A few days late to the scene of the crime but Skype's free SkypeOut offer (at least until the end of the year in North America) should give potential Vonage IPO investors another reason to reconsider their decision. It would be fair to suggest Mathew Ingram's column today will not be included in any Vonage IPO promotional material! Andy Kessler calls free SkypeOut a "Wall St. sucker punch". At some point, you would think some major investors will to pick up or parrot the bad Vonage karma within the blogosphere. Yes, Vonage has 1.5 million customers but it's not really a business when you're not making money and the prospects to become profitable are, at best, uncertain. The Vonage IPO will get done but will the issue price $16 to $18 a share or the size of the deal stay the same? With Vonage in pre-IPO marketing mode (which means senior management can't talk much), the information void should provide investors with the opportunity to really dig into Vonage's S-1. It would also help to read about the new SkypeOut offer. I checked it out yesterday by making a call home - and the feedback from Pam the Luddite was pretty good.
Update: Om Malik has an insight post on Cablevision introducing a $20 a month long-distance plan that allows you to call anywhere in the world. Rather than being aimed at Voange or Skype, Om suggests Cablevision is right at Verizon. A Canadian telecom consultants wonders whether whether Videotron could follow suit with something similar for consumers in Ontario and Quebec. Man, it's getting exciting!
Update II: In a different take on the Vonage IPO, Redherring.com's Scott Parsons suggests the offering is a "solid short-term opportunity for investors to make money". After going through all the competitive threats facing Vonage, he concludes "there's money to be made by agile investors who move quickly in and out of the stock". That's make Vonage sound like a bet rather than an investment.