We’ve been using and recommending CounterPath’s (formerly Xten) softphones ever since we started in the VoIP business and it’s always been a great product, from the free XLite to Xpro and eventually EyeBeam. About a week ago, CounterPath added a new product to their family of software VoIP phones, Bria. Apparently they bumped it to 2.0 right away, because I cannot recall having seen a 1.0 version ever before. Oh well.

It wasn’t really clear to me right away how this product differs from EyeBeam. According to the press release [pdf] the main differences are that Bria is contact-centric versus dialpad-centric - as is the case with EyeBeam and most other softphones - and that Bria can be minimized to a deskbar. Not very impressive for a new name and a version bump, so let’s take it for a spin.

The installation itself is very straightforward. The system requirements indicate Windows 2000 or Windows XP, versions for Windows Vista and Mac OS 10.4 are scheduled for release at a future date.

Once in the stylish black interface, configuration of a SIP account is pretty easy as well. Former users of EyeBeam should have no trouble finding the correct parameters to configure their SIP extension. It is true, Bria is more contact-centric than EyeBeam, there’s no keypad in the default window, but you can open one by clicking on the right drawer or just enter a phone number directly using the digits on your keyboard.

The built-in phonebook allows you to add contacts manually or import them from Outlook. The phonebook together with the Instant Messaging features of Bria - which I’m not going to cover here - give it a decidedly Skype’ish look and feel.

All things considered Bria is a decent product, but is it worth the extra money (+$15) much less the upgrade from EyeBeam? I don’t really think so, Bria feels much more like an EyeBeam 2.0 than an entirely new product. CounterPath claims it provides more branding flexibility and a wider advertising reach, but as business users we’re not really interested in that.

I would have much preferred some kind of Active Directory or LDAP integration to emphasize the contact-centric’ness of the product or a possibility to remotely provision the softphone - as is the case with regular IP phones - but I’m probably not representative of CounterPath’s target market.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 09:43 CEST and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.