Voxox - One stop solution for all Communication needs?

Voxox, the Universal Communicator Service, is an ambitious project submitted to the public in a hurry!! Is it truly a Skype/Digsby Killer? Before looking at VoxOx ... Let's see the need of such Universal Communicator Service.

We all use IMs, Social Networks(Godsake, A lot many out there now), Mobile and Email, to communicate everyday. Sometimes, what needs to be a fun indulgence had turned to be a hectic juggling of balls.

Having all your IMs open(Yahoo, Google talk, MSN...), then your mail accounts (Yahoo mail, Gmail, Hotmail ...) and checking for scraps, tweets and Posts in your favorite Social Networks. Doing these every evening won't be fun but a compromise to talk to the ones to whom you would love talking rather in person.

To answer this simple, yet important need, there are remarkable tools like Digsby, Pidgin and Adium(mac) which combines IMs, Emails and your Favourite Social Networks in one place, reducing the pain in handling all tools separately. This effectively reduces your time in handling these tools and increases your time in actually communicating with your friends.

Voxox, the name, a play on words "Voice over X", implying that Voxox could send voice over any networki is an Universal Communicator Service1, from the San Diego based startup TelCentris. Voxox also tries to answer the same need as Skype and Digsby but is a bit more ambitious, adding support for making Phone calls and Text Messaging in addition to combine features of Skype and Digsby.

Initially after signup, you get 2 hours of free calls credited to your voxox account and a free number. And for each of your friends' signup in Voxox, to whom you have referred, additional 2 hours is credited to your account.

All is good but Is the tool a Skype/Digsby Killer?

The truth is NO.

The interface of Voxox by itself cheats its own saying which runs like "don't miss a call, a message or a mail2" The UI is not simple and is not easily manageable. There are a lot many candies trying to emulate iPhone but not achieving what it is supposed to, to make life simple.

On using VoxOx, the feeling of managing multiple windows doesn't leave even when all you have in front of you is one pit stop solution for all communication needs.

An extensive overhaul of the interface, and rectifying some short falls(comments in Mashup), and some really, really more innovative advantages than its peer alone would help VoxOx gain some foothold in "Universal Communicator Service" market.

Keeping in mind the customers' need, while designing would greatly help. A terminator skin for your key pad, provided with initial installation, makes me think twice before sharing my IM, email username and passwords, putting Voxox's reliability under hammer.

For now, only Facebook is active under Voxox's social networks and not any other social networks (as on 18 11 2008, IST 10:00P.M.), I don't know why other social network icons are inactive. Probably would be included in near future.

For now, I would better stick with Digsby/Skype for all my communication needs and I don't mind picking my phone to make a call.

But if VoxOx makes the right moves and rectifies its short falls in design, marketing and if it meets the promises it makes, and tries not to be very ambitious, it could really be a strong competitor to Digsby/Skype, being still in Beta.

But for now, Better stick with other tools and let's wait and see.