More Cisco related news today as they have announced they will be dropping the Linksys brand name for their home networking range of products and market it over time under the Cisco brand. This is nearly 20 years after Linksys was founded and nearly 5 years after it was acquired by Cisco for $500m. Apparently the decision to change the brand name was delayed because of Linksys is such a well known brand in the US. “As you go global there is very little advantage in that”, according to Cisco chief executive John Chambers.

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News certainly seems slow today, especially if you decide not to cover echo the news about SunRocket going down, Amp’d Mobile going the same way and Ooma just starting out and most likely joining them a year from now. Fortunately CMP has taken some time to sit down with two of Cisco’s VoIP experts and ask them some questions, providing you at least one interesting read today.

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When asked if their VoIP system rollout met their initial expectations only a few attendees at an Australian VoIP panel discussion raised their hand. The savings and benefits and resulting ROI is not living up to expectations because customers rarely use any of the productivity features that VoIP has to offer, instead customers go for the basic functionality they’re used to: voice.

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It seems Blackberry users are finally getting VoIP support as well. While Nokia has been offering excellent VoIP support on its E-series platform, users of other smartphones (including Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile based devices) have been left in the cold. This is a great move by RIM because business users aren’t generally interested in cheaper minutes, but will be interested in connecting their smartphone to the company’s phone system.

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For some reason (most likely me being on holiday) I missed the announcement of Snom’s latest IP Phone, the 370. While I do not particularly like Snom phones, more precisely the way the large LCD is used and the myriad of buttons, they certainly are quality phones and offer features few phones do. The latest Snom, just raised the bar for the competition by adding a VPN layer into the phone.

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