gizmodo.com — Our Bothan spies sent us some shots of a USB-key based Vonage SoftPhone that will be available in June. This thing consists of the USB key containing the software and a headset. You plug it into any PC—no Mac support, apparently—up comes your home phone and voicemail et al.
May 13, 2006 View in Crawl 4
stopherMay 13, 2006
That is pretty cool. I've been on Packet8 for a while b/c it's cheaper but their feature set kinda sucks compared to Vonage. You can't check your voicemail online. They will email you a .wav of it but I hear Vonage has a nice web interface. I'd realy dig beingi able to use my pc to make calls.
drzowieMay 13, 2006
I see a couple of comments about "mac zealots", but please remember that digitalgopher got it wrong -- "PC" is a generic term meaning "Personal Computer". The macintosh is a PC, so it is wrong to say "You plug it into any PC?no Mac support, apparently...". Correct usage would be "You plug it into any PC -- no Cray support, apparently..." or something similar.While I'm ranting, "You plug it into any Windows machine" would be wrong too, since Vonage does not support X-Windows or VMS TextWindows or any of the other Windows systems out there.
bryanlMay 13, 2006
Is this really a leak considering they are IPO'ing this month? The SoftPhone looks cool, but I think they may be trying to generate press without actually generating press.
vertigoblueMay 13, 2006
oh, wait, yeah thats called a cell phone...
stomicronMay 13, 2006
It's not a generic term. While PC does stand for "personal computer" and Macs can be thought of as personal computers, the term most commonly refers to machines that have derived from the original "IBM PC" which was introduced in 1981 and a TRADEMARKED term. It then gave rise to the hardware platform "PC-compatible" and from then on hardware derived from that platform came to be known as "PC clones" and now "PCs."So while PC denotes the phrase "personal computer," its connotation is something everyone knows about and understands, regardless of which OS they support.
woknbluesMay 13, 2006
Fry's Electonics had one that I saw about 18 months ago, for skype.. This is pretty old and lame...here is another company that has been doing this for a while, too..<a class="user" href="http://www.mplat.com/">http://www.mplat.com/</a>Vonage to me is for the business consumer of VoIP. Until they are free like Skype (skype to skype), I'm out.
xunil2May 14, 2006
Vonage-to-Vonage calls *are* free. And I'll withhold judgment on this one until I find it whether it is a hoax or not.