Voice over IP Newsradar

BroadSoft Acquires VocalData

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:37:22 GMT

Interesting story from yesterday about BroadSoft acquiring what used to be known as VocalData. It's not huge news and hasn't received much attention, but for people like me who have followed these companies pretty much from the beginning, we notice.

You can tell I'm old school because I talk about VocalData. The more current explanation - which you can see in the press release - is that BroadSoft acquired "GENBAND's M6 Communication Applications Server" - formerly known as VocalData.

Genband - formerly General Bandwidth - is a story unto itself with a history of acquiring and divesting, and VocalData came along with their last big deal. I've never been able to figure out how all their moves really add up - and I'm not alone - but it's pretty clear they're steering now more towards the media gateway space and away from the applications space. Fair enough - it's very hard to be really good at both.

I haven't heard anything yet about how much the deal was worth, but I honestly can't imagine it was a lot, and very likely under $10 million. The important thing is that BroadSoft is consolidating what little is left among pureplay application server vendors. There was a time when the U.S. market had 3 major players - BroadSoft, Sylantro and VocalData, and I tracked them all when I covered this space at Frost & Sullivan. I always liked VocalData, but they couldn't keep pace, and in time, this became a two horse race.

I've long been friendly with both Sylantro and BroadSoft - and have attended their customer events - but most people would tell you that BroadSoft is the stronger player these days,

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Mobile Roundup Squawk Box Podcast

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:17:31 GMT

Just a quick note to say Alec Saunders has now posted the podcast of yesterday's Squawk Box session.

We had a mobile roundup session, and I was able to log in and participate. Mobile VoIP has been a hot topic lately - and I've been posting about it - so it was a lively forum for everyone to weigh in on.

So, if you're following things like mobile VoIP, the iPhone, Android, smartphones in general, and the latest N Series phones from Nokia - and want to hear what a lot of smart, connected people are thinking, the podcast will be worth a listen. It's about an hour long, though, and you can download it from the link on Alec's post - here.

Technorati tags: mobile VoIP, Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, Squawk Box, Calliflower

SPOTLIGHT: Hate and lust over an IP phone prototype

Doug Mohney — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:57:42 GMT

A lot of geek tech sites are frothing over the Tatung VoIP phone prototype. The design has won the 2008 IF, IDEA, and Red Dot design awards... whatever that means. Techno-bloggers seem to be torn between degrading it as an "electronic lollipop," and loving it so much they want to "lick one" the more they look at it.

We'll point out that the creator of the phone -- e-Nova design -- also picked up an award for the TATUNG iHaloo VOIP Webcam Phone, so there should be some very pretty pieces of plastic in the production pipeline.

For more:
- Gizmodo has pretty pictures and conflicting tastes. Blog
- Visit e-Nova design. Website

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