If you haven’t heard about Mobile Voice System 5, don’t feel too bad because it’s a calling service aimed at big businesses. What’s important for us desk jockeys is that the latest version will enable full desktop phone features on your BlackBerry, including making calls over WiFi.
The service integrates with your company’s PBX calling infrastructure and essentially turns your BlackBerry handset into another office phone. You’ll be able to receive office calls, transfer and park calls, as well as dial by extension (a useful feature if you’re like me and constantly forget what someone’s “real” number is). You don’t have to be tied to your desk phone to stay connected to your business.
MVS 5, slated to hit later this year, also adds the ability to make, receive and transfer calls over WiFi. This will work over any hotspot that the user can make their VPN connection work, so your office phone could be just a hotspot away.
Even if you’re not in a corporate setup, another good thing about this is that the technology will eventually trickle down to the consumer space. We’ve already seen WiFi-calling options from T-Mobile and RIM’s efforts could help push this along even further in the future.