SIPthat

Moving to Wordpress

2008-05-15T00:47:25Z

I simply can't take it anymore. MT has officially fallen WAY behind. I have moved the blog over to wordpress.

There is a new feed URL:

http://sipthat.com/feed

Hopefully I won't lose anyone in the transition.

Cheers,

Erik

SMB Communications VARs, Interconnects, Integrators - Great Timing!

2008-05-14T00:51:31Z

Communications VARs & Interconnect Businesses in Canada

Canadian businesses are seemingly leaning on VARs and Integrators more than they ever have. Canadian SMBs are swamped with choices and need help in choosing and managing the right phone system, email solutions et al. With IP communications on the rise in a big way, VARs and next-gen interconnects are cleaning house.

One such company is Innovedia. Lead by Trent Johnsen (ex-CEO of Shift Networks), Innovedia is taking Western Canada by storm. Trent's new venture is focused on providing small, medium and large business communications solutions. The product mix is made up of VoIP PBXs (Sutus, Microsoft Response Point), IP Phones (Polycom, D-Link, Aastra), Hosted Exchange, Electronic Fax, DNS, some Hosting services, consulting and more.

It isn’t anything that Trent isn’t used to, he has built a few SMB communications companies in the past and has a real passion for business communications.

I know the business is already exceeding expectations because I am helping Trent on a few fronts and it's pretty impressive to see how quickly that business is growing. If anyone is need of Small, Medium or Large Business communications solution you should give innovedia a look.

Jangl -no one's home?

2008-05-08T02:38:42Z

Update: Now Ex-CEO Michael Cerda has the full spread on what happened here. Looks like the VCs are getting cautious. Wow, you mean the "give it away for free, make it up on volume" mantra isn't cutting it anymore?

----------------------

Update: Markus Frind has confirmed it. Referencing a post at Mashable, Marcus is likely thinking about an alternative considering he and Match.com are using them for callback web telephony.

----------------------

I have just heard that Jangl has closed their doors. The story (unverified at this point) is that they ran out of money.

I will have more shortly...

Erik | sipthat.com

3G Skype Killer - Action or Words?

2008-05-06T17:20:45Z

Om broke a story this morning that rings a familiar bell for me. Over the past couple of years I have been approached by some of these incumbents that Om refers to in his story to do just what he is implying.

I can think of at least least 2 serious softphone contenders ( Truphone and Counterpath ) for this type of project that could leap frog Skype in no time. Marry that with a solid SIP application server ( Broadsoft or the like) which many, if not all, of these carriers already have in their networks, and you have a winner.

I have been waiting for this for a while. If it's real it could mean a real paradigm shift for IP communications in general. These players have been around for many years and own much of the infrastructure and vendor relationships. The incumbents still have the power to dictate what gets deployed on their networks. They have huge leverage with the vendors in terms of what gets bundled on what phones/devices.

This is exactly what the industry needs and you could be certain it wold end up on the new iPhone rather quickly.

Sadly, the telcos of old have a great deal of "old thinkers" and will likely screw this up royally with their bureaucracy and paranoia.

Dan is Down on Drupal

2008-05-05T17:19:09Z

Dan Gibbons of Carrie and Danielle is down on Drupal. Can't say I blame him, he pretty much nails the reason why I have avoided Drupal for any project I have managed.

JaJah + Yahoo!, GrandCentral / Google

2008-04-29T06:38:33Z

In this announcement JaJah is said to power the Yahoo! Voice offering. I see, so.. what happened to the Dialpad assets? Once coud surmise that running the terminaiton business was not making a great deal of money. At one cent per minute that might likely be the case.

While on the topic of Dialpad, Andy mentions that Grandcentral's main guy Craig Walker has recently updated the GC blog with a soft promise of something new.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

It's so weird, 15 years ago I found myself mulling over the use of softphones and how they might change the way people communicate, that never really happened. Yes, Skype and even Xten/Counterpath had an impact but in the end, humans like their handsets... and more importantly, Quality of Service.

Jajah leverages callback and so does Grandcentral to a certian degree which certainly helps, Lypp is no diferent.

I am just not sure that North American businesses are ready for a VoIP at the edge pure-play yet. Could it be that much of this is just.. noise?!

Lypp VoIP API, 37signals, Broadsoft Xtended, Ruby on Rails

2008-04-14T19:06:00Z

We are just one day away from opening the doors to the 37signals Highrise + Lypp VoIP Mashup contest, we are all quite excited about what will come of that, the entire post is over here.

Something I read today that I thought was rather "timely" in this regard was Thomas Howe's post regarding his new Ruby Gem built for Broadsoft via Xtended.

For those who don't know, Broadsoft is essentially the leader in the VoIP softswitch department although they really like to be called a Voice Application vendor, I think, Scott will likely correct me on that ;)

At least one person has asked me what I think of BX (Broadsoft Xtended) and what it means to Lypp and specifically the impact it has on the Lypp API.

Here it is..

1. For carriers, the Lypp API is to some degree what Xtended is to Broadsoft, just not for Boradsoft. Our API was written so that we could easily port it to any softswitch, voice application platform, voip switch etc. So if Broadsoft customers or even competition wanted some of the same functionality that is delivered via Xtended they might take a look at the Lypp API.

2. For service providers, Lypp offers a complete service toolkit that not only gives you the API but also delivers the telephony service as well. Think of the Lypp API as the Amazon Web Services of VoIP. The API is free and so is a developer account, you only pay for what you use, just like Amazon Web Services.

3. For application developers, it is a brainless way to bring advanced telephony into existing or new applications (web, mobile, client-server, et al) without investing millions into infrastructure.

The impact Broadsoft Xtended has on Lypp is very positive. Broadsoft has plenty of marketing dollars and the more people that understand what Xtended is the more it will help little companies like Lypp accelerate their own growth.

So to this I say, "Go Broadsoft! Go Lypp! Go Rails!"

by Erik | http://sipthat.com

fundfindr to early stage investors, your next project is right here

2008-04-07T19:53:51Z

My wife took our number 2 son into the clinic today to get his shots etc. As it turns out our doctor is married to Bret Conkin, CEO of another Vancouver startup called fundfindr.

At fundfindr Entrepreneurs publish a pitch which is viewed by a potential Angel, VC et al. A site like this could potentially save early stage investors some cycles when looking for that next project. It will certainly increase exposure and provide some “pitch experience” for the startups looking for cash.

A couple of friendly comments;
- Site looks a little bland, needs some punch, spice it up a bit.
- Choose a scalable application architecture that can be managed and grown by just a few developers. Ruby on Rails comes to mind. From my experience PHP can get quite unruly for a small shop as the site user-base grows.
- Also, not sure if Clip-Share.com is paying for the right to have a hot link listed in the right-click menu for the flash video player? Doesn’t appear to be tracked in any way.

Apart from a few minor issues it looks and operates as expected. Sign-up was painless, I loved the "how-to" video that is presented right after confirming the email link, it should also be the first thing the user sees on signup as well. Uploading a video was familiar and worked fine.

Congrats to Bret and his team on the Alpha soft-launch!

-Erik [http://sipthat.com]

p.s. Anyone looking for an excellent Ruby on Rails consulting team should email me.

Call Recording in Lypp API

2008-04-05T02:45:29Z

In preparation for the 37 Signals Mashup we have been putting some extra effort into bolstering the Lypp Telephony API. Here is what has been added and will be released soon:

Call Recording
Leveraging Amazon Web Services (S3) Conference Call Recording has been part of the Lypp Service for a while now, it's part of the Lypp Telephony API on the next update.

Master User Creation
Master account creation for Service Providers and Private Labeling.

My comments are busted but if you want to see something added not already part of the API let us know.

VON-less?

2008-04-01T06:22:45Z

Om wrote a story about the potential demise of Pulvermedia (creator of VON), taking lead from Andy and Marc Robins.

I remember having a conversation with Andy months ago and even though he did not come right out and say it then, it's clear now what he might have been eluding to.

I have fond memories of the early days of VON. Xten (now Counterpath) got a head start via the Free World Dialup community and Jeff was always there doing what he could to help out my tiny little startup.

Over the years the show grew at a colossal rate and small companies like mine were soon dwarfed by the monsters of VON. I understand why, it's just too bad it happened that way.

Andy swears that eComm is different but I am not at all convinced.

The format of these shows could use an overhaul. Where is the "Real Tools You Can Use Today for Building a Real Business" conference? Everyday business owners need something more interesting and useful that appeals to them in order to get something out of it that actually matters.

On a different note, there were a couple of posts around this alleged Pulvermedia exodus referring to the over-hyped VoIP industry and how there is no money to be made. Some of it is certainly true, too much marketing not enough substance. For others it's exactly the opposite. Lypp for instance is doing quit well.

Almost anyone who makes a call overseas these days is certain to be using VoIP in one fashion or another. We can thank Jeff Pulver and VON for making VoIP something that people wanted to be involved in. Jeff and his hard working crew, lead by Carl Ford, have done a great job bringing VoIP to the center stage over the years! Carl, if you are reading this, go do something great!

VoIP is telephony. Telephony is an extension of the most natural means of human communication, the human voice. Which is why you will not stop hearing about advancements and/or newly developed voice offerings for some time to come. Besides, we can't stop until I get my !@#$% Star Trek communicator :)

by Erik

37 Signals, WebEx, Microsoft Outlook, International Conference Calls

2008-03-28T17:13:56Z

Wow, it's been a crazy month. My 2.7 yr old son - Ky, has been in and out of the Children's Hospital with some virus that hit him in a bad way. Poor guy, it was hard for him but he handled it like a real trooper. While this was happening, business at Lypp was pushing forward at a serious pace, it was a difficult month. It looks like he is on the mend now so everyone is feeling a little less stressed.

At Lypp we did a little deal with WebEx in order to deliver a co-branded version of their service to round out our Conferencing offer. We soft-launched that yesterday. Anyone that signed up for Lypp Conferencing now gets access to Lypp Web Conferencing, which is essentially WebEx. Interestingly enough, we are able to charge much less than WebEx themselves, at 22 cents per minute it's a real bargain.

Right around the corner we have the Highrise + Lypp Mashup contest. Which we have a had a great response on. The doors open for that on April 15. We ended up pushing it back a couple of weeks in order to get the latest and greatest into the API before handing it over to developers.

In connection with the API, a MS Outlook developer has built a fully integrated Lypp Outlook plugin. For those who use Teleconferencing and live in Outlook it could be a real godsend. More on that later.

And finally, we are about to launch the beta of International Dial-out for the Lypp Conferencing service. Lypp Conferencing users will be able to conference-in attendees from all over the globe. This means that international attendees will not have to pay toll to dial-in, the host could have the system call them when adding them to an existing call or when creating a new conference call.

Unlimited Mobile Calling for Canadians

2008-03-14T23:11:08Z

Rogers, Fido, Telus, and Bell not giving you Unlimited Mobile Calling in North America?

Get Lypp's Mobile Unlimited and start saving!

We decided that Americans shouldn't be the only people who get to enjoy unlimited mobile calling in North America so we created a package ourselves.

The offer is simple, call any phone number(s) in North America, as much as you like, for a flat fee of $59/month.

If you live in Canada and call outside of your area you could easily save hundreds on your cellular bill every month.

Much like the previous Lypp Mobile offer, you will need a smart phone like a Blackberry, Windows Mobile device, Treo (etc.), or anything that supports Instant Messaging.

Want more info? You are going to have to wait until the new site goes live, just a few short weeks from now. Until then you could start saving by signing up today.

iPhone SDK, VoIP APIs et al

2008-03-07T22:15:20Z

Andy contemplates a potential surge of VoIP apps likely to be written for the iPhone due to the latest announcements from Apple and KP.

I happen to agree with Andy on just about everything in that post, but I do have some comments that potentially relate more to the Canadian market.

It's true that mobile costs are going down for users in the US but the opposite is true for mobile users in Canada. Here, the mobile carriers are not facing the same level of competition as the carriers in the US. Local overages and long distance usage is still at a premium and not one carrier offers an unlimited North American-wide calling plan, at least that I am aware of or has been published. Also, the iPhone is not being offered in Canada at all, so one would have to hack it to get it to work, which means a loss in some functionality along with the other side-effects.

This actually presents a larger opportunity then some may realize for middleware VoIP service providers / developers and not just for iPhone but for any Smartphone. In the next post, I will explain myself a little better and go into some detail about what some companies like Lypp are doing about it.

Tru Zone Eliminates Roaming Charges

2008-03-05T00:28:33Z

Accoring some news I was sent by Andy, customers will be able to call countries in its “Tru Zone” at the fabulously low rates of just USD0.06 per minute to landlines and USD0.30 per minute to mobiles from almost anywhere on the planet. More importantly, a Truphone-to-Truphone mobile call is always free, no matter where in the world the two parties may be travelling.

----

Sounds great, now if I could only use it on my Blackberry!

more..

37signals and Gaboogie Mashup Contest

2008-02-26T23:34:08Z

+

Developers, build a mashup application or mashup your existing application using both the Highrise API and the Lypp API and win stuff.

Best app:

$3000 Apple gift certificate
20,000 minutes of call time from Lypp (approx value: $1800)
12 months subscription for a Highrise MAX account (approx value: $1800)

Runner-up:

$1500 Apple gift certificate
10,000 minutes of call time from Lypp (approx value: $900)
6 months subscription for a Highrise MAX account (approx value: $900)

2nd Runner-up:

$500 Apple gift certificate
5,000 minutes of call time from Lypp (approx value: $450)
3 month subscription for a Highrise MAX account (approx value: $450)

Application for entries: April 1 to May 1
Winners announced: May 15

more here..
http://blog.lypp.com/2008/02/26/37signals-and-gaboogie-mashup-contest/