VoIP marketing-speak gets slammed in an xchange piece [1] reporting from Interop Las Vegas 2008.  It is a "wealth conflicting lingo," forcing companies trying to get more creative in selling VoIP to the unbuying SMB masses.  

On the creative front, ADTRAN [2] is opening up more tiers in its channel program, in addition to launching an IP PBX and adding IP phones to its lineup.  Smaller partners targeting 50-and-under users will be allowed to sell IP telephony solutions. Turns out the smaller VARs selling low-volume of ADTRAN gear already have an impressive foothold in the SMB market.

Avaya [3] has added speech recognition for basic commands, as well as speech recognition technologies, with the know-how coming from Nuance [4].  The "Freedom of Speech" capabilities include access to everything within Avaya's UC software through voice, and also adds speech access for IBM Lotus Domino 7.0.  There's also Avaya HealthCheck, a proactive test to get a comprehensive view of what is going on within the communications network.

For more:
- xchange's view [5] of the VoIP Scene at Interop
- Avaya's announcements for UC Freedom of Speech [6] and HealthCheck [7]

Related article:
ADTRAN intros new IP PBX all-in-one, IP PBX phones [8]