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We’re pretty excited around here! Our Intelligent Directory product is now available through Mitel. I’ve talked about Intelligent Directory before (check out the details here) - ID is an application that runs on your Mitel 5330 or 5340 phone, and provides a simple on-screen searchable directory of all your corporate contacts (from your corporate Active Directory), as well as your personal Outlook contacts.

The application has been in trials since May - it’s solid and really useful.

We have had to work very hard to make the application as responsive as possible when running on a Mitel phone. The CPU in the phone is nowhere near as fast as a desktop PC’s CPU - so you have to apply a ton of optimizations and special techniques to ring every bit of performance out of the device as possible.

In fact, we’ve made performance improvements throughout our beta cycles, improving performance by 5 times. We’ve also streamlined the User Interface, and added features as requests came in from our beta trial customers.

Some examples:

• The application used to run in “Corporate Contacts” mode or in “Outlook Contacts” mode. We found a way to largely get rid of this modality, and allow you to choose where your search will take place right when you are entering the characters you want to search for.
• We introduced the concept of “Favorites” and made it easy to add any Outlook or Corporate contact to your favorites list.
• Doing queries of your Outlook contacts through the exchange server was quite slow - something people complained about. So, we have changed the product to cache any Outlook contacts you save as “Favorites” so that they pop up very quickly.
• We added the ability to refine a search - if you enter a few characters of someone’s name, and get back too many results, you can easily refine your current search to narrow down your choices.
• We added AJAX style interactions on the phone pages, so as you click between pages, only the data on the pages change - none of the graphics or underlying code on the page have to reload.

The application has ended up being very usable and friendly.

Intelligent Directory is available here - download the application, the user guide and installation guide.

If you want to purchase the application, the Mitel part numbers are:

• Intelligent Directory 30 Pack:  51011224
• Intelligent Directory Presence Option 30 Pack:  51011225 (This upgrade to the basic product provides LCS presence indications on the phone beside each directory entry that is shown)

Have fun!

Iotum just released the first Facebook application I’ve seen that might actually be useful for business use. Their application: “FREE Conference Calls” (what a GREAT name!!!) - allows you to set up conference calls with your buddies on Facebook - AND your friends who aren’t yet on Facebook.

The application has a ton of nice features:

• Just a couple of clicks to set up a call.
• Enter a Time, Subject, and an Agenda,
• Add your Facebook friends or anyone else, by email or by phone number,

And your call is on!

Call quality is pretty good, and the app is very easy to use.

Best Feature: Your friends will receive a Facebook message,  email and/or a text message with the call info just before the call! Makes it simple to just click on the phone number in your Blackberry to join the call.

One quibble - it would be nice if the app sent the call organizer an email and SMS message as well. It’s really nice to be able to call in via a simple click.

Some Screenshots:

Step 1: Call Time and Title

Step 2: Agenda

Step 3: Invite your Facebook friends,  or ANYONE else!

Step 3a: Inviting a non-facebook contact to the call

Step 4: Manage and monitor your call

Nicely done Iotum!!

Came across this the other day on the blogs… A really old phone dialer application where you kept a box of cards on your desk, pulled out the card, and jammed it in the machine in order to dial the number. Pretty cool and elegant actually, considering the technology of the time…