Vocalocity announced this morning that it has chosen the winner for its “Phone System Makeover Contest.” The video contest which was held from June 1-August 16 asked entrants to create a short video explaining why their business needed a new phone system. Creativity was a contest requirement, and several of the videos included business owners’ family members in humorous skits. The contest was designed to provide a way for businesses struggling with a down economy to showcase the reasons they need to cut costs with Small business VoIP.

Skype announces the official launch of Skype Connect 1.0 (formerly Skype for SIP). Previously available in beta, Skype Connect delivers a business solution that enables IP-enabled private branch exchange or Unified Communications systems to connect to Skype.

By using Skype Connect, businesses can now:

• Make outbound calls from desktop phones to landlines and mobiles worldwide billed at Skype's standard per-minute calling rates
• Receive inbound calls from Skype connected users worldwide by placing Skype's Click & Call buttons on their Web sites
• Receive calls from landlines or mobile phones in the corporate PBX using Skype's online numbers that have been purchased separately
• Manage Skype calls using existing PBX or UC systems' features such as call routing, automatic call distribution, conferencing, auto-attendant, voicemail, call recording and logging

Acrobits recently made a big splash in the VoIP world with their new business caliber SIP client for the iPhone, Groundwire. While this has legions of VoIP users on the iPhone very excited, it was also important to Acrobits to reward users of their already excellent SIP client Acrobits Softphone with an inexpensive upgrade option. Unfortunately, iTunes doesn’t offer a viable option for Acrobits to do this. It looked like existing users of Acrobits Softphone would need to purchase Groundwire at full price to benefit from the exciting new features of Groundwire. Not to mention the licensing agreement for the G.729 codec would require users to purchase a new license to use the codec in Groundwire (G.729 licensing requires a separate license for each client or device).

4PSA has been awarded interoperability certification by Yealink for their line of SIP telephones when used with the VoipNow Professional software platform.

To simplify the provisioning and maintenance of Yealink phones, 4PSA will add support to the provisioning system in the next version of VoipNow Professional, scheduled for September 2010. This will add Yealink to a respectable list of phone vendors already included.

ASC will demonstrate its new quality management software, INSPIRATIONpro version 10.0 and it’s VoIP recording solution, EVOip at the CSA & DBSG Annual Conference, at the Hilton Metropole, Birmingham on 8th-9th September, at Stand 18.

The Credit Services Association is the National Association in the UK for companies active in the area of unpaid credit accounts, debt recovery agencies, tracing and allied professional services. The DBSG works for the benefit of those involved in buying or selling debts (or intermediaries in the sale process).

AT&T announces new and existing virtual private network customers may add VoIP service to the network solution delivered over AT&T's global network cloud. This converged solution will enable customers to consolidate their separate voice and data networks, reduce equipment and maintenance costs, and simplify migrating these complimentary capabilities to a common, secure infrastructure. By migrating to a common infrastructure, customers are able to take advantage of additional applications as AT&T makes them available, such as unified communications capabilities.

The AT&T VoIP portfolio is also certified for interoperability with leading industry providers of IP-PBX systems, such as SIP Trunking services qualified for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, providing support for businesses planning to incorporate a comprehensive unified communications solution in the future.

Mobile customers in Ireland now have an easy way to stay connected to leading social media like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. iSkoot announces that it has partnered with O2 Ireland to launch O2 Social Link, a rich mobile app that aggregates the most important Social Network services, along with some of Ireland’s most popular feeds for news, sports, and entertainment.

O2 Social Link offers users real-time notification for social network activity and news items, even while users compose messages, check status updates, and read new stories. All services are delivered over available data connections, without requiring 3G or Wi-Fi for optimal performance. When not actively in use, O2 Social Link’s server-side connection can continue to load new data in the background and pop up alerts for important content.

PAETEC announces that its Dynamic IP product with SIP Trunking has been certified compliant with the IP Office 6.0 PBX from Avaya, a global leader in enterprise communications systems, software and services. PAETEC has also previously been certified on the enterprise-level Avaya Aura Communications Manager and Avaya Aura SIP Enablement Services.

SIP Trunking, short for Session Initiation Protocol, converges data, voice, and Internet communications onto a single high-speed, IP network that establishes the foundation for advanced communications capabilities. Certifying the interoperability of equipment such as the Avaya IP Office and IP networks ensures that businesses can achieve the full benefits of advanced collaboration capabilities.

Vocalocity achieved another milestone this month, when it was presented with Inc. magazine’s highly coveted award for being one of the Fastest Growing Companies in America. Ranking number 254 on Inc. Magazine’s “Inc. 500” list, Vocalocity competed with tens of thousands of companies who vie for this award every year. Vocalocity, which is a leading provider of small business VoIP services, announced its ranking this morning.

Emergency CallWorx has secured a new investment of growth capital. Having quickly won a reputation as a leading innovator for call taking and dispatching in the 911 emergency arena, Emergency CallWorx has been chosen to provide public safety solutions across the country, from the Mountain West to the Gulf Coast. The newly acquired growth capital will allow the company to increase its research and development while accelerating its support, sales and marketing efforts to provide innovative Next Generation solutions for the public safety market.

Mobile software developer Acrobits released their new business caliber SIP Client, Groundwire for the iPhone, this week. This news should delight both iPhone owners and the VoIP world in general. SIP users finally have a mobile client capable of meeting all their needs.

Groundwire has all the great features of Acrobits’ current softphone client, Acrobits Softphone, and adds some very important business caliber features. Groundwire supports transfer and attended transfer, call waiting and conference calling. It also adds a voicemail waiting indicator and a programmable voicemail dialer. But that’s just a taste, here’s the full list of features.

Tpad announces it will donate 50% of all credit purchases until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan. This will apply to all Tpad VoIP credit purchases from the Middle East.

Dr. Tariq, Head of Group Marketing at the global communications provider, said that Tpad calling rates are already the lowest in the world and the company felt that rather than doing a Ramzan discount offer like some other companies, it would be more appropriate to help the victims of this disaster. The 50% level of contribution is unprecedented and much higher than offered in similar donations by anyone in the past. He hoped that customers will get behind this offer and help themselves to cheap calls and also aid others in the process.

4PSA announces the Parallels Operations Automation support for their premier Unified Communications software VoipNow Professional. The integration performed using the APS standard brings communication services closer to hosting companies and service providers that use Parallels’ award winning business and operations software.

The emerging growth in hosted Unified Communications solutions has created challenges for service providers to manage and provision these new services. By integrating its platform with Parallels Operations Automation, 4PSA allows companies to minimize the time to market and the operational costs.

Aastra announces a partnership with Telchemy to resell two products, DVQattest and SQmediator, which provide performance testing, monitoring and real-time reporting for VoIP interactions.

DVQattest is a distributed active test product for Voice and Video over IP that supports pre-deployment testing, network assessment, SLA monitoring and troubleshooting. DVQattest is based on VQmon, Telchemy’s widely used VoIP/IPTV performance analysis technology which provides accurate quality scores and a rich set of metrics for voice calls, video sessions and network tests.

CounterPath announces the worldwide availability of Bria iPhone Edition Version 1.1 for Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Compatible with Apple's new iOS 4 operating system, Bria iPhone Edition 1.1 is a highly secure, standards-based VoIP softphone that works over both 3G and Wi-Fi networks.

Bria iPhone Edition 1.1 leverages iOS 4 to deliver to Bria users' their most requested feature: multitasking on the iPhone, freeing them to stay productive while waiting for calls. This freedom is particularly valuable for iPhone users that need to reference other applications while on a call, enhancing the device's value as a business tool. When Apple releases iOS 4 for the iPad, Bria iPhone Edition 1.1 will immediately and automatically extend its multitasking features to that device.