SwyxWare v6.20 mainly is SwyxWare v6.12 plus SwyxPhone Lxxx (Siemens OpenStage Phone) support. That feature determined the schedule and release date. Fortunately not every colleague was involved in implementing that feature. Some had time to add something else.

I won’t write about how to use the new Phones. You have to experience that by yourself.

There are some interesting technical changes, however. Before v6.20 when a SwyxPhone Lxxx logs in, a TCP connection is established and kept open until the phone logs off. In the new version there is no permanent connection. This has something to do with the call model used by the OpenStage Phones which is different from the one used with v6.12. The older SwyxPhones also support that model with a newer firmware. We decided to use the same call model for all phones and therefore the firmware update is mandatory. SwyxWare will not let a phone with an old firmware log in. You’ll get a message on the phone display. SwyxWare’s automatic firmware update will work, of course.

Another aspect is SwyxStandby support. The old firmware could handle one server only. The new firmware is able to work with a primary and a standby server. In case of a failure SwyxServer’s PhoneController service in v6.12 actively told every phone to switch to another server. Now the phones detect if their server is no longer available and automatically connect to the second one. The PhoneController service is gone in v6.20.