The Skype-eBay marriage is dominating the VOIP spotlight today but what of Vonage, which was
the industry's poster child before its buzz suddenly evaporated? What
does the Skype deal mean for Vonage's IPO, which is supposed to raise
$600-million. Is it good for Vonage by raising the valuation benchmark
or does it hurt the company by showing there are better prospects by
investing in a P2P VOIP play that has little infrastructure? Om Malik
notes the biggest threat facing Vonage is the growing presence of
cablecos, the Bells, upstarts and the "increasingly unfriendly FCC". A
highlight of eBay's conference call earlier today was CEO Meg Whitman
dissing Vonage by saying that in terms of users "Skype is adding a
Vonage week" - meaning it attracts one million new registered users
every seven days. It would off base, however, to suggest Vonage's IPO
will fail
because there are enough investors who believe in Vonage and/or VOIP's
growth. The question is how much stock Vonage will have to give away to
get an IPO done. One more thought about the Skype-eBay deal is you'll
hear a lot more about pay-per-call joining pay-per-click (AdSense, etc.) as the next killer
e-commerce app based on the idea that buyers or advertisers will pay a fee
if people connect to them using VOIP.
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Mark Evansthe blog - examines the world of telecom and technology from a distinctly Canadian perspective.the person - lives in Toronto, CA with his wife and three children, and works as director of community with PlanetEye Inc. 
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Et tu Vonage?
by
Mark Evans
on Mon 12 Sep 2005 01:19 PM EDT | Permanent Link
The Skype-eBay marriage is dominating the VOIP spotlight today but what of Vonage, which was
the industry's poster child before its buzz suddenly evaporated? What
does the Skype deal mean for Vonage's IPO, which is supposed to raise
$600-million. Is it good for Vonage by raising the valuation benchmark
or does it hurt the company by showing there are better prospects by
investing in a P2P VOIP play that has little infrastructure? Om Malik
notes the biggest threat facing Vonage is the growing presence of
cablecos, the Bells, upstarts and the "increasingly unfriendly FCC". A
highlight of eBay's conference call earlier today was CEO Meg Whitman
dissing Vonage by saying that in terms of users "Skype is adding a
Vonage week" - meaning it attracts one million new registered users
every seven days. It would off base, however, to suggest Vonage's IPO
will fail
because there are enough investors who believe in Vonage and/or VOIP's
growth. The question is how much stock Vonage will have to give away to
get an IPO done. One more thought about the Skype-eBay deal is you'll
hear a lot more about pay-per-call joining pay-per-click (AdSense, etc.) as the next killer
e-commerce app based on the idea that buyers or advertisers will pay a fee
if people connect to them using VOIP.
Comments
Re: Et tu Vonage?
by
Anonymous
on Mon 12 Sep 2005 06:33 PM EDT | Permanent Link
I would like to bring to your attention that already plug-ins are available (one got selected by Skype in a recent competition) that allows for click-to-call. With this, it is not clear to me why "buyers or advertisers will pay a fee if people connect to them using VOIP" beyond what they pay for the original entry.
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