iphone

Fixed-mobile convergence vendor DiVitas supports iPhone, Android and Blackberry

In the realm of dual-mode fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), one of the biggest barriers to broad adoption is the narrow scope of smartphone platforms supported. Agito and DiVitas, the two top independent dual-mode FMC vendors have struggled to come together with some of the platform makers… A big stumbling block for adoption has long been the lack of dual-mode FMC support for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry platform, still THE enterprise smartphone platform of choice.

In June we reported that Agito finally managed to add BlackBerry suppoprt, expanding beyond the 40 or so Nokia Symbian and Windows Mobile devices it had already been supporting.

DiVitas, on the other hand had been quiet for awhile on the BlackBerry front, limited to Windows Mobile and Nokia E series and N series phones.

Today DiVitas announced a huge expansion of the mobile platforms it supports. It has developed a native client and a web-based client that extends its FMC technology to the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android operating systems.

Check out this PDF data sheet on the new Divitas offerings. You’ll see snapshots of what DiVitas’ FMC client looks like on each mobile platform.

Mutual dislike of Microsoft won’t salvage Google and Apple’s broken BFF bromance

The days of Google and Apple having a cuddly relationship appear to be ending, and unified communications has played a small part in the break-up.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple’s board of directors today, just a few days after the FCC opened an inquiry into why Apple rejected the Google Voice application from its iPhone App Store. Google Voice, based on the technology Google acquired with GrandCentral, is sort of a UC-on-the-cheap technology, as pointed out by our Click to Talk blogger, Tony Bradley.  At it’s core, Google Voice allows users to establish a single phone number which can be set to ring any number of devices - desk phones, mobile phones, home phones. It also has some unified messaging features, such as visual voice mail and online voice mail access, and it offers some other useful features, such as call recording, conference calling and directory assistance.

When Apple rejected the Google Voice application, many bloggers were upset. Some suspected that Apple was trying to protect AT&T from losing revenue, since Google Voice users can easily use the technology to move a phone call from their mobile device to a land-line. However, the picture is much more complicated than that.

As Dave Michaels pointed out on his blog, Pin Drop Soup, Apple and Google are now competitors. Although Google remains largely a Web-based software company and Apple remains mostly a hardware company, that distinction isn’t enough to keep this bromance alive. Michaels writes: “Well, maybe not a ‘primary’ competitor since Google doesn’t make hardware. But Google does make a browser, a cell phone platform, and an OS - direct alternatives to those made by Apple.”

Historically, Google and Apple have been relatively friendly toward, based on a mutual distrust of Microsoft. Schmidt’s presence on Apple’s board formalized that friendship. But now the companies’ interests are diverging. Google, which makes the bulk of its revenue in online advertising, wants a wireless Internet that is as open as its wired cousin is. Apple, like Microsoft and the majority of wireless service providers, want maintain a market where devices, operating systems, and carriers have a high degree of control over how wireless users access the Internet.

Apple and Google should have seen this split coming. After all, Microsoft is mostly a software company, too, and it has been Apple’s fiercest rival for decades.

VoiceCon keynote: Kraft Foods UC vision includes Avaya and the iPhone

Kraft Foods sounds like a fun place to work. During his keynote, Tom Behnke, manager of network services, global architecture and strategy for Kraft, gave VoiceCon attendees a glimpse of the future for information workers at his company. He offered details of a unified communications pilot program at Kraft’s Chicago facility.

Behnke’s pilot involves a rethinking of not only communications and collaboration technologies, but also the workspace. Kraft wants to change the collaboration culture among its employees. To do that, it did away with traditional cubicles and office, putting information workers at large work table, where they can sit side by side and face each other.

As far as technology, Behnke brought in Avaya to deliver its voice infrastructure. He also decided to go with a wireless office, so employees could move freely throughout their workspace, building a Cisco wireless LAN infrastructure that was designed by HP/EDS. And he engaged AT&T to come in and build an in-building cellular system so that he could deploy iPhones to every employee.

Behke said his goal was to change the user perception that he was providing them with technology widgets that they had to use. He was trying to create something that would focus on the individual user experience, that would help them the way they do there jobs.

One thing that really jumped out at me. He designed this new environment to be free of MAC addresses. If a user needs to move his work station, he can just get up and walk somewhere else. IT doesn’t need to reassign the employee’s phone and network profile to a new set of ports.

I’ve asked Avaya to give me a one-on-one conversation with Behnke is doing at Kraft. If they come through, I’ll write more extensively about this project for www.SearchUnifiedCommunications.com.

Telepresence will kill airline profits

I don’t know how this escaped my attention last month but Gartner predicted that video telepresence will take away $3.5 billion in revenue from the airline industry by 2012. That’s got to make executives at Delta and US Air wince.

As part of its top 10 predictions for 2009, Gartner predicted that telepresence would replace 2.1 million airline seats per year by 2012. In making this prediction, Gartner declined to estimate how much telepresence is costing airlines today.

Given how ruinous telepresence promises to be for the airline industry, I’m left wondering if the Deltas and US Airs of the world are investing in telepresence themselves. Will executives at airlines try to save money by holding high level meetings via telepresence, or will they stubbornly refuse to adopt this technology and continue to fly to on-site meetings in some symbolic effort to support the business.

Another interesting prediction from Gartner: By the end of 2013, 40% of enterprise knowledge workers will have abandoned or removed their desk phones.  This certainly applies to me. I’d be happy to throw my desk phone in the trash if my employer agreed to subsidize part of the service plan for my iPhone.  As it is, I work from home twice a week, and on those days my iPhone is my only means of telephony.

Hat Tip to John Willis