Microsoft's Windows Phone officially has its own non-beta version of Skype, but early reviews say the version is still playing catch up with the versions available for the iPhone and Android devices. A big hindrance? You have to have Skype running in the foreground of the phone to make or receive a call. You can, however, search for contacts and make calls to landlines. Microsoft bought Skype last year for $8.5 billion and is still developing plans for how to use it across its software ecosystem. Article

U.K.-based VoIP service provider Telappliant rolled out a new hosted VoIP service aimed at small and medium sized businesses.

The new entry-level VoIPOffice Hosted Lite is targeted at businesses with up to 20 employees, includes up to five extensions, which can be expanded to 20, and can handle up to five concurrent calls.

The service also includes call queuing, an assignable ring group, voicemail delivered to an email inbox and an Interactive Virtual Receptionist (IVR).

Telappliant said the service, which can be enabled within 24 hours, gives small businesses the ability to scale up operations as and when their business grows.

VoIPOffice Hosted Lite, which is currently available only in the United Kingdom, costs $40 per month.

For more:
- see this release

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Telcos and cable providers increasingly are turning to products and services aimed at the enterprise and small businesses to help shore up revenues. As well they should. After all, research shows there are more than three million small and medium businesses within the reach of two-way capable cable systems, Insight Research reports.

Telephone service providers have seen wireline revenues erode as residential customers have switched to wireless phones and VoIP. Cable service providers have struggled with customer losses and shrinking margins for video services.

Both have turned to products like VoIP and unified communications services that not only stop the flow of red ink but also grow their businesses. Verizon (NYSE: VZ), for example, is one of the largest providers of unified communications solutions in the world. At last week's Enterprise Connect it rolled out a new bridge aimed at growing its videoconferencing business.

Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), with its massive deployment of VoIP, is now ranked as the third-largest telephone service provider in the United States. It, too, made a big deal of a new play at Enterprise Connect. Its cloud-based voice and unified communications solution reflects the industry's push toward more commercial growth as residential growth slows.

But, a new report from Insight says both industries could be seeing trouble down the road. They'd be in line to lose a large portion of their small business customers as a new crop of hosted service providers arrives on the scene offering PBX-like voice services at lower reoccurring costs and with minimal site equipment expense.

The report, "VoIP and the SME: CableCos, Telcos, and the Rise of Hosted Service Models, 2011-2016," said that upstarts like 8x8, Aptela, Fonality, and Nextiva increasingly are able to target the small business market since the advent of VoIP PBX business telephone technology and the nearly universal availability of broadband services.

Those companies, Insight said, provide virtual PBX/VoIP services with enhanced features into the lower end of the business segment, which is a competitive hot bed. And, they're able to be more competitive in terms of functionality, productivity and pricing than the service bundles being provided by either the telcos or the MSOs.

The market is sizeable, with more than 40 million lines in the small business segment of the market now up for grabs, Insight said.

"We are not talking about chump change," said Robert Rosenberg, Insight Research president. "Our study suggests that thus far, small businesses haven't quite latched on to this new technology so the revenue today is only in the range of one-half billion dollars, but by 2015 hosted services will be nearly a $1.2 billion market and the adoption rate of the hosted services by small businesses will accelerate."

The big question is, of course, can telecom and cable providers step up to the plate with solutions that are as nimble? Can they deliver the customer service their smaller competitors promise?

Insight says the sweet spot for hosted VoIP sits with businesses that have fewer than 100 employees. And, the company says, revenue from the segment should grow from $513 million in 2011 to nearly $1.2 billion in 2015.

That's a market worth fighting for.--Jim

Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) has seen its videoconferencing business grow significantly over the past couple of quarters, even taking the market share lead over rival Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) in the APAC region, which has seen its own market boom of more than a third in the past year.

Now Polycom, which prides itself on its open standards-based solution, has taken another step it hopes puts some more distance between itself and its chief rival, partnering with HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) in a solution that leverages HP's networking technology with Polycom's RealPresence video solutions and Microsoft Lync.

The joint architecture among the three will, the companies said, make it easier to deliver, scale and manage UC environments, especially video collaboration.

The vendors say the partnership trims the amount of time and resources usually tasked to create and maintain an end-to-end UC and video collaboration environment.

The solutions leverage open-standards to ensure interoperability and enable customers to use existing infrastructure. That, in turn, can simplify migration of existing systems and endpoints to the new enterprise solution.

The companies said HP's FlexNetwork architecture creates a network optimized for video by combining with the Polycom RealPresence Platform.

"Together with HP and Microsoft, Polycom is delivering interoperable solutions that are greater than the sum of their parts: they combine best-of-breed video collaboration capabilities and tested interoperability from three industry leaders to make it easier to deliver, scale, and manage all the disparate applications and components of unified communications," said Sue Hayden, executive vice president of sStrategic alliances for Polycom.

For more:
- see this release

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It's taken a while, but Skype finally is going to be available of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows Phone. However, the free VoIP service is rolling out in beta form only, with a Gold version scheduled for release in April.

Click here to watch a video about Skype for Windows Phone.

Skype, which Microsoft acquired for $8.5 billion a year ago, said the app has been tested and certified on Nokia's Lumia 710 and Lumia 800; the HTC Titan and Radar and Samsung's Focus S and Focus Flash.

The app will allow Windows Phone users to make free audio and video calls to their Skype contacts over 3G and 4G or Wi-Fi, make calls for a fee to landlines and mobiles using Skype Credit, create and hold one-to-one and group chats and update their profile and account information, among others features.

Skype is calling the Windows Phone experience "clean and simple," and on its blog assured users that "this is only the beginning for Skype for Windows Phone... it's just going to get better and better. We see incredible potential to include Skype capabilities in Windows Phone in order to enable a great experience for you."

The beta version can be downloaded by clicking here directly from a Windows Phone. Users will need to be running Windows Phone 7.5 on their smartphone.

For more:
- see this blog

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Telepresence vendor Radvision (Nasdaq: RVSN) said its Scopia Video Gateway for Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Lync has achieved Microsoft qualification for video interoperability with Microsoft Lync 2010 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

Certifying the Scopia Video Gateway means Radvision customers can better maximize return on existing collaboration investments, allowing workers to communicate virtually anytime, anywhere with an Internet connection and browser--including with standards-based video systems and telepresence suites.

The Scopia Video Gateway's architecture is designed to meet the ease of use, scalability and affordability requirements of the broad UC market. It includes features like presence and click-to-call capabilities through the Lync and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 interface.

Radvision, based in Israel, has worked hard to establish itself in the fiercely competitive videoconferencing market. A former supplier to Cisco--before Cisco bought Tandberg--Radvision just last week revised its fourth quarter outlook upwards on stronger than expected infrastructure sales at the end of the year.

Radvision said it expected its Video Business Unit to see sales of $18 million to $18.5 million versus its forecast of $14 million. Its Technology Business Unit sales are expected to approximate $3.5 to $4 million.

"Our improved forecast for the fourth quarter... is a welcome indication that our effort to transform Radvision into an end-to-end video conferencing provider is taking effect." Boaz Raviv, the company's CEO, said Radvision saw sequential improvement in each of its regions in the quarter.

The company will report final results for the fourth quarter of 2011 on Feb. 8.

The positive revision is the first time in the past four quarters that the company has delivered that kind of news. In each of the past three quarters Radvision has been forced to lower guidance.

For more:
- see this release

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Avaya, playing catch-up with several other vendors, has rolled out a mobile UC app for Android devices, enabling SMEs to access a set of unified communications capabilities. The company said it plans to release an iPhone app in early 2012.

The app for Avaya's IP Office 8.0, one-X Mobile Preferred for IP Office, allows users full conference management  through their mobile device, including the ability to invite, view, mute and drop participants during a conference call.

The app lets users display their availability and show specific times of availability based on a user's Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Outlook calendar.

The app also includes instant messaging, a geopresence display that lets users display their location and visual voicemail.

One-X Mobile Preferred for IP Office builds on Avaya's existing Essential Mobility solution for IP Office, which extends voice capabilities such as one number access and call control. Already available on Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhones, Essential Mobility will be available for Android and Blackberry devices in first quarter of 2012.

Avaya is the latest in a string of vendors to announce mobile platforms for their technologies, especially to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s iPad and iPhone and to a variety of devices running oin Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)'s Android OS.

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM), Radvision (Nasdaq; RVSN), ShoreTel (Nasdaq: SHOR), Vidyo and others already have apps on the market for Apple and Android.

The mobile segment is seen as a potential boon market as 37 percent of the world's workforce, about 1.3 million people, is expected to be mobile by 2015, new research finds.

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The military axiom "hurry up, and wait," could well become Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s own when it comes to integrating its Skype VoIP and video calling app with its Windows Phone.

Skype--which was bumped from Windows Phone in favor of competitor Tango, at least as a placeholder in October--now is said to be poised to make its long-awaited appearance on the smartphone, well, "soon."

Microsoft originally had planned to roll out the integration by the end of the year (as in last year), but many pundits now expect it to be delayed until Mobile World Congress in February, with a full integration not happening until the entire OS is updated later in 2012.

Microsoft VP of the Skype division, Rick Osterloh, last week at CES said Skype was  "working on a Windows Phone product that will be coming out soon."

Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion last summer, but decided to use Tango's video calling service with phones that run on the refreshed Windows Phone OS.

While Microsoft has said it plans to aggressively integrate Skype into its products, the timing of the deal meant that the company had to turn instead to Tango for a quick fix.

But Tango, which also operates on iOS and Android devices, may be in for quite a ride. The company hopes to use the break as a springboard to dominance in the video-calling market. It currently operates on 450 devices, including 30 tablets, and it works cross platforms.

Tango has 25 million registered users in 190 countries and is adding about 500,000 users every week, meaning it's growing about twice as fast as Skype did when it first launched.

"We are growing at an unprecedented rate," said Uri Raz, co-founder and CEO of Tango, in July. "There are 1.5 billion PCs in use worldwide and 95 percent of the world's computers run Windows. With this launch, we are well positioned to reach our goal of 100 million customers by this time next year."

The service hasn't had a difficult time finding funding, announcing in July that it was closing a $42 million Series B funding round. The company said it plans to use the money to speed up its product delivery cycle.

"We've been extremely lucky with timing," admitted Setton. "We came out as handset manufacturers were adopting front-facing cameras. and people were comfortable with video-calling because of the iPhone 4 and [Apple's video-calling app] Facetime."

Skype reported more than 170 million "monthly connected users" in its most recently-recorded quarterly period.

For more:
- see this Telegraph article

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Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport is allowing passengers to check-in for their flights using Skype.

The program, which the airport says is the first of its kind in the world, works along similar lines to Internet check-ins. Passengers call the airport using its Skype user name and are asked for their last name, flight information and to show their passport. Once the formalities are out of the way, passengers can print out a boarding pass. The airport expects 15 to 20 percent of passengers to use the service, which serves some 20 airlines flying into the airport.

"The main problem [for traditional Internet check-in] is lack of communication with a real person, as a passenger is afraid to do something wrong," said an aiport officials. "Here you will have straight communications, so there will be no fear during registration."

The airport said Skype will be available for check-in at Transaero, Air Astana, Royal Air Maroc, China Eastern Airlines, Estonian Air, Hainan Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines, Iran Air, Jat Airways, Turkish Airlines and other carriers.

European regulators recently approved Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) acquisition of the popular free VoIP provider.

For more:
- see this WSJ article

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Hosted communications service provider NextUC today said its hosted Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Lync platform is compatible with Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) and Snom VoIP desktop phones that are designed especially for use with the Microsoft Lync client.

Among the Lync features on the IP phones include the Display buddy list and Presence, the color display for one touch dialing, advanced directory lookup via phone keypad, transfer and hold key for fast call execution or a color display to customize video. NextUC is now fully compatible with Polycom CX5000, CX3000 and CX700 and will be adding other providers.

NextUC clients can sign up for a free trial in the self-provisioning portal.

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- see this release

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Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has been pushing hard into the enterprise space with its recently redesigned suite of cloud-based apps.

And it's really making some waves. Increasingly, government agencies--like the State of Wyoming, which moved all of its 10,000 employees to Google Apps for Government in June, and the federal government's General Services Administration, which moved 17,000 workers to the platform in July--are looking at the potential savings and buying into the software.

Wyoming expects to save at least $1 million annually; that number increases if it factors in employee productivity and server and licensing costs. It also spent less than the $5 million it allocated to make the move, which included consolidating email from the 13 current platforms it employs to a single Google cloud-based platform.

"Just looking at the number of staff alone that were dedicated to handling the mail solutions when they were disparate across agencies, you're going to see a dramatic change in the amount of personnel required by the state," Flint Waters, the state's CTO said at the time.

The GSA, meanwhile, moved 17,000 employees to Google Apps; it was the first of more than a dozen federal agencies that are slated to make the transition. That move will cost taxpayers $6.7 million, but it is expected to save the GSA alone about $15.2 million in reduced email operation costs over the next five years, said GSA Administrator Martha Johnson. The federal market alone for cloud services is expected to top $20 billion.

Integral to all of this, of course, is the Gmail component of the suite, a piece that currently holds just a 1 percent market share in the enterprise space. But it holds so much potential that Gartner earlier this year classified it as a significant threat to Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) email dominance.

But not everyone is thrilled with Gmail's functionality (aside from its recent redesign).

In Los Angeles, the Google Apps for Government roll out at the LAPD hit a major snag when officials raised concerns about possible security issues. The problems are nagging enough that a number of critics have raised concerns about the suite's ability to replace products from other vendors, most notably, Microsoft.

New, often, is hard. As IDC analyst Al Hilwa told the Wall Street Journal about the Google-LAPD tiff: "When you're trying to do something new and disruptive, you're going to have to go through these teething things."

And, there's the rub. Enterprise customers aren't as likely to be willing to suffer through the fits and starts of new technology, especially relating to security. They're looking for technology that solves problems, saves money and is generally easy to implement.

Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad is an example of that. And, even the iPhone, which early on met with resistance from businesses worried about support and the burden of yet another device on their IT staff, has become almost ubiquitous in its enterprise deployment.

That's why Google's faux pas this week in rolling out a buggy Gmail for iOS 5 app carries such potential weight.

Even though Google quickly pulled it off the virtual shelves of the App Store, there was such a strong reaction to it that I won't be very surprised it Google waits awhile before re-releasing the app, giving the angst it created some more time to dissipate.

Personally, I can't wait for a native Gmail to be released for my iPhone... but I'd like it to actually work this time. How about you?--Jim

A little oops goes a long way, especially when you're Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). The search giant Wednesday released its much-anticipated Gmail app for Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone and iPad in the iTunes App Store, but then pulled it back when users discovered it contained a major bug.

Google's official statement said the app "contained a bug, which broke notifications and caused users to see an error message when first opening the app. We've removed the app while we correct the problem, and we're working to bring you a new version soon. Everyone who's already installed the app can continue to use it."

iPhone owners, already dealing with an apparent bug in iOS 5 that shortens battery life for some users, reacted vociferously to the snafu, filling sites like Twitter, Google + and Facebook with scathing comments.

The release of a buggy app isn't the norm for Apple, which generally is reknown for vetting-sometimes to the nth degree-apps before they're posted to the App Store.

Google, meanwhile, has been looking to position Gmail more solidly into its suite of business apps. Research firm Gartner in September said Gmail currently has just a one percent share of the enterprise market, but said it's a real threat to players like Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), which leads the cloud email segment, because it makes up some 50 percent of the cloud email market overall.

"While cloud email is still in its infancy, at 3 to 4 percent of the overall enterprise email market, we expect it to be a growth industry, reaching 20 percent of the market by year-end 2016, and 55 percent by year-end 2020," said Matthew Cain, research VP at Gartner. "The intense competition between Microsoft and Google will make both vendors stronger and enable them to apply cloud expertise to other enterprise cloud endeavors."

For more:
- see this ZDNet article
- see this Gmail blog

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While residential services continue to make up the bulk of VoIP service revenue, new research predicts major growth in the business segment, driving combined business and residential/SOHO VoIP services revenues to grow to $76.1 billion in 2015.

Infonetics Research, in its latest VoIP and UC Services and Subscribers report, forecast revenues from SIP trunking services would reach a 52 percent compound annual growth rate between 2011 and 2015; it projected the number of seats for hosted business VoIP and unified communications services is on track to more than double during the same time period. The number of residential and small office/home office (SOHO) subscribers to hosted VoIP services is expected to grow from 179 million in 2011 to 262 million worldwide by 2015.

Overall, the report, which tracks vendors and service revenue in the residential/SOHO and business VoIP and unified communications market, said those two factors would drive the segment.

"We've increased our short and long-term forecasts for the voice over IP services market, as adoption in the residential, SOHO, and business segments continues unabated" said Diane Myers, directing analyst for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research. "The residential segment continues to make up the majority of VoIP services revenue, but the real growth is in the business segment, particularly SIP trunking services and hosted VoIP and unified communication services. Following a healthy 2010, the overall VoIP services market is on track to grow another 17 percent in 2011."

Infonetics also said that continued demand for cloud-based services has helped IP Centrex and hosted unified communication service revenue grew 22 percent, with a corresponding increase in seats of 25 percent in the first half of 2011 compared to the second half of 2010.

Meanwhile, strong uptake of VoIP services in the residential market has seen the three leaders of the global residential VoIP services market--NTT (NYSE: NTT), Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and France Télécom (NYSE: FTE)-- continue to add new VoIP subscribers in their respective regions.

For more:
- see this release

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Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI) hasn't wasted any time leveraging its purchase of Italian mobile videoconferencing provider Mirial. The company Tuesday announced its LifeSize ClearSea enterprise-class desktop and mobile video conferencing platform, which supports Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) new iOS 5, also announced Tuesday.

The LifeSize ClearSea enterprise-class desktop and mobile video conferencing platform supports iOS 5.

Logitech in July acquired Mirial and its ClearSea product specifically because it was considered to be nimble enough to move quickly across new platforms.

During an interview in July, Michael Helmbrecht, vice president of product marketing for LifeSize, told FierceEnterpriseCommunications that Mirial had, in less than a year, moved its software across Mac and Android mobile platforms as well as PCs.

"They'll help us provide a pathway to other platforms quickly, which is becoming very important because the lifecycle on hardware devices is shortening" he said then. "They are totally standards based and can move so quickly that we believe this acquisition puts us into a very good position; our competitors will have to chase us."

ClearSea already supports a broad range of iOS and Android devices including the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPad 2; HTC EVO, Desire, Incredible, myTouch 4G, Sensation and ThunderBolt; Motorola Atrix and Xoom; Samsung Epic 4G, Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab, as well as the Google Nexus S and Dell Streak.

Logitech said that, in addition to the now available iOS 5 support, ClearSea will support the new iPhone 4S, which was announced Tuesday, starting in November.

"For years the market has struggled to deliver interoperable video conferencing solutions to mobile devices--the experience has been far from the simplicity of a voice call," said Craig Malloy, chief executive officer of LifeSize and Logitech senior vice president. "We know enterprise users, ourselves included, want the ease of making a video call anywhere at any time on any device. With today's iPhone 4S announcement, we're making that possible and changing the video calling landscape--all while maintaining enterprise-class quality."

For more:
- see this release

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Research earlier this year predicted that small office spending on IP telephony was likely to grow 83 percent this year, and other research suggested that enterprise VoIP was leading a resurgence of the wireline NGN market. Now, new additional research from Companies and Markets posits that the unified communications market in the United States is poised for a breakout.

The firm said it expects the hosted UC market to grow at nearly 33 percent CAGR by 2017, as it and the larger hosted IP telephony market is reaching maturity.

And, while premises-based solutions still presents strong competition, it estimates that some 20 percent of business telephony will be hosted by 2020 as consumers become aware of the benefits and the technology becomes more accessible.

The increasing awareness and acceptance of cloud-based technologies, including stricter security around those technologies, has resulted in "positive interest and demand for hosted solutions and software as a service."

Enterprises, though, continue to embrace premises-based communications systems because they have high levels of functionality, reasonable total cost of ownership and a high level of system control.

But, as UC and PBX costs continue to decline, some PBX companies are initiating their own hosted services, potentially restraining market value.

For more:
- see this release

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Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), which in recent months has worked hard to shed businesses that were underperforming or seen to not be in line with its core business growth, today said it was acquiring service fulfillment software assets and associated employees from the U.K. subsidiary of partner company Comptel for $31 million in cash.

Cisco said it would acquire the Axioss software suite, a fulfillment platform that strengthens the Cisco service provider management offering by automating ordering and fulfillment. The software will provide management capabilities for network services for Cisco, and it will enhance Cisco Prime, which enables service providers to better manage their networks and network services.

The acquisition also will enable Cisco to extend network and service management technologies across its next-gen IP network platforms and enable service providers to more quickly and efficiently launch new video, data, mobility and cloud services to their customers. 

"As more users, connected mobile Internet devices and bandwidth intensive applications drive the explosive growth in IP-based networks, service providers continue to invest in their infrastructure to support customers' needs," said Jesper Andersen, SVP and GM of Cisco's Network Management Technology Group. "With the acquisition of AXIOSS software and talent, we will help enable service providers to generate greater profits using a single management architecture to drive quick monetization and optimization of their Cisco network investments."

The AXIOSS software suite has already been integrated into the Cisco managed services solutions. The Cisco Advanced Services operational support systems practice will offer implementation, customization and integration services for the Cisco Prime fulfillment platform as a result of the acquisition.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of calendar year 2011.

For more:
- see this release

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More and more companies are asking the question "Hosted or premise?" when they look at upgrading their legacy telephony. Infonetics and Connected Planet have a nice write up on what it takes to make that decision. Article