PhoneGaim Brings Phone Calling To IM Users

An anonymous reader writes "Eweek has an article on how PhoneGaim integrates IM and phone into one program making it possible for AOL/ICQ, MSN and Yahoo users to call each other, landlines and cellphones. It talks about how it could be a Skype-killer since it's based on open standard SIP and comes with free PSTN calling (5 minutes per day), free voicemail via email, and even supports incoming phone calls from PSTN. It's out first for desktop Linux (maybe the start of a new trend?) but it's open source so expect a MSWin version shortly from Gaim team."

Comments

To those wondering..

[wfberg]

The service (with 5 minutes free etc.) used is SIPPhone, the company that was started by the Lindows guy.

The 5 minutes for free can only be gotten by using phonegaim ON lindows, buying a SIPPhone device, or by buying $20 of SIPPhone minutes. Not actually free, then, just included with the cost of your purchase.

Note that you can only call people if you're BOTH using phonegaim. You could just exchange (S)IP numbers and use any normal SIP client for the same effect. Nothing to see here. There are already dozens of free SIP clients.

Note that skype, while a cooky closed-source, non-standard product, does have good support for using it behind NAT, which is harder with SIP. (Personally, I say, give me the IPv6 already).

Re:Sweet!

[Ari_Haviv]

it could be a killer open source app but how can it be a killer app for linux if it will be for Windows?

But thinking in terms of "killer" for one platform is the old way of thinking. Open source itself is the killer feature for an app no matter what platform it's on. But if the platform itself is open source-that's a 2fer.