Uh oh, we all know how Microsoft loves to be in control of everything. And in VoIP and Internet telephony, Microsoft has lagged behind the likes of Skype. When it was rumored that Microsoft was working on a VoIP phone, it wasn’t a surprise, and seemed rather uneventful. Now that details are starting to appear of the Microsoft Roundtable phone, we can see that they are not playing around.

The Ringcam was originally showcased last year as a slightly ugly prototype, but things are looking sleeker these days for the newly-titled Roundtable. The Roundtable features a 360 degree camera capable of video conferencing in a panorama type view. The Roundtable would probably sync seamlessly with Outlook contacts for easy dialing control. Much work is still needed for sure, since this is Microsoft’s first serious journey into the VoIP zone, but it seems to be coming along nicely. The Roundtable is expected to go into public testing this week, starting as early as today. — Andrew Dobrow

Link

Linksys presented its VoIP phone, the iPhone CIT 400 at CeBIT 2007. You might know it as the uglier iPhone. This is the first time the Linksys iPhone has been publicly presented. It earned much more attention than it would have because of the legal uproar between Linksys and Apple over the iPhone moniker.

The Linksys iPhone is an internet telephony VoIP phone that is meant to be used with VoIP services such as Skype. There really isn’t anything to overly impressive about the CIT 400, but it is worth mentioning because of the coveted iPhone branding. Although much criticism has been wrought over the Linksys iPhone, compared to the Apple iPhone, any product seems to dim, but we are sure it’s a well made product, much like the popular Linksys routers and wireless internet cards.

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