Posts Tagged ‘IT Expo’

Digium Releases Switchvox SMB 4.5

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Switchvox SMB 4.5 (Release number 21669) has been announced today by Digium at IT Expo East in Miami. The new version is available for immediate download. Go to ‘Machine Admin > Upgrades‘ to upgrade your SMB server.

The new version contains the following enhancements:

Phone Feature Packs – In this release, ‘Phone Provisioning Tokens’ are updated to ‘Phone Feature Packs.’ You must reboot each of your Configured phones if you want to take advantage of the new features:

  • Phone Setup
    Now you can set an Alternate Host and up to 3 extensions on each phone, and set several new administration options across all phones. (See ‘System Setup > Phone Setup‘)
  • Distinctive Ringtones: Administration
    Admins can upload system-wide ringtones for use by Configured Polycom phones. Also, two new IVR actions let admins set and remove a ‘hint’ so that extension-owners can set a distinctive ring based on a caller’s IVR selections. (See ‘PBX Features > Distinctive Ringtones‘ and ‘PBX Features > IVR Editor‘)
  • Distinctive Ringtones for Extensions (Polycom Only)
    Extensions can use system-wide ringtones, or upload their own. They can also create ‘Ring Rules’ that cause their phone to ring differently based on the caller or call-type. (See ‘Settings > Phone Features‘)
  • Phone Features (Polycom Only)
    Extension-owners can show Extension Profiles on their phone, set the number of line keys that the extension uses, and interact with PBX applications right on the handset. (See ‘Settings > Phone Features‘)
  • Phone Features (Polycom and snom)
    Extension-owners can customize line labels, auto-answer Switchboard-initiated calls, and disable the missed calls notification. (See ‘Settings > Phone Features‘)

Extension Profiles with Pictures – Phone-type extensions now include a picture, title, and location. This can be edited by the extension-owner (with permission). Profiles are shown in a new Switchboard Panel, and on Polycom phones that have a Phone Feature Pack. (See ‘Extensions > Manage Extensions‘ or ‘Settings > Modify Account‘)

Language Support – The ‘admin’ user, sub-admin users, and extension-owners can each select a language for the PBX’s User Interface. Related sound packs are available. (See ‘Machine Admin > Manage Admins‘ or ‘Settings > Modify Account‘)

PBX Monitoring – A set of SNMP OIDs is now published to monitor the PBX server, phone status, current calls, VOIP providers, and more. (See ‘Machine Admin > Network Settings‘)

Updated Polycom firmware – Most models: SIP 3.2.2 and bootrom 4.2.1 – Discontinued phones (301,501,600,601,4000) do not receive new firmware

Updated snom firmware – 3xx phones: 7.3.30, 820 phone: 8.2.11, 870 phone: 8.3.6

Video Calling - As a result of changes that Polycom, Inc. has made to their VVX 1500 phone, video calling is now available on that phone.

Stay tuned to Chromis.com for a detailed review once we’ve tested this new version on our demo server.

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Posted in IT Expo, Polycom, Snom, Switchvox, digium | No Comments »

Astricon 2009 will again be held in Chromis’ backyard

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

astriconI had a conversation in a hotel bar with Danny Windham, CEO of Digium, a few weeks ago in Miami during the IT Expo. We got to talking about Phoenix, Arizona (Chromis Technology’s hometown) and the subject of Astricon came up. He asked me if I had attended, since it was virtually in our backyard in previous years. I said that I had gone the past two years, and I thought that the 2008 show was great, in a fabulous venue. Much better than the 2007 show that was forced to move to Carefree, Arizona because the Renaissance Hotel that it was originally scheduled to be held at, was still under construction. I casually noted to him that I had heard from another Digium employee a few months prior, that the show was moving to Los Angeles for 2009. He quickly dismissed the L.A. rumor and told me that he thought that their intention was to sign with the Glendale hotel again. Danny remarked that it was a great location because the decor is very “orange” and “no other hotel was willing to redecorate” to reflect Digium’s corporate identity. Well obviously the Digium executive knew what he was talking about, after a quick check of the Astricon website today, it seems that they will formally announce that the show will again be held at the Renaissance Hotel in Glendale, Arizona. According to the site, the event will take place October 13-15 and registration will begin March 2nd, 2009. The entire Chromis Team will be in attendance, we hope to see you there!

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Posted in Asterisk, IT Expo, digium | 2 Comments »

Weavver’s VoiceScribe released in beta

Friday, February 13th, 2009

I hate signing NDA’s, but I will when I have to. And it’s not the legalities behind them, it’s that when your discussion is under the NDA umbrella, it’s usually something really cutting edge and interesting that you’re talking about. And I like talking about the bleeding edge, especially in the Asterisk space, and especially when that “thing” has some usefulness and purpose behind it.

Weavver's VoiceScribe

This was the case last week at IT Expo when Mitchel Constantin and I sat down and talked about the direction that his company is headed. I signed his NDA and could only hint about our chat in my Day Two IT Expo wrap up: “I bumped into Mitchel Constantin (who you may remember as the developer of “Snap A Number” which Digium bought from him last year) while at the Switchvox 4.0 overview given by Switchvox’s Tristan Deganhardt. Mitchel’s new company, Weavver, is doing some interesting things in the Asterisk space. Stay tuned for news and products that Weavver is now currently developing and testing. I can’t talk about it publicly, but he is on to something…”

I didn’t know it would be this soon that I’d be able to talk about it, but here it is… Weavver announced VoiceScribe this morning, a web-service for Asterisk that converts your voicemail to text and delivers them to you via e-mail.  According to their site: “No longer will there be interruptions to meetings or time wasted phoning in to listen to voicemails; simply read the transcription and go!”

Looking at the “Somewhat Confidential” quick start document, setup looks pretty easy, with a few tweaks to the “voicemail.conf” file in Asterisk. You do need some familiarity with Asterisk, but a novice should be able to set it up without too much of a problem. We’re on the beta list so of course we’ll let you know what the official Chromis Technology thoughts are, but on the surface it looks like Mitchel has developed another winner.

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Posted in Asterisk, VoiceScribe, Weavver, digium | No Comments »

Ask and ye shall receive…

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Greg Galitzine

I really love when companies that I don’t think are completely approachable completely prove me wrong… Well that’s how I feel about TMC this week, I received a response from Greg Galitzine, Editorial Director of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine, via his blog regarding the Best in Show award that they gave to Interactive Intelligence at the 2009 IT Expo East. (Read my initial thoughts.) To break it down quickly I agree with him, on the surface it seems funny for Interactive Intelligence to receive an “SMB” award. But as Greg points out: “While small and medium business, or SMB, generally implies companies on the smaller end of the spectrum, we often tend to forget the “M” or mid-size group of businesses.” (Click here to read the full story at tmcnet.com.)

Well that makes sense to me… I am man enough to admit when I’m wrong, and in this case, I admit it. So thank you Greg for the clarification.

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Posted in Awards, IT Expo, TMC | 2 Comments »

ITEXPO East 2009 Attendance Up 15%

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Internet Telephony Conference and Expo

Well, I didn’t win the Jeep this year at ITExpo… One of the 8,309 people that did attend drove it home… It’s no surprise to me that the attendance numbers for this year’s ITExpo were up 15%. I was busy the whole show and barely had time to attend the sessions that I had mapped out for myself. However, the show also felt smaller a little more compressed than last year. Exhibit space square footage just didn’t seem like it compared to a year ago… Maybe the bus that was parked on the show floor last year made it feel bigger… Well in my opinion it’s still a heck of a show, and definitely the place to be if you play in this communications space. Click here for Rich Tehrani’s breakdown of the final numbers for 2009.

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Posted in IT Expo, TMC | No Comments »

Interactive Intelligence’s Best of Show Award confusion

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Interactive Intelligence

So I feel I need to clear up the the stink that I caused with Interactive Intelligence and their Best In Show Award that was issued to them by the show’s editors for “Best SMB Solution”. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, InIn was given the award at the 2009 IT Expo East show in Miami. (Click here for a complete list of winners.) Here is my excerpt if you didn’t read the whole post (It was a little lengthy):

“Shortly before the show closed I attended a “Bullseye routing” demo given by Interactive Intelligence. Now what caught my eye here is the award in the picture. “Best SMB Solution” was what it read… SMB Solution? There is nothing SMB about Interactive Intelligence and their solution. They don’t pretend to be SMB and will always claim to be an enterprise solution. I asked one of the InIn folks and she wasn’t sure what that was all about but would look into it. I even approached TMC’s Greg Galitzine about it and he told me he’d look into it. Greg I’m going to hold you to that and expect a response…”

Well I didn’t get a response from Greg yet but I did speak with an Interactive Intelligence representative working the booth and she told me that their PR representative made a mistake and entered them into that category. Now I don’t think she was giving me lip service and that this was an honest mistake on the PR rep’s part, but I still have a problem here.

So where’s the beef do you ask? Well in my humble opinion, the editors at TMC should have caught this mistake. They live and die in this communications space and should know that II solutions are not SMB but rather definitivly enterprise. There is not even a blend where it could cross the chasm and maybe, even remotely be SMB designed, etc. So TMC editors, I ask that if you want these awards to really mean something, which I think do, please, please, please make sure you review your applications a little more closely, and make sure the shoe fits, so to speak, before you issue the next round of awards. I understand that you guys are busy at these shows and that may be a difficult task, but a glaring error like this should not go undetected until after the fact.

The show was fantastic otherwise, I spoke with more people then I expected, and attendance seems like it was record breaking. So hats off to TMC in that respect. You guys do know how to put on a communications conference and I can’t wait to see what the show in Los Angeles in October will bring.

Editors note: Click here to read the outcome.

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Posted in IT Expo, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »