This morning they’ve done it again, announcing a relationship with Michael Robertson’s Gizmo5. In essence, Gizmo5 will do the same deal with JAJAH as Yahoo! did. JAJAH gets millions of new customers, and Gizmo5 gets a reliable and more cost effective infrastructure. It might tempt me to try Gizmo5 again.
Said Gizmo5 President Jason Droege, ““The JAJAH platform was chosen because of the simplicity of implementation, reliability and the ability to expand our software globally. With Gizmo5 leveraging the JAJAH platform, we have the ability to break into the huge untapped market for VoIP. Because this partnership brings together simple telephony, innovation and quality for the masses, we aim to reach the ninety percent of Internet users who don’t currently use VoIP.”
JAJAH has been successful at scooping up some of the smaller players with their JAJAH managed services platform. Does anyone want to take bets on whether they can land one of the big fish? How about Skype?
It’s been crazy at the iotum offices the last couple of days. Having shipped Calliflower, we’re now dealing with the next wave of press and customer interest, plus the inevitable small bug fixes. All good stuff!
Last night I asked Jim Courtney if he would stand in for me on SquawkBox today, and he kindly did, picking Nokia’s establishment of the Symbian Foundation as a topic, and also talking about the delays on Google Android. I haven’t listened to the whole call yet myself, but certainly the participants were enthusiastic.
On the call: Jim Courtney, Dameon Welch-Abernathy, Jeannette Fisher, Bill Volk, Jeb Brilliant, Dan York, and Brad Jones.
The tables were turned this morning, as Adam Somer interviewed Howard and I. Some time ago, Adam offered his services as an interviewer if we ever decided that we wanted to be on the SquawkBox. We took him up on it today, the day of the launch of Calliflower, iotum’s fresh new approach to business conference calling.
You can listen to the podcast to find out what was said. There were a lot of good questions about iotum, the service we’re offering and our market strategies. And if that’s not enough you can find more details in the press kit we’ve put online as well!
Rather than recap the call, however, I’d like to pay tribute to the teams that helped to get us here – the team at Toronto’s Idea Couture who helped us with the design and naming of Calliflower, the always incredible team at Andy Abramson’s Comunicano in San Diego who stick handled our launch PR, DevShop’s Craig Fitzpatrick who stepped in to provide some backup on site development when the job was obviously larger than we could handle, our own amazing development team who pulled an all-nighter yesterday to put the finishing touches on the application so we could launch today, our Chairman Randall Howard who was a constant fount of guidance, wisdom and clarity as we sought to launch Calliflower on a punishing schedule, and my business partner Howard Thaw who has been a constant friend and mentor throughout the life of our company.
Without the incredible efforts of these folks, Calliflower wouldn’t have happened.
I want to make one other observation. Since our inception we’ve been known as a company with great technology and technical vision. As we built our conference calling service, users began to tell us how much they liked what we had built, to suggest new ways for that technology to be used and to ask for new features. That’s how we ended up being the conferencing service behind Steve Gillmor’s very popular NewsGang Live show, for instance. Calliflower is the realization of those needs and desires. As such, it represents a maturing of our company too. The popularity of Calliflower, and the enthusiasm users have for it make it a vehicle that allows us, as a company, to focus on great market execution as well as technology.
With us on the call this morning: Adam Somer, Jim Courtney, Dameon Welch-Abernathy, Martyn Davies, Dan York, Frank Abrams, Brad Jones, Dave Brown, Randall Howard, Howard Thaw, Jeanette Fisher, Julien Raynal, Bill Volk, Jeb Brilliant, Ian Hood, James Body, and Hudson Barton.
This morning Sightspeed announced a major upgrade to their Sightspeed for Business client. The most spectacular feature? 9 Way video conferencing on a PC. We had COO Scott Lomond here to discuss it with us. Perhaps the most interesting part of the discussion was around how Sightspeed has evolved — from a consumer to a business application — and how it would evolve in the future.
In the video conferencing market, which has spent a good deal of the past few years trending down, Sightspeed continues to grow and show how video is becoming a more and more relevant consumers and businesses.
For the last few weeks I’ve been trialling a Nokia N82, courtesy of the Nokia Bloggers program. The N82 is a candy-bar cousin to the runaway success N95, available only in Europe. It runs basically the same Series 60 software as the N95, and performs very similarly. The big difference is in the camera. The N82 sports a xenon flash – a first for Nokia. This allows it to perform much better in low light situations. In addition to the xenon flash, Nokia has also resurrected the lens cover for the camera. To save space on the N95-3 and N95-8G, the lens cover was sacrificed – a mistake which Nokia corrected with the N82.
Other differences:
The N82 has a 1050 milliamp battery versus the 1300 milliamp monster on the N95-3. With just 80% of the battery of the N95, I found that the N82 tended to run out of power before my day was over. Not so with the N95.
The N82 is available with only 2100 Mhz European 3G. Having become used to 3G on the N95-3, it was tough to go back to just EDGE which is all the phone supports here in North America.
The screen on the N95 is larger and brighter than the N82, making it a better choice for viewing photos or media.
While many people like the candy bar form factor, I prefer the slider. The N82 keys are quite small, which I found difficult at times. In addition, I found the unlock step painful at two key strokes compared to the smooth slide of the N95.
Pricewise, you might expect the N82 to be significantly cheaper than the N95. It is cheaper, but not by much. eBay sellers sell the N82 for about $460, and the N95-3 for about $560.
My recommendation: if you’re making a choice between the N95 and the N82, think long and hard about whether you really need that xenon flash. The N82’s compromised battery life, smaller screen, and the usability issues introduced by the small key size are real and may not make up for the benefits of cost savings and the xenon flash when compared to the N95. I certainly wouldn’t recommend buying the N82 for use on North American networks, at all.
In addition to the N82, I’ve also been trying out the BH-903 stereo bluetooth headset. The big complaint most people have about bluetooth stereo is the weight of the headphones. Bluetooth isn’t power efficient. To get extended talk-time requires a larger and heavier battery, hence the weightiness of bluetooth stereo headsets. The BH-903’s novel design takes care of that by suspending the battery and controls for the media player in a dongle that hangs from the wearer’s neck, supported by a comfortable neck strap. It’s not elegant looking, but it is functional and delivers 15 hours of talk time. You may want to tuck it into a shirt pocket.
In use, the BH-903 delivers good quality audio for ear buds. In addition, having sound in both ears when talking on the telephone makes for a much more natural and easily understood conversation. The BH-903 is also a very easy way to control the media player on the telephone. The controls on the dongle are easily accessed, even when driving, which allows you to quickly skip a track, or pause. The microphone, which hangs from the right earbud cord, also doubles as a switch allowing you to easily answer a call by simply squeezing the microphone.
The BH-903 uses the A2DP bluetooth profile, which meant that I was also able to use it with my Blackberry Curve. It did not work with iPhone, however, as Apple does not support the A2DP profile.
Available online for about $200, the BH-903 is certainly pricier than other stereo bluetooth headsets. Its novel multi-function design, however, makes it a better choice when used with Nokia handsets.
My recommendation: a solid, albeit somewhat pricey, choice when used with Nokia handsets. Select a less expensive alternative, or a wired stereo headset, for other manufacturers handsets.
