WARP Xtra

Cloud or Client, Server or Appliance, VoIP or TDM, Laptop or Tablet, iPhone or Blackberry, Spend money now, or save for the next best thing……   We are surrounded in our work lives and home lives by technology choices in which our options are changing by the second.    Just about every day, we are learning about a brand new technology that is a major game changer.     Who would have thought a year ago that we would be able to carry a WiFi hotspot around in our pocket for all our gadgets?   Or that we would  finally be calling up our home phone companies to disconnect!   

 I was visiting a customer recently, and all the people in the meeting had their iPads out on the table taking notes, or at least they acted like they were.    For all I know, they could have been watching a newly released movie.   Laptops to them are a thing of the past.

It really makes you stop and think before you spend any money on technology.   And, if you’re a technology company like PIKA, you better hope you’re on your game in order to keep selling products which are riding  the current wave.      

I have to say I’m proud of where we are at PIKA with our WARP appliance.    For those of you with concerns like mine, you can rest assured knowing that all worlds are covered with this package; TDM, VoIP, and GSM.    And, it’s built in a package that both cloud and client developers can find a use for.    The even better news is it’s inexpensive.   The future options for this device are limitless.   I have to say, I’m proud of our R&D group for keeping us on top of the wave!!

GUI’s for Asterisk – it’s either a non-issue for you or you genuinely care. The FreePBX GUI has probably been most widely accepted and it has built up its own, impressively large audience. Over the years, many other Asterisk GUI’s have earned their own audience based on criteria that you, Asterisk user, deem important: paid versus free ones, support of specific languages, support of a specific feature, technical support offered by the GUI maker, code size, or simply the looks of the screens; all are reasons to decide in favour of one or the other Asterisk GUI. And I am sure I have missed out on at least 5 more reasons why other Asterisk GUI’s exist.

Quite recently the Askozia GUI has been added to the list of GUI’s that have been tested on the PIKA WARP Appliance. For those of you who are not familiar with the Askozia GUI, it’s a GUI that once originated from a German university (Braunschweig, to be precise). The Askozia GUI has been recently made and it was designed from the ground up for an embedded device (i.e. it’s extremely light on the CPU and very reactive). With the restrictions that they were confronted with the Askozia people have also managed to make a nice looking GUI too. And, the shown features all work – which may not sound too enticing but when you get down to the nuts and bolts it’s a useful statement. And, I also don’t mean to be negative to other Asterisk GUI’s like FreePBX, on the contrary even, but the Askozia people have tested their code quite well and they have done that very recently.

Does all of the above  turn Askozia into an Asterisk GUI that is lightyears better than FreePBX? Is this the death of FreePBX? Of course not. Askozia has its own audience, probably less technically oriented, and they typically want something that very closely resembles a ready device when it comes out of the box. But in my mind the sheer availability of the Askozia GUI shows the maturity of the Asterisk market in general.  The winners are you all, Asterisk users; increased choice! So go use the PIKA WARP Appliance, or if you really have to any other Asterisk hardware, and go do your thing, but make your choice and shop around.

Today we are pleased to announce the winners in our “PIKA WARP Coolest App contest”.  While our winners have both asked that we keep their entries anonymous, we can share with you a few details about their applications developed on the PIKA WARP Appliance.

• The winner in the best phone system category uses the PIKA WARP Appliance as a small office, hotel/motel PBX that allows end-users to have access to voicemail and find-me / follow-me features which allows them to send voicemail to their mobile phone. 
• Our winner in the best non-phone system category uses the PIKA WARP Appliance to integrate a custom scripting language for IVR applications for use within a variety of small business markets with VoIP needs such as restaurants, golf courses, medical offices, dentists, libraries and video stores.

Congratulations to our two winners (your iPads are on the way!) and thank you to everyone for their submissions!

This is your last chance to enter our “PIKA WARP Coolest App” contest – the deadline is Friday July 9th!

We want you to send us your coolest concepts and ideas whether they are in the planning stage or have gone to market. We will choose two winning entries – one for the best phone system and one for the best non-phone system.

Telephony developers continue to submit some very inspired applications to us for our “PIKA WARP Coolest App” contest.

With more than a few golfers here at PIKA, we were excited to receive an application for a phone booking system built on the PIKA WARP Appliance for Asterisk. The application targets small- to medium-sized golf courses that are looking for a feature-rich, low-cost system that integrates both phone and web booking capabilities. The developer wrote the application in a custom programming language that integrates into Asterisk as an Asterisk Gateway Interface and has ported the entire development stack for the language to the WARP Appliance.

The submissions to the contest continue to roll in so stay tuned for more great applications developed on the PIKA WARP Appliance!

We’ve had some great responses to our recently announced “PIKA WARP Coolest App” contest – we have some very creative telephony developers in our midst.

One of our first entries is from a leading provider of innovative business communications products and services located in California. As a low-cost PC alternative, the PIKA WARP Appliance for Linux has allowed our partner to use the WARP as a PBX for small offices and motels looking to provide voice mail, find me/follow me and voicemail-to-mobile phone functionality.

We continue to receive some great entries so stay tuned to hear about more great applications developed on the WARP.

As I described in my previous blog, I am becoming the measuring stick at PIKA to gauge how easy a product is to use/setup.  Last week I fired up a WARP appliance and configured a basic PBX solution using a “PIKAnized” version of the Asterisk Gui. If you recall, I reported the experience a success.  This week, our friends at Snom were kind enough to send us a Snom M3 VoIP wireless DECT phone so we could gain some experience with it.  Continue Reading »

Unless you are one of the few who have witnessed a PIKAroadmap presentation recently, this should be the first time you are hearing that PIKA is developing a GSM module for the WARP appliance.  I’m very excited to share with you a few details about this eventual new member of the expansion module family for WARP.  Continue Reading »

The WARP has an LED beside the LCD on its front panel. People have asked how to access the LED and make it change color. Well, here it goes.

Continue Reading »

The next available H/W expansion module for PIKA’s WARP appliance will be a BRI interface.  The BRI appliance module has already been designed and prototypes are presently in the hands of our software folks.  If things go as planned, these initial development efforts should result in a first call by early August.

Continue Reading »