Toktumi: First Instant Small Biz Phone Service With BIG Company Features

Today, client Toktumi introduces the first instant small business phone service with big business features, which makes small businesses look much larger than they are with sophisticated office functionality not available with other like-services.

It's the first service to marry free, downloadable PC software to an enterprise-grade hosted PBX, creating an easy yet powerful office phone system that can be set up in five minutes. Toktumi requires no special hardware, although the company offers an adapter that allows customers to connect regular telephones to their PCs. You can start with a free version, which gives them a phone number, voicemail, and free calling and conferencing with other Toktumi users worldwide.

You can also opt to upgrade to the paid version for $12.95 per month, enabling calls to most regular phones worldwide for only two cents per minute. The paid service also allows customers to select their phone numbers and area codes or port their current number to Toktumi.

Toktumi is tapping into a very underserved market, the 40M people working in small businesses with one to nine employees, half of whom work out of their homes. Each Toktumi line offers a complete solution, including a phone number, inbound and outbound calling, and a full-range of business-grade features including call transfer, an auto-attendant that can forward to internal or external numbers, conferencing for up to 20 people, visual voicemail, call waiting, and more.

It also offers a first-of-its-kind feature called Search Dialing, which taps address books and online search engines to allow users to call any number by entering a name or keyword describing the person, company, product or service for which they are looking.

Toktumi integrates directly with the PC. Customers can connect any corded, cordless, or speaker phone directly to their PC using Toktumi’s adapter – no special PBX or VoIP phone is required. Toktumi can also work as a “softphone” with a PC headset and microphone.

To ensure reliable service, all of Toktumi’s core features and functionality are hosted on company-owned infrastructure in enterprise-grade data centers.

Customers’ calls are always answered, even when their PC is off or their Internet down. Calls can be sent to an auto-attendant, to voicemail, or forwarded to other phones such as cell phones. This provides enterprise-grade continuity of service to even the smallest of businesses.

Toktumi service is based on technology from Global IP Solutions (GIPS), assuring high quality sound throughout the communication. This is the first product available to be built on GIPS new REX SDK softphone platform, which delivers high quality voice processing, NAT and Firewall traversal, and PBX features to Toktumi users.

ZDNET DEMO Teaser

Tom Foremski does a teaser in ZDNET about this week's DEMO announcements, citing that telephony will be a trend. Client Toktumi is referenced. More from the show floor.

Skype's CEO Steps Down

Yowsa, coverage all over the net (and CNBC this morning) on Skype's CEO Niklas Zennstrom stepping down.....ZDNET reports. All this on the heals of customers complaining of slow service and consistent crashes, including me, a Skype user. Peter Sisson's VoiP blog addresses the announcement as well.

VoIP Hot: $20 Million Hot

VoIP is heating up again. Jajah just landed $20 million for their Series C funding, Intel Capital leading the round. According to TechCrunch, Intel will provide JAJAH access to their community of product dealers, OEM customers and developers, as well as access to Intel’s range of VOIP patents -- all in an effort to continue their mobile efforts.

"From existing platforms through to ultra mobile devices that merge computers, mobile and wifi technology, Jajah wants to be a first choice VOIP provider, and the Intel deal should help them achieve that goal." Last night, I reconnected with a CEO/founder of a potential Jajah competitor, so you may hear some more noise in this space soon. The space is heating up -- again, and it appears that there's room for it.

Google's FREE411

Having launched 1-800-FREE411, I was surprised at the time we had only one real competitor and they were really targeting the San Diego market only at the time. Right before the Easter weekend, the buzz started around Google's new FREE411 -- 1-800-466-4411 (800-GOOG-411) -- which Om pointed out, "was only a matter of time." Indeed.

They added the additional feature most of us who have been using the free services, will love -- connecting you afterward with no charge.

Enter Mobilcast

New in the last week is the Mobilcaster Blog - mobile phone podcasts. Rob Greenlee has uploaded new mobilcast video demos on YouTube and elsewhere. You can download the app here.

Some of these videos document the process to make a Melodeo.com website playlist sync to mobilcast on your mobile phone. They also recently announced the first on-demand mobile podcasting and radio service in the UK.

Mobilcast is available to customers of 3's new X Series mobile internet service. Customers signing up for the monthly package will get unlimited data, webmail, 50 hours of Orb data, free Skype-to-Skype calls, unlimited MSN instant messenger and 50 hours plus access to their home TV service via SlingBox. 3 customers will initially be able to download podcasts using the Nokia N73 handset with more to follow after launch.

Cisco and Apple

Industry bud Glenn Gaudet started a blog. He's with Pulver Media, is baked into VoIP and related issues, and writes about some of the trends. He recently wrote about the issues between Cisco and Apple, and included a timeline of facts on the iPhone progress since 1996. Apple apparently bought the iPhone URL in 1999.

Ron Miller also writes about the iPhone/Apple/Cisco controversy and implications. Ron interviewed a handful of branding experts regarding the Cisco lawsuit and how it might affect the name, brand and possible success of the iPhone.

He captures comments and insight from Rob Frankel, author of The Revenge of Brand X: How to build a Big Time Brand on the Web or Anywhere Else. Frankel adds an interesting point, "Apple, of course, doesn't own the i-designation (as Cisco can certainly attest), "i-anything" is not really owned by anyone. Just like "e-anything" isn't owned by anyone, per se."

He also talks to Giannina Granata Silverman, who runs Rocket Ranch Design and Advertising in Seattle and David Meerman Scott, author of the book, Cashing in with Content: How innovative marketers use digital information to turn browsers into buyers.

Also on Glenn's new blog is around traditional TV cable and why he fell out of love with it. I agree and then some, meaning I would have slammed them. He's light and polite about it.

I haven't had the time or energy to write an intelligent post about it, but c'mon, they're providing less value for more money the content is crap and rates have been going up. Let people customize what they want and don't want. Give me a tiered service and let me choose the 20 stations I want and eliminate the ones I never watch or don't care about.

DOT NOT CALL List Means DO NOT CALL

What is it about DO NOT CALL that callers do not understand? When I first moved into my new place, I was inundated with so many calls in the first day, I barely had time to think.

Once I registered all of my numbers with the official Do Not Call Registry, they seemed to stop for awhile. Perhaps a year, but the registration is good for quite a few years and yet today, I received three calls.

What part of DO NOT CALL / OPT OUT do callers not understand? Ya hate to be rude, but......SO, I had to make it clear. DO NOT CALL LIST means DO NOT CALL me to solicit or ask for money. Period.

Discussion Topics at Today's Mash Up Camp

In the style that Berlind had hoped, there was no set agenda for Day 1 of their Mash Up camp. Session topics were being created throughout the day and added to the 'main schedule board,' depending on what interested attendees.

At any time, you could add a new session you wanted to lead in an open time slot if there was an open room.

Some of the topics that people added included: rapid development platforms, creative commons and mashups, widgets and containers, mobile mashups, monetization and business models, eBay and Amazon web services, API: best practices, Microformats: can your website be your API, XDI: creating the dataweb, identity management and security, privacy, storage, VoIP, mashups for social change, wiki: tagging and Intranet search, and how mashups fail.

Tag: mash up camp Tag: mashupcamp

VoIP @ CES

Von Magazine reports an IPv6 push at CES this year.

Says Von Magazine, "switching to the next version of Internet Protocol – the ubiquitous "IP" – hasn't received a lot of traction within North America outside of the U.S. government, but that at CES this year..........tomorrow in the "New Internet Consumer Electronics" conference track, IPv6 will be extensively jaw-bowned to be used for everything from IP-enabled cell phones to IPTV."

"Other devices being linked to IPv6 include power-line high-speed data systems, cooperatively networked audio/visual systems – just the thing when your HDTV wants to talk to the TiVo – and various mobile systems."

IPv6 may provide better security however and apparently under the current version of IP – v4 – the Internet numbers will be used up by the end of 2005. (well that's passed, just like Year 2000 did).