Our polls for the Biz-News.com “Product of the Year Award 2009” closed on the 15th of February. The winner is a result of the amount of votes they were awarded by readers, all readers where invited to vote for their favourite products or service in the Smartphone, HDTV, Storage and VoIP categories.

VoiceServe received a “Best of Show” award at TMC's ITEXPO East 2010, held in Miami last week, for “Best Service Provider Solution”. Close to 100 companies exhibited at the ITEXPO, an event where leading-edge IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications are exhibited to resellers, enterprises, small-to-medium businesses and Government agencies.

VoiceServe’s complete VoIP telephony solution, VoIPSwitch, enables any Window® computer to become a virtual VoIP telephone switching system, with all the major components required by resellers, ITSPs and VoIP providers. With over 16,000 systems installed globally, to date, VoiceServe’s software enables businesses to become VoIP providers in just days.

At the ITEXPO East 2010, VoiceServe introduced its Vippie for Blackberry, a SIP software phone that enables users to make and receive phone calls via their data connection, either WIFI, 3G or EDGE. The softphone is designed to work with the VoipSwitch’s Softswitch platform developed by VoiceServe. The VoipSwitch blackberry license is compatible with alternative third party SIP compliant platforms and will be available February 2010 to VoIP providers.

The ITEXPO Best of Show Awards recognize innovative products and solutions that were featured in the Exhibit Hall during the event. This designation serves to highlight the technological achievement and creative product features that set these winners apart from the rest of the crowd. TMC's editorial staff evaluated the pre-show nominations, and met with vendors to inspect and review the displayed products on the first day of the Expo.

Junction Networks announces that its OnSIP Hosted PBX has been recognized by VoIP Evolution as one of the top VoIP Advances in 2009 with the introduction of My.OnSIP, a browser based unified communications tool combining phone presence, IM and real time status notifications. The first hosted tool of its kind, My.OnSIP allows users to see the status of other users within their organization, seamlessly make and transfer calls with the click of a mouse and conduct secure and private IM sessions with colleagues.

The addition of features such as My.OnSIP, according to VoIP Evolution, have further blurred the lines between hosted and on-premise IP PBXs, making hosted models more appealing with lower prices, more features, and no system maintenance. Included in the list of 25 Advances was also the addition of HD Voice services, which OnSIP has recently added to its long list of features.

OnSIP customers can take advantage of My.OnSIP at no additional cost, with plans starting as low as $39.99 per month.

Contenders for the Biz-News.com Product of the Year Award are on a tight struggle to obtain the leading amount of votes for the 2009 Awards.

The awards are people’s choice; users are being called upon to express their consumer experiences during 2009.

What VoIP service worked for you best? Which would you recommend to your friends and colleagues?

Let us know and award them a vote by filling this form.

Last year Biz-News.com celebrated the “Product of the Year Awards 2008”. Nominations where received from all parts of the globe. First hand users explained their experiences and recommended best practices for the most innovative products out there.

Honouring those who have fought to make the most of this year, Biz-News.com again wishes to call upon its readers to nominate their favourite product of the year.

Nominations will begin on November 19th and will close on February 15th 2010. Runner ups will be featured in our editorial and winners will have an exclusive interview complete with user reviews and photographic backup published on Biz-News.com.

Digium is proud to announce the winners of the 2009 Digium Innovation Awards. The company announced the winners today at AstriCon, the official conference for Asterisk, the world's leading open source PBX, telephony engine and telephony applications toolkit. The Innovation Awards, presented in five categories to seven recipients, recognize innovation, enterprise-class solutions, measurable return on investment, use of Asterisk in businesses outside of the communications industry and contributions to the Asterisk community.

Asterisk is currently used in business, government and educational settings around the world. Along with being cost-effective, Asterisk’s flexibility inspires its savvy community to develop novel products and services. Digium presents the Innovation Awards to recognize and showcase the innovation, creativity and commercial success of the many Asterisk-based products and services.

The 2009 winners of the Digium Innovation Awards are:

Pioneer Award :: Abot Tanaw (Philippines) – Abot Tanaw uses dedicated videoconferencing hardware setup, similar to that found in businesses, to deliver high-quality video to overseas Filipino workers who wish to communicate with their families on a regular basis. Abot Tanaw curbs the cost of communication by taking full advantage of an Asterisk-based IP PBX server to provide the video calls at no cost to users.

Pioneer Award :: GreenfieldTech (Udim, Israel) – Working on behalf of a customer, GreenfieldTech created a high-speed, highly scalable Asterisk-based dialer and interactive voice response system that currently serves over 10,000 customers world wide. The platform was used extensively during the 2009 Israeli elections, serving 70% of the political parties in Israel.

ROI Award :: City of Taguig (Taguig, Philippines) – The city of Taguig is the first in the Philippines to implement a unified citywide telecommunications system. Communication is now available 24/7, despite tropical rains and typhoons that previously were a threat to the entire telephone system of Taguig’s City Hall. With newly established centralized hotlines, calls are answered and filtered to the proper department by trained staff, instead of interrupting city workers while being passed from one department to another. Taguig now has an Asterisk-based VoIP telephone systems in over 73 sites, and the implementation has already brought a 50% decrease in city costs while doubling city workers’ productivity.

Inside Out Award :: Teletales (New York, N.Y.) – Teletales enables users to share stories via the telephone and download them online to keep forever in digital form. Users call in to Teletales, an Asterisk-based phone system, and enter the number of the person with whom they would like to share a story. Teletales connects them and then records their call. Users can then log in to Teletales online to download and edit their audio recording to keep forever.

Community Achievement Award :: House Internet (Buenos Aires, Argentina) – House Internet developed FOP, the first real-time switchboard for Asterisk, in 2004, and it remains the most widely used operator console. FOP is currently one of the tools that companies and integrators installing Asterisk use to highlight and visually demonstrate the potential of Asterisk as a VoIP platform. Many individuals involved in Asterisk are able to benefit from the solution, from developers and integrators to phone users.

Big Biz Asterisk Award :: Intuit Innovations (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) – A pioneer in the Malaysian market, Intuit Innovations created a scalable solution able to support 130,000 existing subscribers and handle 10,000 concurrent calls. The solution can be used by ISPs, telephone company providers and VoIP carriers with large subscriber bases who need to provide a reliable but low cost telephony platform.

Big Biz Asterisk Honorable Mention :: Airnet (Chattanooga, Tenn.) – AirNet provided a large-scale VoIP outbound survey solution to the Republican National Committee for the 2008 Presidential Election. Political volunteers were able to walk into a call center where multiple VoIP phones were configured, log into the survey application through the phone and begin making calls. The solution had approximately 250 locations spread across the continental United States, with 6,500 VoIP phones conducting 21 million phone calls for a total of 24 million minutes consumed.

Digium thanks this year’s participants and all of the award winners. Asterisk innovators are invited to participate in the 2010 competition by submitting an application to www.digium.com/en/company/awards/innovation.php.

JAJAH has been named a TiE50 Winner, as a leader in innovation, ingenuity, and management excellence. The TiE50 award is presented by TiE at TiEcon2009 to the top 50 startups from close to 1,200 nominees, with the winners representing the hottest and most promising startups.

TiE is a global organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurs across its international network sponsored by top venture capital firms and Fortune 500 corporations. TiE is spread across 53 chapters in 12 countries, comprised of 1,800 experienced entrepreneurs and business executives as charter members, 12,000 aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals as members.

JAJAH's IP voice and messaging platform allows service providers, Internet companies, mobile operators and enterprises to deploy and manage new, value-adding services and solutions with minimal investment and time to market. With a broad range of consumer and business IP telephony solutions, and complete back-end service management, JAJAH's platform ensures that its partners meet the needs of their customers today, and tomorrow.

JAJAH has recently introduced a suite of Mobile VoIP applications for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian and the Apple iPod touch, which essentially turns any iPod touch into an iPhone. One of JAJAH's most popular consumer services named 'JAJAH Direct' allows any user to place ultra low-cost global calls from any existing landline or mobile phone by simply dialing a local number. JAJAH also has a suite of IP communications services for the enterprise from unified communications tools to SIP Trunking.

TiEcon2009 and TiE50

TiEcon 2009 is two action-packed days of rich dialogue, networking and deal making with thousands of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, industry executives, and thought leaders. TiEcon 2009 is themed "The BOLD Entrepreneur," focusing on dynamic individuals who are able to adapt to changing conditions and create their own future despite downturns and uncertainties.

TiE50 winners are diverse in terms of size, progress, maturity and location. They share a common thread of innovation, ingenuity, strong management teams and overall quality of ideas.

The TiE 50 judging process was designed with meticulous planning, screening and judging by a list of over forty prominent entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporate executives and other domain experts. TiE is also pleased to acknowledge the nominee companies and those who publicly voted from around the world who contributed to the TiE50 selection process. TiE50 winners will present their companies in a live showcase over the two days of TiEcon 2009, on May 15th and 16th in Santa Clara, CA.

Vopium has become the latest mobile VoIP provider to introduce an iPhone application.
The addition to its supported handsets comes as the company was named winner of this year's European Mobile VoIP Technology Innovation Award by Frost & Sullivan.

AireSpring was awarded the coveted Members' Choice Award as the top "SIP Trunking" VOIP provider from the Telecom Association, a national professional membership organization of over 3,200 Telecom industry professionals. In addition, AireSpring was awarded 2nd place in the CLEC/LEC and Reseller categories and finished in the top 10 for Carrier, Internet/Data, and Multi-Location provider. The total of 6 major awards reinforces the effort that AireSpring has put into the creation of its Local, Long Distance, and Data products as well as the revolutionary next generation IP network which supports AireSpring's SIP products.

"Winning TA's annual Members' Choice award is a significant tribute to each winner's channel partner and customer service Programs," stated TA Founder Dan Baldwin. "This is the fourth consecutive year for our annual Members Choice award and we set a new record in ballots cast over the past several months."

"AireSpring is thrilled to be recognized by the TA for our achievements in IP communications and as a Carrier and Reseller of innovative, aggressively priced, voice and data products," stated Daniel Lonstein AireSpring COO. "IP Communication is the direction that the entire industry is moving; it is our privilege and honor to be chosen by fellow telecom professionals as the best SIP and VOIP provider in the industry. We continue to be inspired by the accolades we receive for our product line and look forward to releasing even more cutting-edge products in the coming year."

AireSpring's Voice, Data, and Integrated products are continually recognized by customers and agents as robust, flexible, and affordable. Over the past several years, AireSpring has been awarded Top Reseller, Top Channel Program, Top SIP Trunking Provider, and Product of the Year by various magazines and organizations. AireSpring currently offers lowest cost High Speed Internet, Voice, and SIP Trunking services as well as innovative hybrid products which deliver many of the advantages of SIP to customers with legacy TDM equipment. AireSpring continues to innovate and expand the reach and features of products offered through its groundbreaking enhanced IP network.

Frank Grillo, Cypress Communication's executive vice president of marketing, is the winner of the voip-biz.news' Person of the Year award.
In nominating him for the title, the telecoms professional was described as a "visionary executive" and "innovative thinker" with "technical acumen".

Two innovative products dominated voting to share the honours in voip-biz.news' Product of the Year 2008 competition.
With 33 per cent of the nominations, MyGlobalTalk's VoIP calling solution earned praise for its sound quality and call rates, as well as features such as no contract being required, no connection fees and no minimums.

The new year is firmly underway and time is running out for submitting your nominations and votes for voip.biz-news' 2008 Man and Product of the Year awards.
But with voting expected to be close in both award categories there's plenty of opportunity for latecomers to make their mark.