Telephony

In with the old, in with the new

Devin L. Ganger — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:56:00 GMT

Devin loves living in the future and shows you how a VoIP PBX, Outlook, and an iPod make this so.

My take on the iPhone

Devin L. Ganger — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:48:00 GMT

iPod. Mac mini. MacBook Pro. OS X. These are Apple products that I have acquired in the last several years and that cause me much love, because for the most part, they just work. So what do I think about the iPhone?

Simple. I think it's going to be a boutique phone/media player for folks with money to burn and who want convergence between their phone, media players, and PDA. It's sleek and has a great-looking UI -- an Apple standard -- but the price tag keeps it from being a casual purchase.

I don't forsee it making inroads into the lucrative corporate messaging environment, though, because it doesn't offer any sort of synchronization support for the full Exchange experience. POP3 and IMAP don't cut it here. There's a reason RIM offers the BES option for BlackBerry devices, because individual cradle synch doesn't cut it. Businesses are demanding and using over-the-air sync with full support for all features of the messaging environment -- contacts, calendars, messaging, documents.

Now, I'm pretty certain the iPhone is going to hurt Windows Mobile in the consumer market...but its lack of support for Exchange or even Notes and Groupwise will keep it out of most enterprises.

BTW, note to Apple: I'd love to be proven wrong about this. You're more than welcome to send me a review unit, once they're available (FCC licensing is still pending according to the note at the bottom of Apple's website today), and I'll happily take it through its paces.

Software IP PBX for Windows

Devin L. Ganger — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:47:00 GMT

The other day I noticed an interesting ad in my latest issue of Windows IT Pro magazine: a free Windows IP PBX. It can work with a SIP-based VoIP service, or use a PSTN-to-VoIP gateway to interact with traditional phone lines. These gateways are usually relatively inexpensive; the PBX is the most expensive part of the bundle.

Naturally, I was immediately curious as to whether it would interoperate with Exchange 2007.

I've got the software and manual downloaded, and I'm in the process of sending off a query to 3CX to find out more details. I'll let you know what I find.