Canada's Telecommunications Hall of Fame is welcoming its first members in October at a big, swanky gala in Toronto. How about Lawrence Surtees, who covered the industry on a level I can only dream about from the mid-1980s to 2000 at the Globe & Mail. He also won a National Newspaper Award, and has written two books: Pa Bell, a history of BCE; and Wire Wars, the inside story of the long-distance competition battle. Now an analyst with IDC, Surtees continues to be one of the most influencial members of the telecom community. In fact, I think he should be given consideration as a CRTC commissioner some day.
Update: Got a lot of good feedback on my Hall of Fame nomination for Surtees. Someone also suggested Terry Matthews, which is a no-brainer. Any other ideas? Maybe we could start a write-in campaign like they used to have for all-star games in baseball.
Opera's Prospects
Om Malik has an interview in Businesss 2.0 with Opera Software CEO Jon von Tetzchner about the browser's company strategy. A couple interesting points made by von Tetzchner are Opera's ambitious plans for the wireless market and the fact some people actually pay to use the software. To be honest, I'm not keen on Opera's prospects other than its abiity to serve niche markets. In May, Opera had only 0.51% of the browser marketing, according to Netapplications.com – ranking it even behind Netscape. As a former avid Opera user, I'm now far more excited about Firefox. Not sure why I tired of Opera given it is similar to Firefox but I think Opera had an opportunity at one time to gain major momentum against IE but it never really materialized.
Skype's Zennstrom Loves Videoconferencing
Fresh off an appearance at Tony Perkins' AlwaysOn conference via SkypeVideo, Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom will give a videoconference keynote speech at the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo in Los Angeles in October. I initially thought Zennstrom was going to appear in person but he's apparently avoiding the U.S. until his lawyers can extract him from the U.S. music industry's lawsuit against Kazaa.
8×8 Q1 Results – Better Times Ahead?
Has 8×8 Inc. turned the corner? The company said it added 16K VOIP customers in the fiscal first-quarter to bring its subscriber base to 73,000 while revenue nearly tripled to $6 million from $2.1 million. The company, however, posted a $5.1 million loss. I'm not sure how to read these results. If you're an optimist, the good news is 8×8 attracted nearly as many subscribers in Q1 2005 than it did in all of 2004, while Q1 revenue was the highest in five years. Then again, it is hard to get too excited about a company losing as much money as it generates in sales. The company, whose shares have not performed well this year, is currently worth $107-million. Pulling out my handy-dandy envelope, this suggests Vonage is worth $900-million (not including a premium for its brand, market leadership and takeover/IPO prospects). You have to wonder about 8×8's future. Is a destined to become a small, niche player or a takeover candidate for someone looking to get into the VOIP market with a well-known brand? If investors vote with the feet, I'd say the jury is still out on the company's future.
For more thoughts on Vonage's potential value, check out my post earlier this month when the Vonage-Bell South rumors started to rumble.
iRobot Pursuing IPO
SkypeOut Prices Dropped
Not sure what to make of this news but Skype has slashed its SkypeOut rates by about 15% to more than 30 countries. SkypeOut, which is marking its first year anniversary, is also being offered to six new countries at 1.7 Euro cents a minute. What's perhaps more interesting is SkypeOut prices to Saudi Arabia, Papua New Guinea, Oman, Lichtenstein and Haiti are climbing – in some cases by more than 100% – apparently due to “increases from our suppliers”. Strategically, I wonder what the price adjustments suggest? Has SkypeOut usage plateaued, and it requires a jump-start to attract more users? Do the price increases mean business is getting a little more complicated now that Skype has to deal with incumbent carriers to connect to the PSTN? Skype says SkypeOut has attracted more than 1.8 million people but it does provide a break-down on metrics such as ARPU or average number of calls per user. For all anyone knows, SkypeOut could be regularly used by only 100,000 people while the remaining 1.7 million people have only used it once.
