by Playfuls Staff |
9th March 2006
On Wednesday, Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices LLC made public its plans to include Yahoo Inc.'s Internet telephony service with the company's Gigaset cordless telephones, therefore enabling its customers to make free PC-to-PC calls. [more]
Siemens is planning to release its Gigaset M34 USB adapter in the third quarter of this year, ensuring compatibility between any Siemens cordless C-class handset and the PC-to-PC voice calling service from Yahoo Messenger with Voice.
The Gigaset handsets will also allow users some basic functional access to Yahoo Messenger contacts lists and presence status viewing and changing.
It is thought that this new move will make Yahoo's VoIP feature more popular among the mainstream consumers in a time when such services continue to gain more and more grounds in disfavour of the classical phone calls.
"Our collaboration with Siemens enables us to offer our Yahoo! Messenger with Voice services beyond the PC, on additional devices", said Yahoo’s vice president of Communications Products, Brad Garlinghouse.
"Working with Siemens will greatly increase the potential for new and existing users to take advantage of our rich communications suite," he added. "Today's announcement is a first step in a relationship that will expand and continue to benefit both Yahoo! and Siemens customers for a long time to come."
Although calls from VoIP-enabled Gigaset phones to fixed lines and mobile phones will not be free, Siemens promises a "cost effective" calling service for them, too.
