A View on View :: If not 8x8, Then Who?

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If not 8x8, Then Who?

by Mark Evans on Sat 29 Jan 2005 04:30 PM EST | Permanent Link

To pursue the 8x8 train of thought a little more, I'm wondering how investors can leverage the emergence of VOIP. Do they take advantage of industry growth by pursuing companies in the hardware, software, security or service sectors? If so, do they stick with well-known brand names such as Symantec, Juniper, Cisco and Nortel, or are there interesting niche players out there? Any feedback/ideas would be much appreciated - not from a personal investment point of view but in terms of getting a better handle on whether the investment opportunities out there come anywhere near the hype surrounding VOIP.

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Re: If not 8x8, Then Who?

by Anonymous on Mon 31 Jan 2005 09:09 AM EST | Permanent Link

Well, since we have the CRTC holding Bell's arms behind its back, allowing the independent VoIP providers and cablecos to punch them in the gut repeatedly, seems that the play *may* be shorting the telcos and going long cable stocks. Just an idea.

Re: If not 8x8, Then Who?

by Anonymous on Wed 09 Mar 2005 05:07 PM EST | Permanent Link

Now 8x8 goes back to the well for another $14M and 7M shares. Do you feel the dilution now? That balance sheet must be weak.

Re: If not 8x8, Then Who?

by Anonymous on Thu 10 Mar 2005 11:28 AM EST | Permanent Link

Have service provider stocks ever done really well over the long run? incumbents not included, especially not canadian ones...

I think investors would be better served looking at infrastructure enablers... and maybe enterprise plays....

Perhaps an AUDC, INTL, or maybe chip heavyweights like TI, BRCM who have embraced VoIP early on as part of their growth strategies... Or access network vendors who benefit from VoIP demand... ARRS, TERN...

Or you go with CSCO/AVaya...

8x8 is one of the weakest ideas out there... although perhaps at times a great "trading idea".

Re: If not 8x8, Then Who?

by Anonymous on Fri 22 Apr 2005 01:12 AM EDT | Permanent Link

Packet8 is the best rated service around. It had a former life which makes it tough balance sheetwise but it will be a winner in the end.

I tried Vonage. It sucks by comparison.

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/voip/packet8-videophone-review.asp

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\n"; return $new_ad_params; } } /** BEGIN Backwards Compatibility Routines */ if (! function_exists('array_combine')) { function array_combine($keys, $values) { foreach($keys as $key) $out[$key] = array_shift($values); return $out; } } if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) { function fputcsv($filePointer, $dataArray, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { // Write a line to a file // $filePointer = the file resource to write to // $dataArray = the data to write out // $delimeter = the field separator // Build the string $string = ""; // No leading delimiter $writeDelimiter = FALSE; foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) { // Replaces a double quote with two double quotes $dataElement=str_replace("\"", "\"\"", $dataElement); // Adds a delimiter before each field (except the first) if($writeDelimiter) $string .= $delimiter; // Encloses each field with $enclosure and adds it to the string $string .= $enclosure . $dataElement . $enclosure; // Delimiters are used every time except the first. $writeDelimiter = TRUE; } // end foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) // Append new line $string .= "\n"; // Write the string to the file return fwrite($filePointer,$string); } } if (!function_exists('fgetcsv')) { #TODO - Remove or ??? #Originally built to handle PHP4 style of fgetcsv $CSVstruct = array('Sep' => ','); function fgetcsv($handle, $length=1024, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { $rows = ParseCSVStream(fgets($handle),"\n",false); return $rows[0]; } } // append a CSV row containing data converted from source array $data. Actual conversion is done by ExCSVRowWalker() function AppendCSVRow($data) { global $CSVstruct; array_walk($data,'ExCSVRowWalker'.($CSVstruct['OutEOL']=="\n"?'N':'')); $CSVstruct['File'] .= implode($CSVstruct['Sep'],$data).$CSVstruct['OutEOL']; } // returns an array of rows (each row being an array of columns) with parsed data. Returns false when conversion fails. Auto-detects Win/Mac/*nix newline characters, which are converted all to the sequence specified (defaults to $CSVstruct['OutEOL']) for your convenience. function ParseCSVStream($data, $newline="\n", $associative=true) { global $CSVstruct; $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\r","\n",str_replace("\r\n","\n",$data)); if ($newline!="\n") $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\n",$newline,$CSVstruct['File']); $CSVstruct['OutEOL'] = $newline; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = 0; $CSVstruct['Error'] = false; $CSVstruct['EOF'] = false; $res = array(); if ($associative) { $titles = ParseCSVRow(); while (($row = ParseCSVRow())!==false) { $newa = array(); //possible optimization: might use array_combine() - requires PHP 5 for ($col = 0; $col0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',str_replace($CSVstruct['OutEOL'],"\n",$item)).'"'; } function ExCSVRowWalkerN(&$item) { if (!is_numeric($item)&&(strlen($item)>0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',$item).'"'; } // read next line from buffer. function RowInput() { global $CSVstruct; if ($CSVstruct['EOF']) { return ""; } else { $pos = strpos($CSVstruct['File'], $CSVstruct['OutEOL'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); if ($pos===false) { $CSVstruct['EOF'] = true; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); } else { $pos1 = $CSVstruct['Seek']; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = $pos+1; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$pos1,$pos-$pos1); }; }; } /** Initialize ad_network variable */ $ad_logic = new ad_logic($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); $ad_network = $ad_logic->ad_network($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); ?>