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In the space of a year Precise, Software, a midsized provider of application management technologies based in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, Israel completely transformed its IT infrastructure to virtualization and cloud software, saving more than $2 million of its annual IT costs. This reduction came through cutting half of their IT staff and closely examining a variety of other technologies.

One tried and true technology is seeing some new activity this summer, with two distinct efforts underway to voice-enable websites from Twilio and Angel.com. Both companies are trying to streamline the experience and make it easier to build voice add-ons.

I think I could live quite happily without the "phone" part of my mobile phone. Other than taking press briefings and calling my parents, I rarely use my iPhone for actual calls. I'd rather text or IM. But according to survey results released today, it looks like my preferred methods of communication don't match most Americans'.

A survey of 2300 adults, conducted by Harris Interactive and sponsored by the VOIP service Rebtel, found that Americans still overwhelmingly prefer to communicate by voice. 74% of respondents said that the phone was how they keep in touch with friends and 81% said it's their preferred method of communicating with family members.

Maybe Microsoft's multi-billion dollar deal for Skype wasn't such an outlandish deal after all. Because according to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the popularity of Internet phone calls has jumped dramatically, with 5% of Internet users placing a VOIP phone call on any given day.

The survey found that almost a quarter of American adult Internet users (24%) have placed a phone call online. That's 19% of all American adults.

Although Steve Ballmer insisted that Microsoft would continue to support Skype on non-Microsoft platforms when it acquired the VOIP company earlier this month, it looks as though that may not necessarily be the case. And the first casualty seems to be Skype's integration with Asterisk, an open source telephony platform.

Digium, the open source project's maintainer, has informed its users that Skype for Asterisk will no longer be available for sale or activation after July 26. According to the notification, Skype has opted not to renew the agreement that allows Digium to utilize Skype's proprietary software in order to turn the open source Asterisk into a native Skype client.

Skype released an update to its Android mobile application today which fixes the recently reported security issues in addition to bringing 3G calling to U.S. users. Earlier this month, reports of a security vulnerability in the Android version of the app were found which could compromise personal information, including a user's name, phone number, chat logs and more. According to Skype, no reported examples of malicious applications misusing this information have been found, but the company will continue to monitor the situation after the fix has been rolled out.

However, the more exciting news for U.S. users of the Android application is support for 3G calling, which had previously been limited to select Verizon phones.

You dial the conference call number. Or you can copy and paste it into Skype, or just click the link in your phone's e-mail app. Then you have to enter your 12 digit conference ID number, or whatever this particular system calls it. If you're on your phone and away from your computer, maybe you jotted it down on a piece of scrap paper. If not, you need to switch back and forth between your dialer and the app that the ID number.

You punch in the number. You wait. Nothing happens. You realize you forgot to hit pound at the end. OK, pound. The robotic voice on the other end slowly, carefully reads the whole number back to you. Are you sure this is the number you meant to dial? Yes of course it is, stupid robot! You hit "one" to confirm. You wait. Sorry, this access code is incorrect. Please enter your 12 digit conference participant ID access code number followed by pound now. Arh, that wasn't the right number after all. You try again, this time remembering to hit pound. The robot repeats it back to you again and you confirm. Finally, you enter the conference call, a bit late.

Pleasantries are exchanged, the conference gets rolling and then...someone's call gets dropped. Everyone waits for them to dial back in and run the access code gauntlet.

Google Voice has long felt like it could become a real competitor to the major phone carriers. With its mobile phone apps and recent ability to port existing phone numbers to the service, the VOIP service has been moving closer to being a viable alternative. But today Google announces that it's found a partner, not a competitor among the major carriers.

The company has just announced that Google Voice will be fully integrated with Sprint. This means that all Sprint phones and all Sprint users will be able to tap into Google Voice's features without needing a special app.

Once a competitor of Skype, the video-streaming company Qik was acquired by the VOIP giant in January. But it appears this hasn't ended the development of Qik's live-streaming software, as Qik is launching a new iPhone app today.

Qik Video Connect offers video streaming and video calling - available for real-time viewing or recorded and sent as a video message. The app will also allow you to post live video links to Facebook and Twitter.

The popular VOIP service Skype will start displaying advertising in its Home tab beginning this week.

The company has just announced the change, insisting that, "the Skype experience is our first priority." The move to bring advertising to the Skype environment comes as the telephony company makes its move for a planned IPO this year. While Skype has an estimated 177 million active users, only around 8.1 million are paying subscribers. The addition of advertising will give the company another revenue stream.