Did Apple swipe "Visual Voicemail," too?
By Ryan Block 
posted Jan 14th 2007 1:33AM
posted Jan 14th 2007 1:33AM
We're guessing not, but El Reg has a piece up squarely accusing Apple of another swipe, this time of the term "Visual Voicemail" to describe the iPhone's voicemail UI. Visual Voicemail, which is owned by Citrix and originally developed by Net6, has been around for years and may (or may not) be what's powering Apple and Cingular's solution for the common problem of having to wait through all the voicemail you don't want just to hear the voicemail you do. And "Visual Voicemail" is, in fact, capitalized on Apple's site, meaning if legit usage of the term or licensed software isn't in the cards, Apple could soon find itself in two simultaneous pots of hot water.
Damn, What tech did apple not swipe? It seems that everyone is coming out of the woodwork with claims that they implemented something found in the iPhone. This looking like a bad year for apple.
There's also a Yahoo nee Konfabulator widget called "Callwave" that supposedly does the same thing and allows random access to mobile voicemail. The description says it works with Verizon, Cingular and T-Mobile.
Windows only, so I haven't tried it out:
http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/view.php?widget=41120
yeah yeah. they also copied MY idea of using a RED button to end calls and a GREEN button to start calls. i'm suing.
Whatever happened to the "Visual Voicemail" create by Comverse and licensed to RIM for BlackBerry?
http://www.comverse.com/press_releases.aspx?newsId=98
Hmm... this all seems to be working very well for Apple.
First, Cisco takes them to court over the "iPhone" name.
Next, "Visual Voicemail"...
Each time they have to go to court, there's an injunction so they can't sell the product in question.
Each injunction means further delays concerning getting that thing to market.
Each delay means more time for Apple to actually start building the thing.
After all the cases are resolved, if Apple comes out the winner, they can counter-sue for lost profits because they couldn't sell the product.
I know this is very fuzzy logic, but is it just me, or is there a grand scheme here?
Visual voice mail as I understand it is really nothing new. If you have experience with Message Manager, originally developed by Lucent, it was and is freely available with Audix voice mail solutions. I've been using it at my office since 2000.
As much as I hate to side with Apple, I don't think anything can or will come of this. Unless, of course, they explicitly copied the code of some of this said software, which I doubt.
There is an absolute tonne of IP surrounding mobile phones and their features. It's a fact that virtually any phone manufacturer will get hit from all sides by big and small IP holders demanding their pound of flesh. Customers end up paying for it all as it ultimately gets built into the cost of the phone.
Wow. Most of this discussion is irrelevant to Apple's point. IntelProp is its own discussion -- lawsuits, blah, blah, blah. The real point here is that every single one of us who has a cell phone with Verizon, Cigular, whatever -- we ALL have to deal with the "sequential voicemail only" situation. Apple's point is "that sucks" and "it must change". Apple wants to do what Cingular, Verizon, TMobile, Lucent, etc., etc. have YET TO DO -- free the common cell phone user from an extremely crappy voicemail interface and system. They are going to kickstart this change with their phone and Cingular is going to help them do it. The rest of the companies (Verizon, etc.) will soon follow suit, surely. And ALL of us will benefit. And we'll have Apple, Inc. to thank for pushing the whole change along.
I'm a Product Manager at CallWave. Here's the Mac version of our free visual voicemail widget: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/31711
Works with most US carriers including Cingular, Verizon and T-Mobile.