About 20 years ago I was managing the Canadian operation of Quarterdeck, publisher of the very popular QEMM-386 memory manager for DOS. During that period Microsoft decided they needed to upgrade DOS to include some memory management features in DOS 5 and later DOS 6. Somehow the genius developer team at Quarterdeck always managed to [...]
The U.S. “Subsidy” Game is Up – The End of “Free” on the PSTN
Ever wonder how those “free” conferencing services work? Why did Magic Jack offer such a low price compared to legacy landline service providers? And why did this only work in the U.S.? Yet, how can Skype and other IP-based communications service providers continue to offer “free”? Seem like the U.S. had developed subsidy programs, of [...]
iotum’s Calliflower Conference Call Service Adds Skype Access
Since its launch about two years ago, I have blogged several times about iotum’s CalliFlower Conference Calling service. More significantly I have used it for several conference calls of up to 25 people, including a couple that ran for over two hours. While permitting up to several hundred participants into a conference call, Calliflower’s primary [...]
HiDef Conferencing Relaunches as a Service of Citrix Online’s Audio Services Group
Citrix Audio Services Group (formerly VAPPS, Inc.) has repackaged its “stand alone” HiDef Conferencing offerings to provide clearer, more predictable charges while relaunching its website to be more consistent with the Citrix Online brand. ASG is also about to become the preferred supplier of voice services for Citrix Online collaboration services such as GoToMeeting and [...]
Calliflower Update: Reaching Out to 30 Countries and 100 Cities.
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 an [...]
Who Comprises the “Team” for a Startup?
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 into [...]
eComm 2009: An Outstanding Primer in Emerging Communications
Over the past three days there has been a continuous stream of presentations that provide insight into a wide range of issues, opportunities and perspectives in the IP-based communications space going forward. While there will be more posts covering individual presentations, it’s worth taking time to mention a few highlights: Most innovative, outside-the-box, presentation: Ge [...]
Set Up and Make CalliFlower Conference Calls from Your iPhone
Over the past eighteen months CalliFlower has evolved into a complete audio conference call service. While they still offer a basic free service, in January they launched a premium service that provides document sharing, local calling numbers in North America, Europe and Australia as well as a feature that allows administrators to set up, but [...]
Updates: iNum, Calliflower and Entering “Last Name” onto a BlackBerry
With both VoiceCon and Under The Radar events in the Bay Area last week, there were lots of announcements in the Voice 2.0 communications space; I wrote up some GigaOm and Web Worker Daily Posts to cover a few of them: On Tuesday Voxbone announced the launch of their iNum Service. Basically it provides a [...]
Logitech to Acquire SightSpeed. Questions Arise.
According to Tech Crunch and GigaOm posts late last night Logitech is about to spend $30 million to acquire SightSpeed, the video messaging and video conferencing service that recently was selected ot provide the infrastructure for Dell’s Video Chat. Congratulations to Peter Csathy and his team. Seems like the video calling and video conferencing market [...]
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Skype Reference Guide
- Skype 5.8 for Windows Released February 6, 2012
- Skype senses Halitosis? Hold your breath! February 4, 2012
- Logitech C920 Webcam: for a Superior Skype Video Calling Experience February 1, 2012
- RIM and BlackBerry: Benchmarks for Progress January 27, 2012
- Vidtel MeetMe: A First Glimpse at Group Video Conferencing Interoperability January 19, 2012
- FREETALK® Everyman USB Headset for Skype: Not “Just Another Headset”! August 14, 2009
- Coming “Real Soon Now”: Skype for iPhone over 3G February 3, 2010
- Skype’s SILK Codec: Working Towards Adoption as a Standard March 11, 2010
- SILK: Skype’s New Audio Codec Sets New Performance Standards for Voice Conversations February 3, 2009
- Skype Everywhere: Nokia and Skype Announce Ongoing Partnership February 17, 2009
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- The Jim Courtney Daily is out! http://t.co/1sz4ht5R ▸ Top stories today via @jasonnazar @ccummins @itexpo about 1 hour ago from Paper.li ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Voice On The Web: @Skype 5.8 for Windows Released http://t.co/CV54pQO7 HD Video, Group Video Screen Share about 13 hours ago from TweetDeck ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Skype 5.8 for Windows Released... http://t.co/CV54pQO7 about 13 hours ago from WP Tweet Button ReplyRetweetFavorite
- The Jim Courtney Daily is out! http://t.co/1sz4ht5R ▸ Top stories today via @wpfreelance 06:54:28 AM February 06, 2012 from Paper.li ReplyRetweetFavorite
- “@asaunders: Seth's blog: Rightsizing your passion http://t.co/HZQZB0Jc” 07:11:59 PM February 05, 2012 from TweetDeck ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Voice On The Web: @Skype senses Halitosis? Hold your breath! http://t.co/rx1tIbqN thanks, @ambermac 07:08:52 PM February 05, 2012 from TweetDeck ReplyRetweetFavorite


