Om, it's not dot-VOIP yet
With Spring VON poised to kick off this week, Om Malik is starting to have some concerns about
whether the hype is getting out of hand. He cites the triple-fold
growth in the number of companies attending VON in San Jose, and the
flurry of VOIP-related press releases he receives each day. “Dom.com of
late 1990s has now become dot.VoIP,” Malik asserts.
While the VOIP PR machines are churning away, I'll take issue -
respectfully, of course - with Om's conclusion. The major differencet
between the dot-com boom and and the enthusiasm surrounding VOIP is we
have yet to see a wave of VOIP IPOs yet. In fact, you could argue it's
a major challenge finding a publicly-traded VOIP company. The highest
profile pure investment play is probably 8X8 Inc., which I've taken issue with in previous posts. Then, you have to go further down the food chain and looking at companies such as VOIP Inc. The landscape may completely change, however, if Vonage decides
to do an IPO this year. If Vonage is a hit, it may open the floodgates
to all kinds of VOIP IPOs - including a lot of crap looking for
VOIP-crazed investors.
So there you go, Om. It's not a dot-anything bubble yet as long as
investors have to patiently sit on the sidelines. Then again, things
could change in a heartbeat.
