VoIPWatch

Nokia To Start Cell Phone Service In Japan

Client Nokia is going to start their own cell phone service in Japan as an MVNO, largely to position and market their higher end phones reports Reuters.

Japan is known for being one of the most advanced mobile societies. I remember a Japanese businessman showing me how he uses his phone to gain access to his apartment, make purchases using an embedded (RFID?) chip and more a few years ago.

Japan is also one of the largest markets for wireless data and yes, VoIP, with Yahoo BB.

Virgin America Adds InFlight WiFi

At a press event yesterday Glenn Fleishman, aka Mr. WiFi NetNews, and others got to experience the new in flight WiFi available on Virgin America. Its pretty much the same thing that you're going to find on American Airlines and Delta, with one difference. Virgin and Google are offering video streaming with Google, and they're also less sensitive to porn according to Gizmodo.

CNET's Crave also provides coverage.

I've yet to experience the new flavor of WiFi in the Sky, but hopefully the airlines are more Mac friendly with power outlets. In the past on SAS the MacBook Pro drew too much power, and on Virgin Atlantic the didn't have power leads for the MacBook Air. Virgin America is reported to have in seat power on all their planes.

This is all made possible by GoGo, AirCell's name for in flight Internet connectivity that works using EVDO to the ground.

Pulver Goes Social

Jeff Pulver is without question one of the visionary type people who sees things far differently, and usually earlier than many. He was one of the first people to jump on the VoIP bandwagon before it was a big deal and was always the guy tinkering with technology long before others would even dream of trying it out. He's also never been shy about putting his own money up to fund a company or help bring an idea to life.

When Key3Media cratered Jeff dug into his pockets and bought back the assets of VON, restarted the community and brought life back. When his lenders saw fit to take the company away, Jeff didn't go out and cry, moan or grown. He simply moved on focusing on what he can do next.

Over the past year or so Jeff has taken the time to look into what he and others are passionate about, mainly Social Communications, a sector in search of a definition, because by nature all communications is to some degree social, even if it's personal or professional.

Now Jeff is launching what looks to be part "unconference" part structured gathering in New York next February. I think it's worth noting that Jeff isn't coming back with another VON. He's not going head to head with anyone, and instead is simply creating a forum that will likely evolve based on who takes part and joins in on the action.

As a friend of Jeff's he will always have my support. As someone involved in communications, be it public, personal, professional and interpersonal I feel Jeff is providing a valuable service to bring many things that are already among us together, all in one place.

Skype Adds Xobni Integration

According to my sources the first choice of which IM client for XOBNI to integrate with was Skype hands down as Skype was far and away the most used Instant Messaging platform that the XOBNI users are on. Unfortunately with no Mac version in sight, I can only drool over pal Jeff Bonforte's company's email add-on for Outlook.

Skype user usage of XOBNI was three times greater than AOL's IM, which speaks volumes as to how far the mighty AOL has fallen, so this launch tells me that come 2009 there will be far more integration and some slicker features coming as part of the plug in play from the two.

From what I also heard today at the Open Mobile Summit, the speculation is that Skype will be doing many new things in the first few months of the year as well beyond the Inbox.

The Softphone Market

Michael Graves has what he calls a rant on softphones. I call it a good recap on the state of the sector that is just begging for a winner.

While he omitted Gizmo5 from SipPhone, he sure gave CounterPath's EyeBeam the Texas style whoopin' they deserve. Despite starting out as the best and most useful client that works across the board, their sputtering development effort, that sometimes seems to border on stagnation, came through loud and clear in Graves' rant.

Given the proliferation of lightweight laptops, wireless connectivity via WiFi and 3G, the impending presence of WiMax, someone out there should be building the SIP based softphone that is as good or better than Skype is with their client which really works across all platforms very well.

Counterpath with Bria and EyeBeam is ideally suited to win the game, yet for various reasons they have failed with essential functionality like echo cancellation and background noise suppression when compared with Skype. That said, as critical as I am of them, I'm actually rooting for them to rise up and set the standard, but actually suspect it will be some other company that takes the prize.

Something New For GrandCentral Users

I was whipping through my TweetDeck Tweets last night when I came across a random note about a new app from Google's Code, a place where Google developers hang out and put out all kinds of things.

What caught my eye was something that seems so simple one has to wonder why it took this long to come out in support of former client GrandCentral. Basically, the IT is a plug in for the Mac and other address books in the form of a UI that lets you set up and bridge calls using GrandCentral between the destination number and the phone you're currently using, while presenting your GrandCentral number to the receiving party.

But it's more than just that. Dubbed Vocito, which means "call" in Latin, it's really a UI that has a bunch of hooks that other applications can weave in to make a system call to the GrandCentral code base and let you have the functional capabilities described above.

As a simple plug in on the Mac, I like it. As a powerful tool when placed in the hands of developers like pal Thomas Howe it becomes part of an arsenal that gives the GrandCentral user base something new that drives more usage.

Telstra Adds Video Conferencing To Enterprise Offerings

Video conferencing is being added by Telstra as part of their enterprise and government offerings, reports IT News.

This makes me think that Telstra has to also be taking a very close look at consumer grade video conferencing services (possibly ooVoo or SightSpeed) to roll out as well.

Ribbit's New Platform Launched

Ribbit has launched their new platform at Adobe Max today.

Mashable has the details.

My take: Open platforms are becoming more and more the new way of doing business. Open networks on the other hand don't yet exist really, other than the public internet. While carriers "speak" open, they really are not that "open." And for good reason. Security. Until the app and the data piece of the triangle can be secure, the network can't just let anyone or anything in.

Vapps Bought By Citrix is Number 15 for Me

My colleague, valley legend and master of the message, Bill Ryan, calls the what we do, "groom to flip" and the New York Times has the state of the industry pegged perfectly when they wrote up the recent VAPPS acquisition of by Citrix. Nowadays companies that are venture backed are no longer IPO candidates that often, so instead being acquired at a far lower multiple is the route out. That means the company has to be flipped, or it has to grow, because the starry eyed dreams of IPOs of the past is far from happening any time soon.

For me, and my team, this is personally rewarding. VAPPS is company number 15 in the last five years that we have had the good fortune to work with this decade that have been acquired. More importantly in the last 13 months Vapps represents the third conferencing and collaboration company that's been snapped up by a major player. First was Web Dialogs by IBM, then SightSpeed earlier this month by Logitech and now Vapps, makers of HighDef Conferencing. So much for my shop only being about VoIP.

All three acquired companies had similar attributes. A very solid core leadership team that understood the technology they had very well and what it takes to be market acceptable. All had investors who were patient, not overly invasive and most of all respectful of both what it takes and how long it takes to have a company groomed and manicured to be ready to be acquired. What's more each team had great technology at the core that was more than just a feature in search of a problem. They had a complete solution that solved the problem for the market and the acquiring company. From my perspective they complimented one another, so transferring what was learned when working with one company regarding the marketplace, the audience, the media, etc. was a very easy transition for my team and me. Lastly, they all provided the kind of services we use regularly in our day to day work. Nothing like first hand experience to tell the story better as others wiser than I have always suggested.

To our friends Ben and John at VAPPS, and their investors at Azure Capital Partners, a big pat on the back for a very healthy exit. It was less than a year ago when Ben asked us to represent the company and we could not have asked for a better client or a better product to talk about. Congratulations to you all.

Fierce VoIP has more insight on the acquisition.

WiFi on The Water In Washington via Boingo

Last week it was airports being added by Boingo. This week they've added ferries and ferry terminals in Washington State.

As PhoneBoy points out, the costs have been lowered and subscribers immediately gain access to the entire Boingo network around the globe.

The official announcement is here while the maven of all things WiFi, Glenn Fleishman weighs in on WiFi Net News, Jason Harris of Techcraver adds his thoughts, Seattle area's John Cook's Venture Blog dubbed TechFlash (complete with local users comments), as well as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Readers' Blogs

From a VoIP perspective grab an Apple iPhone or a Nokia N or E series device with WiFi, add in one part Boingo Mobile and another part Truphone or Gizmo Projects' Gizmo5 and start making phone calls.