Berlin-based IP phone maker snom technology AG today announced the release of snom klarVOICE, a new handset with significantly improved voice quality that can be used to retrofit any of the company’s 300 series of desktop VoIP phones.
All the members of the 300 series have built-in support for the HD (also termed ‘wideband’) codec G.722, which more than doubles the sampling rate, compared to standard, narrowband calls, resulting in more than double the frequency range or ‘pass-band,’ for dramatically higher voice quality.
What klarVOICE brings to the party is acoustically improved audio reproduction components—microphone and speaker—that translate the potential of G.722 into actual high-fidelity sound. “It’s more akin to talking to someone in the same room rather than over a phone,” snom’s North American director of business development Mike Storella told VoIPplanet in a briefing.
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| the new snom klarVOICE handset |
The klarVOICE handset, which, again can be adapted to existing snom 300, 320, 360, and 370 IP desk phones, will retail for US$32.50 each.
In other recent snom news, the company announced in May the release of its OCS edition, an open-standards-based (SIP) phone firmware released designed to integrate the company’s phones with Microsoft Office Communications Server, for advanced communications features.
The integration links the phone to active directories and enables click to dial calling, as well as displaying presence information.
Still earlier in the year, snom announced a partnership with Camrivox Softwear that will bring customer relationship management (CRM) software capabilities to snom phones.
Camrivox’s computer/telephony integration (CTI) application, Flexor—loaded onto snom VoIP phones via the Web—links user’s Outlook and CRM applications (such as Salesforce.com) to provide click-to-call dialing, screen pop-ups, and other advanced telephony controls for improved customer retention.
Making this kind of CTI functionality availability as a service changes the old dynamic, wherein such implementations were available only to large enterprises.
“It’ a great fit; we can bring our Salesforce Partner and Microsoft CRM status to snom and their partners,” said Molcolm Wood, Camrivox CEO. “It now means that between us, we can offer a simple and cost-effective CTI upgrade to those millions of Salesforce.com customers currently limited to expensive and complex enterprise telephony offerings.”
