Waking up this morning, I was happy to see that the emerging world of new companies wanting to play in the combined voice and video space is far from a thing of the past.
If anything, the space is heating up. Two new companies have crossed the radar. One, takes advantage of Skype and is called SkyStone. Based in Italy, they want to leverage the Skype network and P2P technology, bridge into the business world with SIP and h.323 compatibility and be desk phone friendly.
The second is a new entry in the softphone market, called VoxOx. At a time when Counterpath is downsizing, and forward progress on EyeBeam and Bria seems stalled, this very eye candy oriented application from TelCentris (a San Diego based IP Communications company) seems to be wanting to go after the GizmoProject, Skype and SightSpeed market.
The app has a very Dell Video Chat or ooVoo like looking user interface, with some neat integration on the backend to unify your Instant Messaging and what appears to be your social networks. Built as cross platform, with Mac and PC already available and Linux coming soon they say, the beta offering gives you two hours of USA based calling as a trial, a phone number and unified messaging features. In many ways at first blush this app looks like an EyeBeam clone with some Social and IM functionality, with a GrandCentral like find me/follow me. It’s feature rich and well designed and worth a deeper look.