Business VOIP

Though many pundits swear by Skype, the clear winner of VoIP softphones simply has to be the Gizmo Project. The reason is simple: Gizmo does almost everything of what Skype does, is open and, to top it all, adheres to modern VoIP standards.

Launched in July 2005, by SIPPhone, the Gizmo Project is the brain-child of Michael Robertson of the Linspire fame. Gizmo Project certainly doesn’t have as many as users as Skype to boast about – Gizmo Project started late. However, they seem to learn amazingly fast from Skype’s mistakes.

To start with, Gizmo Project offers features like: call recording, voicemail-to-email, and an ingenious twist on the virtual incoming phone number. They offer an incoming number that rings both at your PC and your choice of a cell phone or a landline!

With the “buddy-list” that forms the center of the application, just like a chat application, everything becomes amazingly easy to use. What’s more? Gizmo Project is available for Windows, Mac and even Linux users alike. However, the Mac interface is slicker than the rest.

To make a call you type a Gizmo name or a phone number, click a button and you’re on! Or, you can double click a buddy on the list. There are a couple of other ways as well. There is also a Subject line, exactly like the Subject line in an email client. This simple device adds a really useful dimension to the program’s overall functionality. Knowing why someone is calling you becomes important, especially when you are running tight on your schedules.

You can even IM someone in your phonebook. The message thread pops up in a separate panel, very much like any number of other IM clients. One feature to note here is that you can now talk with friends that use Google Talk!

Like Skype, Gizmo Project uses Global IP Sound’s VoiceEngine technology —with better results. People have reported conferencing with over 10 people simultaneously without any loss of audio quality. Calling other phones and getting a number is easy, only the name of the service is different. To call other phones you use a service called “Call Out” with rates as low as USD 0.1 for the US. To enable other people with plain-old phones to call you, you use a service called as “Call In”. The number of countries where you can get a number is small, but nonetheless growing.

In closing, one of the most important things about Gizmo Project is that it uses the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as its signaling protocol. This is significant because SIP is an industry standard that is being adopted by many players in the VoIP arena. This makes Gizmo Project the most interoperable and also the best VoIP Software.