�400 years
ago Abbott Jean Nollett created the world�s digital network,� that�s how
Dave Hattey, VP & general manager for 3COM, Tehrani�s IP Killer Apps
session sponsor kicked off his presentation during the third exciting
day of the
Internet Telephony Conference and EXPO at the Millennium Biltmore
Hotel in Los Angeles. He followed his statement by explaining to the
audience how Nollett back then proved that electricity could indeed
travel, and �it revolutionized our world,� said Hattey, who has an
impressive record of a total of eleven patents under his belt!
He went on
to describe his vision of the future of our industry, and how VoIP
killer apps shape that future. He also believes that video conferencing
will become very big in the next few months. Hattey pointed out that in
the near future VoIP will play an important role in total convergence of
all communication networks. This convergence, he added �will allow
endusers to benefit from total call control integrated into all business
processes.� Hattey also showed the audience a real live demo during his
presentation.
�VoIP will
transform our world by adding rich presence which will let you manage
the access to yourself and how you access others,� he concluded.
TMC�s
president & conference chairman Rich Tehrani then introduced the
companies participating in the live demos. We saw XMediusFax�s Fax over
IP product demo, their technology enables users to send real faxes over
IP, in a way very similar to sending emails through Outlook. The company
reps showed the audience how you can even forward documents by email
just as you would do when attaching a document to an email message.
Next up, Keith Weiner from DiamondWare showed the audience two products: Palantir and Wi-Fone. The company gave us the sneak peek of Palantir while it was beta testing it at Internet Telephony Conference and EXPO back in February this year. The enterprise collaboration system offers an always-on 3D stereo multi-conferencing solution integrated with messaging and presence. The base version supports 60 voice + text users. The audience also got a chance to see Wi-Fone, a softphone application for PDAs designed to replace cellular with better quality and fair pricing. Wi-Fone enables voice calls on any standard PocketPC device. Wi-Fone users can make and receive phone calls to or from any PSTN number in the world, using any WLAN infrastructure such as Wi-Fi. Wi-Fone is based on SIP, so it can also connect with any SIP hardware phone, gateway, IP PBX, or service provider. Weiner placed a call using a cellular phone and then compared it to the sound quality of Wi-Phone—many of us concluded that their product voice quality was best.
Todd Landry
with Sphere demoed their impressive product interface showing a number
of active and inactive users. You can choose how you can route your
calls, how you want to be reached, how you want to handle your calls�now
we really saw what everyone means by presence.
Really cool
features Landry showed us included the ability to see a log of all your
missed calls on screen, and also a big brother-type of overview of all
of your employees or people on your directory, letting you see when they
are currently on the phone, in a meeting, and what capabilities they
have such as voice, video, conferencing etc. You can also see how much
time you spend on hold, and a window pops up bringing back video when
you leave hold. Users can also see all the conference bridges and
instantly join them too!
Following
Sphere�s demo came the Interaction client from Vonexus, it also lets
users benefit from accessing everyone on their list with a very clever
drag and drop directory.
Users can
right click and instantly connect via your selection of mode of
communication such as cell phone, IM, home phone, etc. With Vonexus� app
you can transfer calls to office phones, mobile phones and even home
phones. What I found extremely cool to watch was a demo of an actual
conference call being recorded, and even sent by email as a simple
attachment for those who could not attend.
I found
this session to be extremely informative, it was a great experience for
audience members to see these real killer apps being used live in front
of us. Kudos to the companies that had such confidence in their products
to demo them live!
Johanne Torres is a contributing editor for TMCnet.com and Internet Telephony magazine. Previously, she was
the assistant editor for EContent magazine in Connecticut. She
can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. |
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