It’s almost a week since the close of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C. – an area where I have spent a lot of time over the past thirty-six years, mostly on business but also on (ski) vacations. These Olympics turned out to be a defining moment not just for Canadian athletics [...]
Communications Stories, Service Providers, Wireless Carriers
Over the past eighteen months I have often reported on iotum’s Calliflower voice conferencing service as it has evolved and matured. For the first time in a few months I had occasion to use it once again yesterday evening. Connecting 11 participants in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle, New York and Virginia, I can report on [...]
Communications News, Conversation Providers, Mobile Applications, Service Providers
When it comes to organizing and following my Twitter activity, I have found that SocialScope – currently in a closed beta and only available on BlackBerry – provides the most complete and most satisfying Twitter user experience. A recent interview with Ubiquitous Systems CEO Amit Kumar provided some additional background on how SocialScope evolved [...]
Mobile Applications, Social Media, Web 2.0 Tools and Applications
I first met iotum CEO Alec Saunders as a competitor in the Canadian PC software market back in 1994. I was Canadian Country Manager for Quarterdeck whose QEMM-386 memory manager had been the tops-selling utility for DOS-based PC’s; Alec was Microsoft’s Canada’s Product Manager for DOS where they were introducing some memory management techniques [...]
Communications Stories, Developers, Mobile Applications
While, being a Canadian where I could not try out Skype for iPhone “legally”, I have followed the coverage and comments across the web. At this point I simply want to provide a summary and links to some of the feedback. In some sense, Hudson Barton’s tweet earlier today, shown above, sums it all up.
First, [...]
Skype Software, Skype on Mobile, Using Skype
Note: this post has been modified and updated to reflect clarifications of issues from Skype PR.
I woke up this morning to find this message on Phil’s Skype Journal post announcing the download availability of Skype for iPhone but with one caveat:
“THIS APPLICATION IS NOT AVAILABLE IN CANADA AND THE USER WARRANTS THAT THEY CANNOT [...]
Mobile Applications, Service Providers, Skype News, Skype Software, Skype on Mobile
Having just come out from behind the rocks of West Virginia and spent all yesterday traveling, I arrived home to find that it has been confirmed that Skype will be launching an application on the iPhone tomorrow. The major point coming out of the announcement, aside from the conversation feature set, is that Skype [...]
Communications Stories, Mobile Applications, Skype on Mobile, Wireless Carriers
Yesterday Om put up a GigaOm post, Skype on iPhone to be released as early as next week. While it’s still an unconfirmed “exclusive” rumor (and you can safely bet the eBay PR hounds are looking for any leak source if this is a leak), it does raise the issue of what we should [...]
Communications News, Mobile Applications, Skype on Mobile
Skype Access, where a Skype user can go to any Boingo WiFi access point and use Skype Credits to pay for Boingo service on a “per minute” basis via Skype Credits, has so far only been available via Skype for Mac 2.8 beta launched in early January. However, as a St. Patrick’s Day present, [...]
Service Providers, Skype News, Wireless Carriers
Skype today published data from a recent Zobgy survey that, aside from demonstrating smartphone users’ desire to control their own phone configuration, demonstrates that a significant majority of users in the four countries surveyed (U.S., U.K., Japan and Spain) simply are still not perceiving the potential for a mobile phone handset to be considered [...]
Communications Stories, Mobile Applications, Skype News, Wireless Carriers
Yesterday’s announcement of Grand Central’s rebirth as Google Voice drew a lot of attention from both the mainstream media and blogger world. In following the IP-based communications world over the past three years, I have come to believe that the only potential real time conversation service provider challenger to Skype could come from Google. [...]
Communications News, Conversation Providers, Mobile Applications, Using Skype
Sometimes communications services come along that demonstrate technical feasibility but then you have to ask “Why?”, “Who would use it?”, “What are the real user benefits?” Such a service is the voice-to-text SMS-based service announced by Skype and partner SpinVox last week.
Basically a Skype user can set up their account such that Skype voicemails [...]
Mobile Applications, Skype News, Skype Partner News, Skype Partner Solutions