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ClearOne Intros New Portable Speakerphone Optimized for Skype

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HD Conference Featured Article


August 10, 2009

ClearOne Intros New Portable Speakerphone Optimized for Skype

By Patrick Barnard, Senior Web Editor, TMCnet


Back in February of this year HD conferencing solutions provider ClearOne (News - Alert) introduced the CHAT 170 speakerphone – the first tabletop speakerphone optimized for Microsoft (News - Alert) Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft’s unified communications platform. A month later the company announced the release of the CHAT 70, a portable, hands-free speakerphone also designed for use with OCS 2007.


The idea was to develop a speakerphone that operates seamlessly with Microsoft OCS 2007 and delivers the highest quality audio. Clarity (News - Alert) is one of the most important aspects of audio conferencing: When executives and managers are conferencing with partners, customers, prospects and other employees they demand crystal clear sound quality, so that every word, every nuance of language, is audible, which in turn improves comprehension and retention. Thanks to the fact that ClearOne is Microsoft Gold Certified partner, it was able to work with Microsoft OCS 2007 engineers to design conferencing products that are fully optimized and thus deliver the very best sound quality.
 
Today the company continued with that approach with the introduction the CHAT 60, a new personal speakerphone specifically designed for use with Skype (News - Alert), the popular software application that lets users make free VoIP calls over the Internet.

The newest of ClearOne's award-winning personal conferencing speakerphones, the Skype-certified CHAT 60 easily connects to laptops or PCs via USB for natural, hands-free communication. Just like ClearOne’s other high definition audio conferencing systems, the CHAT 60 contains HDConference, ClearOne's suite of high-performance audio technologies that includes full duplex, echo cancellation, noise reduction and adaptive modeling, thus it delivers crystal-clear audio.

At the same time, the CHAT 60 is small enough to fit on a laptop case and take on the road.

"The CHAT 60 complements Skype usage and we are glad it is now available to our users, especially those SOHO and small and midsize businesses that use Skype in the workplace," said Manrique Brenes, Skype's director of business development and product management for consumer electronics, in a release. "Skype continues to grow in popularity and our users will be glad to learn that they can use the CHAT 60 for hands-free calls. The combination of Skype and the CHAT 60 will enable Skype users around the world to communicate more effectively."

"We are very pleased to announce that the CHAT 60 has received certification from Skype," added Tracy Bathurst, CTO at ClearOne. "Skype's certification process included rigorous testing of the CHAT 60 to ensure it performed to a set of exacting standards. Skype users now have a portable and personal hands-free collaboration tool that delivers a more natural, crystal clear audio experience, without being tethered to the computer via a headset."

The CHAT 60 is now available at the Skype Shop.

The big question here is: Despite the allure of conducting multi-party VoIP conference calls for free, will companies allow their employees to use Skype, due to security concerns? There have also been concerns in the past about quality of service -- as calls are sent across the Internet on a “best efforts” basis, sound quality problems can present themselves, depending on which service provider networks are involved, so this could detract from the excellent signal processing technology that ClearOne incorporates in its products. Fortunately Skype has greatly improved the quality of its service and related service provider issues with its new, next generation voice engine, SILK, which reportedly delivers improved wideband audio quality using 50 percent less network bandwidth.

Finally, there is the issue of what the future holds for Skype. Founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis control Joltid, the company responsible for Skype's P2P software. Recently JoltID accused Skype of breaching its license agreement by divulging confidential information about the technology pursuant to orders from U.S. courts. This patent dispute, which is set to go to court next year, has led to speculation that Zennstrom (i.e. JoltID) might make a play to purchase Skype back from parent company eBay -- or that another major telco might snap up JoltID just to get Skype -- which is considered by many telcos as a major threat to the traditional phone service model -- out of everyone’s way. There has been some speculation that, if this occurs, it could result in a shutdown of Skype – either on a temporary or permanent basis.

Regardless, it is tough to find fault with ClearOne’s decision to come out with a Skype-certified product: Skype now boasts more than 450 million accounts and about 17 million active users at any point in time on any given day -- and the number of users keeps growing. With small businesses doing everything they can to cut costs, the prospect of free conferencing may be too much of a temptation – regardless of any perceived risks.

Follow ITEXPO (News - Alert) on Twitter: twitter.com/itexpo

Patrick Barnard is a contributing writer for TMCnet. To read more of Patrick’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Patrick Barnard


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