CalliFlower On iPhone, Fantastic.

http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
I was happy to find Calliflower, the conferencing application,(Free Conference Calls) from IOTUM on my iPhone App Store. I have been looking forward to the application.
The basic service is still free but once you see what the new premium service offers (Free local numbers in Australia, Europe, and North America, offline administration and Document sharing) you would certainly add it to your account.
Even with the premium service, there are no per minute charges or call time limits, it is all you can eat conference buffet with as many participants you would like.
I am writing this even before testing the application and I looking forward very much to test calliflower on iPhone experience. (I did a brief test)
From what I read we get everything but the document sharing (due to lack of flash support on iPhone) from the desktop application. Alec Saunders, the CEO of Iotum has written a nice post about calliflower on iPhone, Calliflower on iPhone releases.
Andy Abramson also talks about the virtues of Calliflower on iPhone.

Tags: Conference Solutions, calliflower, iPhone, calliflower on iPhone, Free Conference Calls, Document sharing

Citrix Systems Acquires Vapps, the HD Voice Conferencing Firm.

http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/

Update;
Andy from VoIP Watch had his hand in Vapps! Congrats Andy! He had following to say;
"To our friends Ben and John at VAPPS, and their investors at Azure Capital Partners, a big pat on the back for a very healthy exit. It was less than a year ago when Ben asked us to represent the company and we could not have asked for a better client or a better product to talk about. Congratulations to you all."

Citrix Systems has, according it's SEC 10-Q filings, acquired Vapps, a service provider offering high-definition audio conference services. Vapps works with VoIP and the company has partnered with Adobe, Skype, Gizmo, Yahoo and MSN to provide high-quality audio conferencing for SOHO market and Small and Medium Business.

Citrix has paid 26.6 Million alread and promised to make it 30 Million, if Vapps meet certain goals, in it's operations.

So expect to see HD Voice conferencing in Citrix's GoToMeeting service, enhancing the already a very nice offering.

Tags: VoIP Conferencing, Conference Solutions, Citrix, GoToMeeting, Vapps, Adobe, Skype, Gizmo, Yahoo

Novell's Opern Source Wepons In Collaboration Arena Aims At Microsoft SharePoint.

Last time I dealt with collaboration with Novell was a years ago with Groupwise. But recently Novell acquired the ICEcore project as part of the SiteScape. Since then Novell renamed the IceCore Project to be Kablink, sighting that name, IceCore did not cut with the enterprise computing. The ICEcore project / Kablink is open source, it is the basis for Novell's Teaming + Conferencing commercial solution. Novell takes the Kablink development tree and adds some additional enterprise features such as backup and recovery.

Novell Teaming brings together people and the content they need to do their jobs. Users create workspaces and invite other members to participate—both from within or outside organizational boundaries. Virtual teams can easily and securely manage, share, locate and access documents, calendars, discussion forums, wikis and blogs. Novell Teaming also includes powerful, built-in workflow functions to help team members track the status and progress of documents. Team workspaces also enable enterprise social networking and the creation of effective teams, with members chosen not by proximity, but because they possess the required content expertise and skills for the project.

There are more features in the real-time collaboration solution make users aware of the online availability of team members and give users the ability to instant message (IM) with team members–either individually or as a group–or participate in live voice conferences or Web conferences. The Web conferencing components let users share desktops, show slide presentations and participate in whiteboarding sessions. With these solutions, teams communicate more effectively and become more productive irrespective of their platform of their choice (Linux and Windows).

The Novell's Teaming + Conferencing commercial solution place itself in the Microsoft's Sharepoint Space and from the comparisons provided on the Novell site shows the differences.

Novell Teaming + Conferencing includes:

• Document management and sharing
• Team calendars and shared task lists
• Discussion threads, wikis, blogs, and RSS feeds
• Workflow
• Content and knowledge management with quick search
• Web and voice conferencing
• Instant messaging/chat
• Application sharing and whiteboarding
• Integrated presence awareness

Tags: Conference Solutions, Collaboration, ICEcore, SiteScape, Kablink, Teaming + Conferencing, voice conference, Web conference

Free Conference Solution, Free Conference Call Gets Direct Dial-in Numbers.

Free Conferencing Corporation, also known as freeconferencecall.com has taken another step by adding New Direct Dial-in Numbers for its Flagship Voice Messaging Services,SimpleVoiceBox and SimpleVoiceCenter. So these Private Numbers with “No Limits” Now Available for trouble free conferencing.

Long Beach, CA (August 11, 2008) – Free Conferencing Corporation of America, the leading provider of FREE collaborative communications solutions, today announced the launch of private numbers to its SimpleVoiceBox and SimpleVoiceCenter services. The new Private Numbers give customers direct, immediate access to their voicemail boxes without dialing an access code.

"We are giving our existing and prospective SimpleVoiceBox and SimpleVoiceCenter customers a truly ‘No Limits’ voicemail service," said David Erickson, founder and CEO, Free Conferencing Corporation of America. "We now offer unlimited outgoing greetings, place no limits on incoming messages, and do not require access codes or extra digits – you simply dial the area code and number. It is powerful yet simple."

According to Erickson, Private Numbers are ideal for consumers and small businesses seeking an alternative to costly phone systems. It can also be used in social networking environments such as Facebook and MySpace; other Web 2.0 applications such as online dating sites; and marketing sites including Craigslist and Ebay. “Online identity protection is key when socializing, interacting or transacting on some of these popular sites. We are providing anonymous, private and confidential numbers that can be given out without the need to disclose actual contact information. Private Numbers are a great alternative to your home or cell phone numbers,” he added.

This expanded offering provides a full featured voicemail service which can be activated immediately without any long term contracts. Other features include: online account access, phone or web administration, multiple configurations that allow users to utilize the voicemail service as a broadcaster, 24/7 availability, email notifications of new messages, and Daily Activity Reports with a “Caller ID Capture” feature. The single voice box is available for $4.95 per month and the unlimited multiple voice box version is available for $9.95 per month.

“For the past four years, SimpleVoiceBox and SimpleVoiceCenter have been providing extremely useful voicemail services to more than 800,000 users, resulting in more than 7.5 million connected calls per month,” noted Erickson. “We hope to replicate our success as the leading provider of free conferencing solutions and become the leader in voicemail services.”

For more information or to register for SimpleVoiceBox or SimpleVoiceCenter, please visit www.simplevoicecenter.com or www.simplevoicebox.com or call 877.482.5838.

Tags: VoIP Conference, Conference Solutions, freeconferencecall, FREE collaborative communications solutions, Direct Dial-in Numbers