Om Malik interrupted his New Years Day convalescense to take a poke at some of the stories hyping Gizmo Project on Nokia handsets — the N80i and the 770 specifically. He says that two handsets do not a trend make. I’d take it one step further and ask the obvious: is it really fair to refer to the software which Robertson’s team has put on the N80i as “Gizmo Project”? It’s very cool to be able to make WiFi SIP calls from the N80i, but the software:
- Doesn’t give easy access to my Gizmo buddy list.
- Doesn’t make it easy to create a conference call.
- Doesn’t include the fun sound effects that Gizmo has.
- Doesn’t record calls…
And so on…
Without detracting from what has been accomplished, which is considerable, this smells more like an early stage plumbing exercise than the actual bona-fide Gizmo Project running on a Nokia handset. Ain’t branding wonderful?
2007-01-02 8:01 am | 3 Comments »
Tags: Tech & Business
In Microsoft’s tryst with VoIP, Pushpa Sathish describes a preview of Microsoft’s new Communications Server.Â
Capabilities in the private beta of Office Communications Server 2007 include placing and receiving voice calls; advanced call routing; streamlined integration with the new unified messaging capabilities in Exchange Server 2007; multiparty conferencing; call holding, forwarding and transferring; and compliance capabilities.
Sounds a helluva lot like a PBX, doesn’t it? In 2003 I had several conversations with local people in or associated with the PBX industry here in Ottawa. With the direction of LCS at the time, and the trend toward all software PBX’s in evidence, it was clearly just a matter of time before Microsoft showed its hand. Interestingly, nobody would acknowledge this.
How long until the Nortels and Mitels of the world are reduced to handset manufacturers?
| 1 Comment »
Tags: Tech & Business, Mitel, Nortel, Office Communications Server, PBX, VoIP
