Some Windows Phone System Releases & Announcements This Week of June 19, 2010

3CX announce RC2 of version 9 of their Windows based phone system. They keep adding features at an absolutely dizzing pace. You can read more:
http://www.3cx.com/blog/news/3cx-phone-system-9-rc2/

Just in case you missed it, 3CX also aquired an Android based SIP client. The resident Android fan boy here at Landis Computer (not me ;-) did a quick test of the client but said that while it really looks nice he wasn't able to get it to register so he used another Android SIP client. We plan to do a video review of the 3CX Android client as soon as a little time affords. Read More Here.

Blink, the "best SIP client in the world", announced a new Mac release. Read more here: http://icanblink.com/changelog.phtml

 Blink for Windows and Linux has been postponed, according to http://www.icanblink.com/ website. From my experience AG Projects puts out very quality software. I'm looking forward to Blink for Windows and I expect it to be similar quality once it gets here.

Who Has Mobile Market Share? My List of Mobile Smart Phone Marketshare Charts

Whose has marketshare? Here are some charts and reports I found. (I can't vouch for them and didn't research further. ;-)

Read More Here:
http://blog.7touchgroup.com/2010/02/apple-iphone-whopping-25-u-s-market-share/

Read More Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smartphone_share_2009_full.png

Why Aren't More People Federating?

Tommy Clark asks: Why Wouldn't We Connect 360 Million People To Our Communication Solution?
Right now having the option to see presence, do video calls or desktop sharing with 360M might seem futuristic. But some day BDM's will be smacking themselves on the forehead and say "what were we thinking?"

I also wonder if some standard mechanism to make it easier to federate and add users from other phone systems using SIP needs to be devised?

Read Tommy's Article Here:
http://www.cinline.se/2010/06/why-not-connect-360-000-000-people-with-your-business/

Game Changer Small Business Hybrid Cloud Server Includes IP PBX Appliance!

Harry Brelsford over at SMBNation talks about a new kind of SMB server coming from Intel...

The Intel Hybrid Cloud Catalog, a list of pre-configured virtual appliances, including Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 and 2008...Other pre-installed appliances include firewall, backup, disaster recovery, and IP PBX.

I find it interesting that a phone system is being "bundled" with a small business IT showing how far IP communications it becoming another application in IT.

Who is providing the IP PBX? Fonality?
http://www.voipplanet.com/trends/article.php/3886991

If you know the pbx vendor I'd like your feedback.

Read about the Intel Server:
Harry's Article


Intels Website:
http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/products/server/450824.htm

Windows Phone System pbxnsip Now Integrates with Exchange, OCS & SQL: Partner Introduces CDR to Microsoft SQL

I've said it before on this blog: a Windows communication solution should integrate well with the Microsoft stack of solutions: Exchange, SQL & Office Communication Server (aka Communication Server). A pbxnsip partner has added MS SQL integration so that  now integrates pbxnsip with Microsoft's big three server products. That is an accomplishment.

Why is Microsoft SQL integration so important to a Windows communication solution?

#1 Windows experts implementing Windows communication soltution are very likely to already be familiar with MS SQL to a lesser or greater degree. We, for example, are a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and already find ourselves needing MS SQL proficiency for other products like Dynamics and customer line of business applications so we have Microsoft SQL certified individuals on staff.

#2 reason is that Microsoft SQL Express is free! That is right. Many people have this mistaken idea that a solution based on MS SQL will be expensive and require licensing. For most small business SQL Express will be a fine solution. If you have high demand and requirements full SQL is waiting in the wings.

#3 reason is that Microsoft SQL includes an incredible, free report designer and engine that is just--phenomenal. Create meaniful charts, simple drill-downs and have them viewable using a browser.

Some people may not want to worry about the rest of the Microsoft "stack". Don't worry-- pbxnsip will run just fine by itself. In fact it will run just fine and consume minimum resources on your physical or virtual server: a 15 user systems can run on 50MB of RAM!

The pbxnsip to Microsoft SQL option can be had for approx. $200/yr USD. Talk to Top Systems at:

http://www.topsystem.be/fr/pbxnsip.press.en.aspx

To read more:
http://forum.pbxnsip.com/index.php?showtopic=3645&hl=

2 Windows Phone Systems Contend To Replace Response Point: 3CX and pbxnsip

The results from the survey are in and you have spoken. Who is the best positioned successor to Microsoft Response Point? 3CX came in first place! pbxnsip had a very strong showing and came in second. During the survey pbxnsip was leading the way for some time and (I'll admit) I was a bit surprised to see that.

This is a somewhat interesting competition here since I've co-written a book on 3CX and am a Certified pbxnsip Partner & recommend pbxnsip!

I have to agree that 3CX is probably the closest Windows phone system to compare to Response Point in various ways: Ease of use is paramount, a very Windows-like interface,  and the industry's best support for automated PSTN/PRI gateway setup. 3CX is targeted at do-it-yourself and generalist IT market. On the cons side it has a smaller feature set, few system monitoring options and due to its rapid developement our experience has been it has little day to day "bug-a-boo" issues. 3CX has a large community and market awareness around it.

pbxnsip is a bit more mature, has a more generic web interface that is nice but not distinctly Windows (pbxnsip runs on Windows, Linux, Mac & plugcomputer). Finally stability, security, scalability and feature set have been given more attention than ease of use with pbxnsip. pbxnsip has a smaller but more mature & savvy VOIP reseller base that includes a fair amount of partners providing hosted phone systems to their clients.

OCS and Cisco also got quite a few votes. Don't forget that Microsoft appears to be positioning OCS Hosted as a replacement for RP. I believe with CS "14" they might be able to pull it off. Check my article on hosted OCS here.

Thanks for contibuting to this survey!

Is Your Windows Phone System Ready for the Coming IPv4 Doomsday? ;-)

Well, maybe not doomsday! But is your Windows PBX ready for the near future when IPv4 address will run out? IPv4 addresses are running out quicker than I and most people realize--as soon a mid 2011! (checkout the live calculator below)



Starting My IPv6 Journey
I've just been starting the journey of making myself aware of IPv6 issues. Natuarally I wondered: How does the Windows PBX world stack up on this point? Who is ready and who isn't? Here is my quick research--so please verify my findings. I would really like your input if I'm incorrect on any and if you can fill in any blanks! (please comment) Also please note I have not tested all these products.

Phone Servers
(o) OCS 2007 R2 = Not Ready (read more)
(o) Communication Server "14" = Not Ready
(o) pbxnsip = Ready (read more)
(o) 3CX Phone System = Not Ready (read more)
(o) ResponsePoint = Not Ready
(?) Swyx = unknown
(?) Addtran UC = Ready
(o) FreeSwitch = Ready (read more)

Clients
(o) X-Lite = Not Ready (there is an OEM ipv6 version)
(o) 3CX Softphone = Not Ready
(?) Blink SIP Client = unknown
(o) Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 = Not Ready
(o) Linphone (read more)

Handsets
(o) Cisco/Linksys (79xx seem to support. Read more) = Ready?
(o) snom (read more) = Ready
(?) Grandstream
(?) Aastra
(?) Yealink
(?) Polycom

Gateways
(o) Patton Smarnode
(o) Audiocodes Mediant Series (IPv6 in future release)
(?) Grandstream

Wow, It's Hard to Determine If Equipment is IPv6 Ready!
Once thing I'm finding in my little search is that vendor information on IPv6 is not easy to come by. In most cases it unclear and I've needed to email vendors. Perhaps http://www.ipv6ready.org/ will help to change this? They already have in IPv6 SIP Ready logo and testing process.

Is IPv6 Really Nessesary?
While an IP phone system can be behind a NAT firewall this can often be troublesome. It is quite usual to give a phone system a public IP address and put it in the DMZ so in my opinion this makes it more important in my mind for at least the phone system server to support IPv6. (bear in mind I'm in IPv6 learning mode ;-) My opinion is that vendors that are supporting IPv6 are those leading the way to the future.

There is no doubt the IPv6 is the way forward. I'm glad to see some vendors with foresight leading the way.

Another Windows PBX: Swyx

Hey, there is another Windows based PBX out there! It appears to be sold in a more modular way than some other Windows software phone systems. Also I didn't see any USA resellers listed--so is it only sold outside the USA? I'm not sure.  From the maketing material and feature set it appears that the system has been around for some time. Hmm, I see voip-info says the system is designed for Windows 2000 Server! Whoa...it HAS been around.

Want to get the 1GB demware? Browse over to:
http://www.swyx.com/products.html

If you know more about this system, please comment.