Everyone at smartphone.biz-news would like to thank you for your support in 2008. We hope you will continue to enjoy the latest Smartphone industry news and analysis in the year to come.
Best Wishes For The Holiday Season and a Very Happy New Year
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Season's Greetings From The Biz-news Team
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Snom Favors Italy Over UK For Expansion
The VoIP phone maker and developer Snom Technology is making a push into Italy and opening an office in Milan.In what could be a barometer of the current state of Europe’s economies, the German company ruled out a move to the UK.
Heike Cantzler, marketing manager for Snom Technology, said both the UK and Italy were considered for the expansion.
She told voip.biz-news that both Italy and the UK had very active Web markets – which had made the decision about where to expand difficult.
Ultimately, concerns over the UK’s economic situation and the perception that the Italian market was more receptive to new technology, tipped the balance in Italy’s favor.
"The financial problems in the UK are worse than in Italy," said Cantzler.
"The UK and US economies have big problems. With the rest of Europe, we are still waiting to see what will happen.
"Maybe next year will be hard but at the moment we do not feel any difference."Snom develops and manufacturers VoIP telephones based on an open standard for enterprise communications.
It employs 50 people worldwide, with offices in Germany, Italy, the US and China.
In common with other VoIP industry businesses, Cantzler said a recession was likely to benefit Snom as companies sought ways to reduce costs.
She said that as Snom phones can be operated with a large number of compatible IP-PBX that support SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), they offer customers a wider choice for enterprise communication systems.
In October, the Berlin-based company launched the Snom 820, a VoIP business telephone with a high-resolution TFT color display.
Cantzler said the 820 typified Snom’s philosophy of adding as many features to products while keeping prices down.
"The 820 is the only phone worldwide – aside from Microsoft’s phones – that integrates with Microsoft Outlook," she said.
"This is really interesting because the Microsoft phone is one that is very expensive and very difficult to handle. Even Microsoft developers tell us that they use a Snom phone because it’s easier."
Praise indeed.
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Nominations Open For The Outstanding VoIP Person and Product Of 2008
With 2008 fast drawing to a close biz-news.com is seeking YOUR help in choosing outstanding candidates for the titles of Man/Woman of the Year and Product/Service of the Year.We would like you to nominate an individual and/or product/service that you feel has contributed greatly to the VoIP sector over the past 12 months.
The winner will be selected from the nominations submitted by our readers – professionals and technology enthusiasts in the industry.
Obviously, as this is a crowd-sourcing survey, we need your participation.Spreading word of this survey to friends and colleagues will also ensure a wider participation in the poll and will give a much more accurate result.
If you have more than one nomination for either category you can make multiple submissions – but you can only vote once for any person or product.
We will publish the results in early 2009 and share the raw data with the community. (Personal information about contributors will not be disclosed).
After a year like 2008 there are plenty of good candidates – so please give it some thought and send your Man/Woman and/or Product nominations to us.
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NICE Secures VoIP Deal With Alibaba.com
The Chinese e-commerce company, Alibaba.com, has placed an order for NICE SmartCenter solutions for two of its VoIP contact centers.The NICE solution is to provide Alibaba.com with a quality management solution for improving customer service agent performance, training effectiveness, and customer satisfaction.
Headquartered in Hangzhou, Alibaba.com has offices in more than 30 cities across mainland China as well as in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Europe and the United States. It recently expanded its business to markets in India, Japan, and Korea.The company offers business-to-business services that connect buyers and suppliers from around the world.
Andy Li, vice president of Alibaba.com said the NICE SmartCenter would provide them with the ability to enhance customer satisfaction and drive comprehensive business performance improvements.
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C2Call Unveils Updated Browser-based Service
C2Call has launched a second beta of its computer-to-computer service that allows free calls around the world.The German startup also introduced new APIs – software tools that enable social media sites to add browser-based voice calls to any Web site.
Martin Feuerhahn, CEO of C2Call, said a major appeal of C2C was its simplicity and the fact calls were made direct from the browser.
He said users no longer had to download, install, configure and update special software just to make VoIP calls or just to talk only to users on the same service.
"Instead of tapping out messages to online friends on social media sites, C2Call gets people talking – which helps to increase use of the site," he said.
For users, computer to landline and computer to mobile calls cost from two cents (Euro) per minute, depending on tariffs – and C2Call displays rates when they apply, as that call is made.
There are no connection charges or set-up fees.
C2Call is platform independent. It works by temporarily loading a Java widget into Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox when running under the Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems.
The widget establishes a peer-to-peer voice connection that works behind firewalls.
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Fortify Warns Of VoIP Hacking Risk Over Holidays
It’s not exactly a message of festive goodwill but Fortify Software’s warning about the threat of fraudulent international VoIP calls is no doubt well intended.Citing a recent case where a hacker ran up a USD $52,000 phone bill, the application vulnerability specialist said it was a timely warning to all organisations to protect their PBX IT resources.
According to Robert Rachwald, Fortify’s director of product marketing, this time of year is one of the busiest periods for phone companies on the
international call front, with the result that international call resale fraud is also at its highest.The fact that HUB Computer Systems in the US was hit by a phone bill for USD $52,359.59 in calls to Bulgaria, he said, illustrates the demand for
fraudulent international calls.Once a hacker has reprogrammed a company PBX to allow free dial-through international calls, one or more people act as human operators, accepting payments – always in cash – and then allow callers to place international calls at a heavy discount to their chosen destination.
"The advent of IP-enabled PBXs, and the facility of remotely- programmable conventional PBX systems, means that hackers can – with sufficient time and access – rack up large phone bills on the unfortunate victim’s account," said Rachwald.
"And with the holiday shutdown looming, this is the perfect time for hackers with time on their hands, to crack a firm’s PBX and engage in more than a little phone call resale fraud."
Rachwald said the modus operandi was always the same – the hackers stand at known meeting and gathering points for international visitors in a given city and then announce they are offering calls home, typically via prepay mobile phones, for a fraction of the normal costs.
"After that, they simply rake the money in – probably around USD $5,000 to $10,000 in the case of the HUB Computer Systems telephone hack," he said.
Rachwald warned IT staff to take extra care over the holiday shutdown to protect their company PBXs, as well as their firm’s IT resources, shutting down systems that are unlikely to be used.
He said locking down the ability to reprogram the system remotely has to be high on the list of holiday period checklists.
Merry Christmas.
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G2 Software Issues Delay Launch
There has been plenty of speculation that the launch of the next Google Android-powered handset is just days away.That appears to be premature according to BGR, which claims the launch has in fact been delayed until April due to "software issues".
Among the other unconfirmed details gleaned are that the T-Mobile G2 will actually launch on another global carrier as well.Since the "G" names are trademarks of T-Mobile the other carrier will use its own name for the device.
BGR also reports that the new handset will be full touch without a physical QWERTY keyboard and will have a trackball at the bottom.
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Motorola Commits To WinMo And Android
Motorola is to discontinue making phones for Symbian and will instead concentrate on two new platforms: Windows Mobile and Android.Sanjay Jha, CEO of the Mobile Devices group at Motorola, confirmed what had until now been rumors to Michael Oryl of MobileBurn.
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Motorola’s stake in Symbian was in UIQ, a part of the OS being cut following Nokia’s decision to move to an open platform.A leading force in the US smartphone market, Motorola has seen it position threatened of late.
In November, Apple’s iPhone overtook Motorola’s Razr to become the best-selling consumer cellphone in the US in the third quarter of 2008.
Motorola is now expected to postpone any product launches until the end of 2009 to allow it to prepare its new Android devices.
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Nominations Open For The Outstanding Smartphone Person and Product Of 2008
With 2008 fast drawing to a close biz-news.com is seeking YOUR help in choosing outstanding candidates for the titles of Man/Woman of the Year and Product/Service of the Year.We would like you to nominate an individual and/or product/service that you feel has contributed greatly to the Smartphone sector over the past 12 months.
The winner will be selected from the nominations submitted by our readers – professionals and technology enthusiasts in the industry.
Obviously, as this is a crowd-sourcing survey, we need your participation.
Spreading word of this survey to friends and colleagues will also ensure a wider participation in the poll and will give a much more accurate result.If you have more than one nomination for either category you can make multiple submissions – but you can only vote once for any person or product.
We will publish the results in early 2009 and share the raw data with the community. (Personal information about contributors will not be disclosed).
After a year like 2008 there are plenty of good candidates – so please give it some thought and send your Man/Woman and/or Product nominations to us.
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Palm Gets $100m Lifeline Ahead Of Nova Launch
Palm has secured a USD $100 million equity lifeline from Elevation Partners just a few weeks before it unveils its new Nova operating system.Faced with mounting losses and weak smartphone sales, the success of the new operating system could very well decide the company’s fate.
The equity investment by Elevation Partners, which already holds a large stake in the handset maker, will help underwrite the cost of launching Nova and the first line of products to run on it.
Palm has revealed little about the new operating system but reports suggest it will be pitched between RIM’s enterprise-oriented Blackberrys and Apple’s more multi-media iPhones.Palm just posted a loss of USD $506 million in its fiscal second quarter and saw both its revenues and the number of smartphones sold drop.
Earlier this month, Palm announced that Douglas C. Jeffries had been appointed as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.
Previously chief accounting officer at eBay, Jeffries will join Palm in January as replacement for Andy Brown.
Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners, which also counts rock star Bono among its investment team, was in no doubt about the potential for Palm.
"We believe that Palm is in a position to transform the cell phone industry, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to make this additional investment in the company," he said.
There are many who seriously doubt that.