Posts Tagged ‘VoIP’

Further Details Emerge As Skype & Its Founders Close to Settlement

By Om Malik | Tuesday, November 3, 2009 | 4:32 PM PT | 8 comments |

There is a good likelihood that Skype; its founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis; and a group of private equity investors led by Silver Lake Partners are close to settling their legal disputes, allowing eBay to sell 65 percent of Skype for about $2 billion. I had first reported the news this past weekend. As part of the settlement, Zennstrom and Friis are likely to get a board representation, and there is some talk of Index Ventures being out of the deal as well. Continue »

With Ribbit, BT Is Rethinking Its Voice Business

By Om Malik | Friday, October 30, 2009 | 2:10 PM PT | 17 comments |

When BT, formerly known as British Telecom, splurged and bought Mountain View, Calif.,-based Ribbit for $105 million some 15 months ago, I dismissed it as an attempt by an aging incumbent carrier to reinvent itself as a web-savvy, next-generation communications provider that was unlikely to succeed. “BT has always been long on promise, but short on execution of its grand vision,” I wrote.

Fast-forward to today and BT has fully embraced the new communications reality, one that goes beyond mere voice calls. And to show how serious it is, the company has made Ribbit founder Ted Griggs the chief technology officer of BT Voice. Continue »

VoIP Ringing Up Billions in Sales

By Om Malik | Thursday, October 29, 2009 | 2:52 PM PT | 7 comments |

Money And  Phone,Can you believe that VoIP-based telephony services brought in nearly $20.7 billion in revenues during the first six months of 2009? Incredible as it might sound, it is indeed true, according to data reported by market research firm Infonetics Research.

Continue »

Seriously…a VoIP App Store?

By Sebastian Rupley | Tuesday, October 27, 2009 | 10:22 AM PT | 0 comments |

VoIP and messaging application provider BroadSoft, in conjunction with its BroadSoft Connections conference, today introduced a new app store, BroadSoft Marketplace, where users can browse and purchase VoIP and communications applications. In addition, through an “Xtended” program, Broadsoft-partnered operators and app developers can offer their own custom-branded app stores, and share in revenues. Continue »

Google Voice, Now Serving on Your Numbers

By Om Malik | Monday, October 26, 2009 | 10:45 PM PT | 19 comments |

About two years ago, I signed up for a service called GotVoice, which allowed me to aggregate voicemails from my residential, VoIP, PBX and wireless numbers in one place. It transcribed the voicemails for a small fee, and it delivered them as attachments to my email or as SMS messages. In short, it’s a nifty little service that almost always does the job.

It’s not cheap — but then you get what you pay for. If you don’t want to pay anything and want to contribute to the continued education of the Google borg, then you can use Google Voice to get access to your mobile voicemails, in addition to other features. Continue »

Apple Approves Another VoIP App, Rebtel

By Om Malik | Monday, October 19, 2009 | 12:30 AM PT | 18 comments |

310755560.jpgI just learned that Apple has approved yet another VoIP application, this time from Stockholm-based company Rebtel. You can download it from the iTunes Store. The service also works over AT&T’s 3G network, making it less necessary to have a Wi-Fi connection. But in my experience, WiFi-based calling is always better. AT&T announced earlier this year that it was going to permit VoIP calls over its 3G data network.

Rebtel joins a growing rank of Internet telephony applications including Skype, Truphone, Nimbuzz, Fring and Vonage. Given that Apple and AT&T are giving the nod to almost all VoIP applications, I wonder why exactly Google Voice isn’t getting the go-ahead? Any theories, people? (Press release from Rebtel below the fold.) Continue »

Skype’s Plan B to Stay in Business: Buy Gizmo5

By Om Malik | Tuesday, October 13, 2009 | 3:06 PM PT | 14 comments |

Folks at Skype might be getting a tad desperate in their prolonged fight with JoltID, the intellectual property company controlled by the Skype founders — Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. And that’s why they might be looking to buy Gizmo5, a SIP-based calling service started by technology provocateur Michael Robertson. It’s rumored that the company might be taken out by Skype for about $50 million. The rationale behind buying Gizmo5 would be pretty simple. Continue »

Voice Is Dead or Long Live Voice?

By Om Malik | Monday, October 12, 2009 | 4:40 PM PT | 11 comments |

I first started seriously writing about voice delivered over the Internet almost 10 years ago. I’ve written about the meteoric rise and ignominious fall of Vonage, the fabulous sale of Skype, and the deaths of countless wannabe VoIP service providers. Despite the story lines, there was one constant in every conversation I had with wildly optimistic VoIP entrepreneurs: Voice will eventually be free. Continue »

Jajah Lets You Make Calls via Twitter

By Jennifer Martinez | Thursday, September 17, 2009 | 10:16 AM PT | 10 comments |

jajah @callJajah is privately launching in beta today a voice-over-IP solution that lets people make calls for free via micromessaging site Twitter and other Twitter-related desktop and mobile applications. This is another effort by Jajah to get its VoIP service onto a popular application; last year, the company forged a partnership with Yahoo to offer its voice services to Yahoo IM users. Continue »

Coming Soon: A Price Hike at Skype

By Om Malik | Tuesday, August 25, 2009 | 12:27 PM PT | 21 comments |

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A price hike is coming for some, if not all, Skype customers. The company has quietly made it known on its web site that it will be increasing its connection fees to 7.9 cents from 3.9 cents per call. When a reader alerted us to the move, we were surprised, to say the least. So we asked Skype what’s going on. This was the company’s response: Continue »

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