Ixia kicked off its "Switch to Ixia campain" by offering trade-in equipment and competitive financing solutions.
(Credit: Ixia)Ixia, a leading company in IP performance testing, announced a competitive upgrade program today as part of its "Switch to Ixia" campaign.
The program will last through the end of September 2008. During this time, new and existing customers from all over the world can trade equipment from Ixia's competitors, including Spirent, Agilent, and Shenick, in for Ixia's latest test equipment and applications. Or they can earn up to a 50 percent credit toward a new purchase.
Ixia also offers IxFinancing Leasing, a special financing solution that allows you to pay for Ixia products, software, and services over time with no down-payment. You'll make small monthly payments, and a $1 end-of-lease buy-out.
Ixia has been known for many IP-based network testing solutions, from Aptixia IxLoad, which can generate layer 4-7 traffic for content-aware device assessment, to ixChariot, which CNET uses to test wireless routers.
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Fring)
After so many announcements for this or that application's Facebook appearance, it's nice to see Facebook play a supporting role in kind.
On Tuesday, Fring, a VoIP and IM application for a range of mobile phones, added the ability to fold Facebook into the communicator, through a new Settings menu option called fringAdd-ons. Gmail Notifier, Orkut, vTap videos, and Yandex.mail are also in there, together representing the first extensions created by third-party developers using Fring's application programming interface.
Exactly how many add-ons join this handful will depend on Fring's popularity with casual developers. Fring is not the only mobile software company opening its API to programmers. In fact, crowd-sourcing software authors is now seen as integral to a mobile software publisher's strategy and success. iPhone is the biggest honcho to have more recently welcomed developers, and the success of Google Android as a mobile platform is tied to the mostly independent developers fighting to win big money for their grand ideas and edgy implementations.
So far, connector programs like the Facebook add-on are a good start. Relatively easy to make, programs like these help Fring close in on bragging rights for being the most far-reaching social networking hub out of all the multinetwork text and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) communicators without putting forth additional development dollars.
FringAdd-ons are currently available for the latest versions of Nokia Symbian 9, Sony Ericsson UIQ, and Windows Mobile.
Internet calling provider Skype said Tuesday that it has hired Scott Durchslag, a former Motorola executive, to become its chief operating officer.
Durchslag spent more than five years at Motorola where he was most recently corporate vice president of global product and experience invention for the mobile devices business unit. Skype said that while in that position Durchslag "led product strategy, innovation, intellectual property, design, user interfaces, consumer experiences, partnerships, product marketing, and customer care."
The fact that Durchslag was in charge of "strategy" and "innovation" for Motorola's device business at a time when the company lost significant market share to competitors, because it lacked innovative and compelling handsets, isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. Motorola's poor handset performance led to the ouster of former CEO Ed Zander and a planned spinoff of the mobile device unit.
That said, Durchslag had some significant successes at Motorola. He helped strike deals with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Kodak to bring new services to Motorola's mobile devices. And in a previous role at the company, he was in charge of Motorola's South Asia region where he was able to build a business with the highest margins for Motorola, according to the Skype press release.
When he joined Motorola in 2002 as chief strategy officer of the Personal Communications Sector, he helped develop the turnaround strategy that doubled market share and revenue for that part of the business between 2002 and 2007, Skype also said in a statement.
Josh Silverman, who was named Skype's president in March and will be Durchslag's new boss, is confident that his new charge will help Skype innovate and bring new services to market.
"Scott has an outstanding track record and will be able to help us apply best practices in staying ever more customer-focused and nimble, even while becoming larger," he said in a statement.
Skype provides free and low-cost voice, video calling, and instant-messaging services over the Internet. The company was acquired by eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion. And even though it is by far the most successful voice over IP services company in terms of users with 309 million registered users worldwide, it hasn't been a financial success for eBay. In fact, last year, eBay took a $900 million so-called impairment write-down against the value of Skype. In essence, the company admitted to shareholders that it has taken a loss on its original investment.
Still, eBay is determined to make something of its investment. Mobile is likely the next frontier for Skype. And Durchslag's experience could help the company come up with a viable strategy. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
T-Mobile USA plans to announce Wednesday that its new @Home voice service will be available nationwide starting July 2.
The cell phone operator has been testing the new Internet telephony service since February in Dallas and Seattle. And now the new service, which is meant to replace traditional home phones, will be offered to any T-Mobile cell phone customer.
Subscribers will be able to connect any regular home telephone to a T-Mobile router that will send calls over the Internet much the same way as services like Vonage operate. The service costs $10 a month plus taxes and fees for unlimited domestic local and long-distance calls.
Only T-Mobile wireless customers who subscribe to at least a $39.99 individual calling plan or families subscribing to at least the $49.99 monthly T-Mobile calling plan can get the service. The @Home service also requires that users subscribe to a separate broadband service from a cable operator or telecom provider. And they are required to use a special T-Mobile router, which also provides Wi-Fi Internet access throughout the home.
This router can also be used to provide T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home phone service. This service, launched last year, allows T-Mobile subscribers to use dual-mode cellular and Wi-Fi phones that switch between both networks. When subscribers are near their home Wi-Fi hot spot, they use the broadband network to make unlimited domestic calls. And when they are outside the home, the phone seamlessly switches to T-Mobile's cellular network.
The service, which also costs $10 extra per month, serves two purposes. It helps provide better in-home cell phone coverage and also helps reduce the number of minutes used on the T-Mobile cellular network.
Britt Wehrman, director of product development for T-Mobile says the service, which launched a little over a year ago, has been a big success. The company hasn't disclosed subscriber numbers for the service, but Wehrman said that 45 percent of the hot-spot customers are leaving competitors to get the T-Mobile service. T-Mobile currently has eight dual-mode handsets that work with the service, two of which were announced earlier this week. And it has four more to announce by the end of the year, bringing the total to 12 dual-mode handsets.
The @Home VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service is meant to work with the hot-spot phone service, Wehrman said. When the hot-spot service was first introduced, the company found that families were interested in the plan. But they weren't willing to cut the cord on their home phones.
"The hot-spot service offers parents a good way to limit overage charges, because the kids can talk on their cell phones while they're at home without eating up minutes," he said. "But we found that many families didn't want to get rid of their traditional phones. They still wanted one phone in the house for the whole family."
So the @Home VoIP service was created to give families who don't want to get rid of their traditional landlines a low-cost option for retaining that line while still using the hot-spot service. To ensure that E911 service works with the VoIP service, T-Mobile is requiring all users to register their home address before service can be activated.
But because it is an Internet-based phone service that is dependent upon a broadband modem for connectivity, families will still have to consider the risks of power outages and Internet interruptions that will make the VoIP service and E911 unavailable during those outages. But Wehrman said that the fact that T-Mobile requires that subscribers of the @Home service also have a T-Mobile cell phone subscription limits the safety concerns.
It's been a while since a major Skype release, and on Wednesday, the eBay-owned VoIP communication service will issue the first of several planned version 4.0 beta builds for Windows that are anticipated to drop over the next few months.
The biggest changes to come with Skype 4.0 beta (download) are visual and organizational. For the first time, the program contains complete prompts for running sound and Webcam checks within the program set-up. After two failed tests buffered by common troubleshooting suggestions, Skype will recommend hardware--like headsets and a Webcam--to reverse incompatibility errors.
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Skype)
Redesigned interface
Skype 4.0 beta's redesigned interface may also get you blinking. Compared with its stable cousin, the new Skype beta's GUI has overflowed its banks, replacing tabs in the once-narrow interface with a second pane tacked on to the right. Four or five functions are flattened into this single window in an effort to make communications other than the voice chat staple easier to find and use. To wit, there's an IM bar deposited at the bottom of the communications pane and large buttons that prompt voice and video calls. Video calls are large by default, filling the program's communication activity pane.
Skype Out, the service offering competitive international rates for Skype users calling contacts' landlines instead of their computers, has also been chiseled out, by a large call-to-action button on the navigation bar. The button just below it opens a directory for finding people, businesses, and chat rooms. The toggle bar tucked away at the top switches from saved chat conversations to the contacts view, and rounds out the new additions.
Some functionality, like Skype Prime, will arrive in later builds.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Still more to come
Though there may be a placeholder for it, not every function in this first beta is live. The shop for Skype-approved hardware, while available from Skype.com, will not be activated in this iteration, nor will be the service on real-time advice, called Skype Prime. Automatic redial, call transferring, video presentations, and integration with Outlook contacts are also scheduled for roll-out in later builds.
The spread-out interface of Skype 4.0 beta for Windows will definitely take some getting used to, especially as it abandons the client's traditionally nimble, IM-styled build. However, it does succeed in calling out a wider array of communication services. This may give the Luxembourg-headquartered company a chance to deemphasize VoIP as its core competency and mark out new territory in Internet video, collaboration tools, and entertainment services.
As ambitious as Skype's new look and capabilities are, Mike Bartlett, the program's Windows product manager, confessed during our briefing that this design and the newly introduced features will be closely monitored for user backlash. It's likely that strong feedback from Skype's 309 million registered users will leave an impression on Skype 4.0 beta continues to take shape in the upcoming months.
When we reviewed the Sony PSP Headset a few months ago, we determined that it worked perfectly fine with the console's newly enabled Skype feature--so long as you scrounged up the accessory extension cable needed to enable the two-way communication function. The problem was that the headset didn't include the cable: you needed to buy another set of Sony headphones--the PSP earbuds--just to get the included cable. It was one of those corporate catch 22s that seems to be par for the course in the world of consumer electronics.
Thankfully, Sony has finally addressed the issue. The Sony Skype Headset Kit for PSP bundles the headset and the remote extension cable into one package, all for a tidy $30. Another advantage: the extension cable is now black instead of white, so it matches both the headset and the color scheme of most PSPs. It's available now at a variety of online retailers, including Amazon and Buy.com. For Skype users who are always toting their PSPs through Wi-Fi-friendly environs, it's a pretty good deal. Just remember that the headset--and the Skype functionality--only work on newer PSP 2000 ("slim PSP") models, not the original PSP units.
T-Mobile USA said Thursday it's testing a new Internet telephony service in Dallas and Seattle that will replace consumers' wireline home phone service.
Subscribers will be able to connect any regular home telephone to a T-Mobile router that will send calls over the Internet much the same way as services like Vonage operate. The service costs $10 a month plus taxes and fees for unlimited domestic local and long distance calls. But customers also have to be signed up for a T-Mobile wireless service costing at least $39.99 a month. The required router, which also provides access to the Internet, costs $50 after rebates. T-Mobile said existing phone numbers can be ported over to its service.
The company had been rumored to be working on a voice over IP wireless router since this summer when it was discovered that the company had filed plans for the device with the Federal Communications Commission.
T-Mobile, which is the fourth largest cell phone operator in the U.S., is upping the ante as it competes against, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 and No. 2 cell phone operators in the U.S. Aside from having more customers and larger network footprints than T-Mobile, these two operators also offer regular landline phone service to consumers. T-Mobile, which is owned by the German operator Deutsche Telekom, does not own landline infrastructure in the U.S. This makes it difficult for T-Mobile to compete against these players when it comes to bundling services and enticing customers to drop their existing phone service for service with T-Mobile.
But the new Talk Forever Home Phone service along with another T-Mobile service called HotSpot AtHome, which was launched last year and enables T-Mobile subscribers to use their home Wi-Fi network to talk on their wireless phones, are designed to entice consumers to abandon their traditional telephone service for T-Mobile's service.
Both of these services fit into T-Mobile USA's bigger strategy, which is to expand its network footprint and add capacity to attract more customers. This year the company is expected to upgrade its network and roll out new services using spectrum it acquired in the Advanced Wireless Services spectrum auction run by the Federal Communications Commission in the summer of 2006.
Earlier this week, T-Mobile also announced that it would offer an unlimited voice, data and text-messaging cell phone service for $99.99 a month. This announcement came after competitor Verizon Wireless announced a similar plan. AT&T also announced it would offer unlimited voice and data for the same price.
We're used to patent trolls being shifty little bozo operations like Acacia Research that serve no useful purpose beyond proving that some life forms never evolve. Sometimes, however, patent trolls come in larger sizes and have otherwise legitimate businesses. Such is the case today with Trend Micro's apparently specious lawsuit against Barracuda Networks and, indeed, the entire open-source community.
As Justin Mason, vice president of the Apache Software Foundation, notes:
Trend Micro's actions are clearly an attack on free and open-source software and its users, as well as on Barracuda Networks. The '600 patent covers a trivial method, one which was obvious to anyone skilled in the art at the time (the patent was written), and should be rendered invalid as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, our patent system only makes sense on paper. Once it hits the courts, all bets are off. This is why repudiating silly claims like Trend Micro's is so important, and why a collective response is critical.
Here's what happened in a nutshell:
... Read moreSprint Nextel and Verizon Communications both see an opportunity to make a buck on their IP telephony patents after successfully suing Vonage Holdings last year.
On Thursday, Sprint Nextel said in a U.S. District Court in Wichita, Kan., that it was suing four small phone companies. Sprint alleges that Nuvox Communication, BroadVOX Holdings, Big River Telephone, and Paetec Communications are infringing on six of its patents.
Those patents, part of a larger portfolio of patents that cover voice over IP technology owned by Sprint, are the same ones used to successfully sue Vonage. The two companies eventually settled the dispute last year. And Vonage agreed to pay Sprint a total of $80 million, which includes $35 million for past use of the license, $40 million for a fully paid future license, and $5 million in prepayment for services.
Verizon Communications, which won a $120 million settlement from Vonage last year, is also asserting its patent claims. Earlier this month the company filed a suit in the Eastern District Court of Virginia against cable operator Cox Communications for infringing on eight patents that had to do with voice over IP technology. Two of the patents in the Cox case are the same ones Verizon successfully sued Vonage for infringing.
Since Sprint and Verizon have already successfully asserted these patents, it certainly strengthens their new cases. And it's very likely the companies will either win in court or be able to pressure these companies and any other VoIP providers into licensing deals.
This is very good news for Sprint, which would benefit greatly from turning its existing patent portfolio into a cash cow. The beleaguered cell phone carrier has been bleeding customers and is in desperate need of new revenue growth to boost earnings.
Dell has entered a partnership to take to Fonality's affordable VoIP phone systems to small and midsize businesses.
This is big news for the VoIP world--and for the open-source Asterisk project underlying Fonality.
Dell will be selling the Fonality VoIP Phone System through its global SMB sales organization, as well as its channel.
Needless to say, the opportunity is huge. According to a Dell'Oro Group group analyst quoted in The Wall Street Journal (PDF), 35 million small businesses worldwide are expected to adopt VoIP calling over the next three years.
Fonality brings to the table a product designed to be easy to use and directly installable. Dell brings its market reach and brand. It's a good deal for Dell. It could be the making of Fonality.
Look at the math.
... Read more
