shared call / bridged line appearances as well as busy lamp field (BLF) functionality that enables phone attendants to monitor and manage calls more efficiently.

Expandability When equipped with up to three SoundPoint IP Expansion Modules, the SoundPoint IP 650 delivers the advanced call handling capabilities and enhanced user interface of a high-performance attendant console. (note, haven't seen the updated expansion modules yet... I assume they will be backlit as the new phone is)

Intuitive User Interface The SoundPoint IP 650 delivers all of its capabilities through an intuitive user interface, featuring a high-quality backlit 320x160 graphical grayscale LCD display, an easy-to-navigate menu, and a combination of dedicated keys and context-sensitive soft keys for one-button access to essential telephony features.

Fonality Acquires trixbox

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - October 04, 2006 - Fonality, the leader in IP telephony systems for small and medium businesses and the world's largest commercial Asterisk based deployment, today announced it has acquired trixbox, the world's largest Asterisk based community. trixbox founder Andrew Gillis will join Fonality and continue to lead the trixbox community. Fonality will commit engineering resources and broad financial support to continue fostering innovation in the trixbox open source community.

See full press release here: http://www.fonality.com/press.html

Creator of Ethereal(R) Joines the WinPcap team; Wireshark is Born

Davis, CA (PRWEB) June 8, 2006 -- We are proud to announce that Gerald Combs, creator of Ethereal®, has joined CACE Technologies (http://www.cacetech.com/). He will be working with Loris Degioanni and Gianluca Varenni, the creators of the WinPcap packet capture library (http://www.winpcap.org/), forming a world-class team of network analysis experts. As his first venture in this new alliance, Gerald has created the Wireshark network protocol analyzer, a successor to Ethereal®.

Wireshark's home is http://www.wireshark.org/. Enhanced and improved, Wireshark is the ultimate tool of choice for network troubleshooting, protocol development, and education worldwide. The unique partnership of Wireshark and WinPcap brings a new synergy, power, and benefits to the open-source community and industry. The upcoming version of Wireshark will be 0.99.1. A pre-release version is available right now at www.wireshark.org.

"I am indebted to core development team of Ethereal® for joining me to work on Wireshark. With their help and contributions from the user community, we're set to continue our success in building the world's leading open-source network protocol analyzer. We have lots of new and exciting things planned for Wireshark! I'm also really excited about joining CACE. Loris and Gianluca are well respected in the community, and it will be great to work with them. As an added bonus, Davis is a great place for my wife and me to raise our daughter," said Gerald.

"We’re thrilled to welcome Gerald to CACE Technologies and expect to do great things together. The sky’s the limit," said Loris.

ABOUT CACE Technologies - CACE Technologies, http://www.cacetech.com/, is an innovative and dynamic company specialized in low-level networking solutions. We are experts in Windows and Linux device driver and network monitoring tools development.

CONTACT: John Bruno, CACE Technologies, john.bruno @ cacetech.com

Nerd Vittles Newbie's Guide to TrixBox 1.1 and freePBX

Today we'll show you how to install the latest and greatest TrixBox 1.1 with freePBX 2.1.1 in just over an hour. As with the earlier release of TrixBox, these new Asterisk products are designed to support the casual home or home office user's PBX needs as well as gigantic call centers processing millions of calls a month.

Everything is free except the hardware on which to run your new system. That can be almost any old Pentium PC or a multi-processor RAID box with mainframe horsepower. We also want to get TrixBox properly configured to support our next free application: TrixBox MailCall.
It'll let you retrieve and play back your email messages using any touchtone telephone and your TrixBox 1.1 system. And, yes, you'll need TrixBox 1.1 to make everything work.

To be fully nerded: http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=140