Pulver Media's Fall VON is the obese simian of voice-over-IP trade shows--at least in the US. Since Boston's only an extended Amtrak nap away, I decided to hop up here today and sniff around. First clear trend:

First, VoIP vendors loooove SMBs and are ramping up a bunch of bundles and appliances to woo all you small biz readers. The shot above is an example of an ultra-appliance from Sutus.

Not only is the BC200 an Asterisk-based IP PBX with a For Dummies GUI built-in so you never have to deal with the command line; it's also a:

* File server with two 250GB hard disks (mirrored and expandable, tho not hot-swap):

* Email server (based on Postfix):

* DHCP server:

* Stateful inspection firewall:

* VPN gateway:

* 10/100 Internet router & 8-port 10/100 PoE Ethernet switch:

* 802.11b/g access point (no 11n and no WPA2...yet)

Yeah, pretty much an office in a box--as long as your office is arond 25 users. You don't buy this direct, but rather through one of Sutus' resellers who not only do configuration, they can customize the mini-Web server and do remote management for you, too. Base cost for this box is under $7000, though you'll need to buy your Polycom phone handsets (that's the only brand currently recommended) and that plain-old-telephone-system (POTS) gateway (pictured on top of the BC200) separately. And tho the BC200 is the only box available now, Sutus said it was working on a smaller SOHO version for next year.

But appliances aren't the only way VoIP vendors are batting their eyes at SMBs. End-to-end bundles are another. Networking companies like 3Com, Linksys and Netgear are teaming up with phone makers like Avaya, Polycom and...Linksys, to offer SMB buyers an all-in-one bundle covering the Internet gateway, PoE switches, IP PBX, phone handsets and sometimes even the phone service. It's a brave new world Verizon.

Look for a review on the Sutus BC200 late next month. 'Cause I just don't have enough stuff on my bench. But we'll need to do those bundles as a buyers' guide or something. I need to get an intern.--Posted by Oliver Rist