Om Malik reports that Yahoo has acquired Dialpad Communications, a VoIP firm he describes as “the next last thing to Skype.” Founded in 1999, Dialpad, with two PC-to-phone products, describes itself as “one of the world’s largest providers of IP based telecommunications services and a key player in the fast growing IP Telephony market.” The company claims 14 million-plus registered users in less than two years, 300 million calls and 2 billion minutes to and from the U.S. and over 200 countries.
Thinking about the weekend’s gossipfest, this doesn’t mean Yahoo and Skype don’t still have reason to chat but you would think Skype is a tad less valuable to Yahoo right about now. One other thought: this pretty much destroys the notion that the SBC-Yahoo alliance would keep the latter from adding VoIP to its rapidly growing service menu.
More as warranted.
Update: The official announcement was made late Tuesday afternoon. Dialpad posted some details, including word that it was discontinuing its phone card (current cards will be honored through expiration) and already had dismantled its online store and discontinued selling phone hardware including broadband phones and adaptors. The answer to the key question of what Yahoo plans to do with its VoIP acquisition: “Yahoo! plans on leveraging Dialpad’s PSTN calling capabilities to add to Yahoo! Messenger’s recently enhanced PC-to-PC voice calling offering.”
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post