News Archive - December 2010

Poor Skype. A mere day after its key consumer service suffered a major outage, affecting tens of millions of users for hours on end, a patent infringement lawsuit against the company was filed in the United States. Plaintiff is the obscure Gradient Enterprises, a non-practicing entity (also lovingly known as an “obnoxious patent troll” in some parts).

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Skype suffered a major service outage that left millions of users without VoIP calling services. What is the reason for the failure? Apparently, it is due to the fundamental way in which the Skype network is designed. Can you say “fragile”?

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Microsoft said that it has sold more than 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices in the first six weeks, but it's important to note that the number reflects the number of units sold to mobile operators and retailers and not necessarily direct to consumers.

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Google said it will continue to make its Gmail calling capability free through 2011, a sign that the company wants to make sure more of its Webmail users embrace the technology.

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Tencent, the world's third largest Internet company by market share, launched its popular instant messenger service in English, Japanese and French.

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Will people want to use videoconferencing at work? Research indicates that 39% of employees say they do not want to use it for one reason or another.

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Cisco hopes to enable collaboration technologies, including voice and video, with the virtualization experience infrastructure (VXI). This technology will sit on top of the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and be able to provide a rich media experience.

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Cisco used an Internet router in orbit to make what it called the first VoIP telephone call from space.

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Cisco and BMC Software said today they are expanding their partnership to enable telecommunications companies to offer multi-tenant cloud computing services.

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Skype is building a team to work on cloud products and will be launching a number of web-based applications in the near future.

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AT&T and BT have teamed up to form the first network operator telepresence exchange, in a move that should provide a significant boost to high-definition videoconferencing.

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The holiday season is precisely when you come to appreciate a new product like Umi Telepresence from Cisco. After all, Umi can turn the high-definition television in your living room into a giant video phone.

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