Another day, another VOIP start-up snapped up. This time it's Nimcat Networks, which was bought by Avaya for C$46 million. Ottawa-based Nimcat makes P2P communications software that puts networking intelligence in VOIP phones. This lets businesses launch new features without having to buy expensive call processing and application servers. Since Nimcat was created three years ago, it has raised about C$9 million in private equity from investors such as Siemens Venture Capital, Skypoint, Innovatech, Broadcom and the Business Development Bank of Canada. CIBC analyst Steve Kamman said if Avaya is successful with Nimcat,  "this potentially disruptive new technology could impactSMB-focused Inter-Tel, Avaya rival Nortel, and Cisco". Tom Tehrani adds Nimcat's purchase leaves Popular Telephony's Peerio as the last man standing in the P2P IP PBX market, while Alec Saunders is looking for Skype to launch new services aimed at the SMB market.

 

I wonder what kind of weekend Andy Abramson had as he gets ready to moderate the bloggers panel at Fall VON? This morning finds him in full rant mode over broadband service providers and the growing danger of port blocking and filtering to target online services such as Skype and Bit Torrent. The way Andy sees it, carriers are selling "dumb pipe", which does not give the right to stipulate which Web sites or services you can or can't use. For the most part, Andy's on the mark because the power of access to the Web is accessing the full variety of content and services with few restrictions. When the pipe owners start to act as censors to "protect" the integrity of their networks, then the trouble begins because how do they draw the line. What content/services can legitimately can be blocked before questions arise about economic self interest? In other words, do revenue-hungry carriers have the right to establish themselves as middlemen simply because they want a cut of the action? Sadly, I think Andy's fears will become more apparent as broadband access comes with more onerous end-use license agreements. There's a lot of money in Web-based services and content, and the broadband carriers will want a cut whether they distribute/offer it directly or not.

As the voice business dies a slow death amid the emergence of Skype, Google Talk, etc., carriers must explore other ways to generate revenue. This has seen many carriers focus on managed and hosted services for businesses, high-speed Internet access, wireless communications and, most recently, television. But what about content such as video and games? Do carriers need to own content or simply license it? This question was raised in a recent Newsweek story that cited Video Networks Ltd. as the new wave of telecom carriers focusing on producing in-house content such on-demand television and video. Newsweek also looked SK Telecom, which spent $14-million recent for a stake in a movie product company, and $12.6-million for a stake in YBM Seoul Records. In North America, carriers are getting into the game with distribution deals and their relationships with movie studios and television networks will likely get deeper as content is pushed to new devices. One exception to the rule in North America is BCE Inc., which owns a content portfolio that include the CTV, a national TV networks; the Globe & Mail, one of the country's two national newspapers; and TSN, a popular sports channel. BCE has talked about getting rid of its content assets because they are "non-core" but if voice goes away, then wouldn't content become a valuable thing to have? For BCE, the decision to sell or not comes down to having full access to the "content" though a licensing agreement - even the assets are sold. This is a tough balancing act, which explains why the content  business has been quasi-limbo for the past year while BCE figures out how to structure a deal that lets it eat its cake and have it too.