I’ve recently been reflecting upon my history as an Asterisk user and the evolution of my preference for embedded systems (aka appliance) approach to Asterisk servers.
The path that I’ve followed is probably typical of a lot of people in many ways. Perhaps by sharing my experience I can help some people avoid some of the problems that I have faced, and understand how I arrived at my personal definition of an “Asterisk Appliance.”
Junction Network's OnSIP service was just announced the winner of a 2010 Stevie Award for their My.OnSIP user portal. They won in the category of new telecom product or service from a company with less than 100 staff. Congratulations to…
Earlier today Skype announced the pending launch of a beta program for an SDK called SkypeKit. SkypeKit is intended to allow hardware developers to embed Skype client functionality into their devices.
SkypeKit seems to be a logical next step after having recently partnered with LG, Samsung and Panasonic to build embedded Skype clients for their newest HDTVs. I mentioned this previously.
There’s a bunch of coverage of the SkypeKit launch available at various places online. Engadget has their say and some nice pics of the Grandstream GXV-3140 Media Phone running Skype. Also a Litl webbook that looks like it’s running Skype with video.
The team over at Junction Networks have just posed a nice review of Bria iPhone Edition. Todd Carothers, VP of Product Management at Counterpath will be on part 2 of Friday's VUC call to discuss this new product offering. Since…
Today saw the official launch of Counterpath’s newest soft phone offering; Bria iPhone Edition. Following not long after the announcement of Bria 3.0 for Linux, Bria iPhone Edition extends their platform support to include all the major desktop operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) and now one of the hottest smart phone & tablet platforms, Apple’s iOS.
While initially a consumer phenomenon, there’s little doubt that the iPhone is gaining ground in enterprise settings. That an enterprise can look to a single vendor for a soft phone solution across it’s entire scope of activities is profoundly attractive. It simplifies roll-out, and ensures a consistent end-user experience.
Last week’s VUC call with FWDs Dan Behringer brings to mind a common complaint about SIP desk phones, namely the lack of an alphanumeric keyboard. Lacking a proper keyboard it’s difficult to really push the idea of SIP URIs as a primary means of making calls.
There are a variety of approaches to overcoming this, including the use of ISNs as prescribed by the Freenum project. That project proposes a means of dialing SIP URIs indirectly, assigning them ISN numbers. Since ISNs use only numbers and the * key they can be dialed on a traditional phone keypad. It’s essentially a way of avoiding SIP URIs through indirection.