VoIP Watch

Om Gets Some Yahoo Love

So Om got to go to the Yahoo soriee down in Half Moon Bay, that I was also invited to, but was on the wrong coast to join up with future Yahoo Sr. VP Brad Garlinghouse and a bunch of Yahoo folks.

One of the things Om confirmed is that Geoff Ralston left Yahoo, which now should explain why I said last night "I don't know exactly who Brad reports to these days." :-) Sometimes secrets need to be kept, even by bloggers.

BTW, I can't wait for that Mac client.......can I have it soon please :-)

Vonage Goes Inside Your House, Not Just Your Wallet

SkiBare tipped me off to the new Vonage approach to in home installation.

Can you say "cable guy" as in Jim Carey!!!

I wonder who they expect to be their Vonage professionals..Will they be GE? ITT? ex XEROX or ex Telco guys.

Gee is wire line maintanence next?

From the Lose Lips Sink Ships Department of Packet 8

A loyal field goal club member forwarded me their latest experience at VoIP Stalag 13, Packet 8 after reading my previous post about them.

I called tech support today.  Asked when the new features are coming out.  They said, "some time within the next month.  we are having server problems."  EVERY single time they try and load new software in, the system blows up.  No different this time.  Guess a lot of people are calling in with voice-mail problems etc.  WTF is the problem?  Why is it so difficult to load new software in and have it work??

Great question..I wonder if Packet 8 has an answer. Their rep at the Internet Telephony conference would only say I should expect to see an announcement in a few days from their usual spokesperson.

OpenZoep Is Here

Client VoIPSter is causing a bit of a stir with their open source approach to VoIP. They announced OpenZoep and their Firefox Browser plug in that turns the popular browser into a softphone. Bruce Stewart has the details.

iotum is Simply Relevant At ETel Today

Client iotum and their co-founder Alec Saunders seem to have hit stride at the ETel conference already.  Bruce Stewart of Emerging Telephony, a new online VoIP news site, was suitably impressed.

You can read Bruce's thoughts here.

Packet 8's New Stuff

Reports are there are some new features coming from Packet8 soon. What they are are yet to be known, and I figure with their earnings call due in a few days that it will happen after that.

There's also the new P8 softphone, which is due soon too.

Yahoo Messenger for Mac

I heard through the grapevine that the in production version of Yahoo Messenger, that is being rewritten from the ground up, for the Macintosh will include Video.

I'm also hearing that the USA launch of VOIP with Y! Messenger is likely within the next month or so, and certainly before VON in March. It seems Yahoo has internal promotional programs that new product releases need to fall into.

Expect to see Beta of the new version just before the actual offering goes live here in the USA. Folks in Canada can get it now though and in a few other countries around the world.

Skype: Botnet's Best Friend?

A Cambridge University professor feels Skype could be the best friend of the BotNets and that's not good. It's the same kind of fear that used to run through companies IT departments about IM back in the 90s.

Seems history always repeats, but with more online users now than ever, and more broadband out there, the threat is mutiplied with how fast the dangerous BOTS could roam and cause damage.

xConnect Making Moves

Check out the peering going on with xConnect. This is much like what Cable Labs is seeking to accomplish here in the USA to keep calls always on-net.

VoIP Peering

Internet Telephony editor isn't dreaming. My sources tell me that xConnect has a series of announcements coming out on Wednesday.