Musings of an Internet Marketing Consultant |
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
Catching Up: Mobivox - Launching Voice-Enabled Conversations.
Posted
8:14 a.m.
by Jim Courtney
About three weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview Mobivox's new CEO Peter Diedrich, a telecom industry veteran who brings both telecom executive and VC-funded startup experience to the table. Mobivox has traditionally provided a low cost worldwide calling service, including free calls to Skype contacts. Key features included (i) no client downloads, (ii) launch a voice call from any telephone handset and (iii) access via over 340 points-of-presence in 40 countries. However, unpublicized has been that they also provide a platform for voice enabling the user interface to many other potential communications service partners. Historically, Peter sums up Mobivox as having proven they can provide and host a simple service with a voice-enabled user interface; their primary challenge is to determine what should be free. The gems he sees in the current platform include:
Given the challenges of generating a worldwide user base, going forward Mobivox plans to continue the current service but also look for opportunities to find service provider partners who can take advantage of their voice-enabling platform. To have a more complete offering they are also looking to include API's that go beyond "call control in the cloud" to include support for call completion, backend billing, CRM interface and fraud management. Their final challenge is to improve monetization; reversing a pre-appointment decision to make all but calls to Skype contacts chargeable, Peter sees the need to develop both a retail and partner customer base.
Tags: Mobivox, Peter Diedrich, Skype, Jajah Powered by Qumana Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Those Minute Stealers Are Back at It...
Posted
7:10 a.m.
by Jim Courtney
Announcements over the past few days have triggered Andy to write an excellent summary post on the state of the Minute Stealers market space.
And Alec comments on the latest move coming from last week's Jajah-Jingl merger. I'm with Alec and will stay with Mobivox, who has almost 400 points-of-presence in 30 countries, including a local one in Toronto.
And Mobivox gives me direct access to all my Skype Contacts free as well. Powered by Qumana Sunday, January 07, 2007
A Successor to Every Home Entertainment Device
Posted
11:49 p.m.
by Jim Courtney
Bill Gates keynote this evening of course introduced Windows Vista; however, it is not simply an operating system "upgrade" but rather a transformational product that brings media management and storage to the consumer audience. You can find more details in the multiple posts that will flow out; however, at the Bloghaus we were able to not only see but work with the forthcoming HP TouchSmart PC -- representative of the many new types of hardware platforms that will be introduced with the Windows Vista launch. Two pictures: a side view .... ....and your morning weather report. Features include:
They seem to have left out any voice communications hardware, leaving an opening for Skype phones and related add-ons. One thing is certain: devices such as this will accelerate, but converge, the trend mentioned in this evening's keynote where the younger demographic spends more time on the Internet than watching conventional TV. Powered by Qumana Sunday, April 30, 2006
Voice 2.0 Builds Momentum
Posted
11:29 p.m.
by Jim Courtney
PhoneGnome offers Relevance-based Call Management with Iotum's Relevance Engine .
For a benchmark example of a response Skype can now look to iotum; this agreement between PhoneGnome and iotum demonstrates a revenue generating service that manages my calls based on my work environment. This all changes today with the announcement of a partnership between Iotum and TelEvolution, whose PhoneGnome appliance has received widespread acclaim for its unique ability to seamlessly merge PSTN and VoIP services. PhoneGnome enhances a traditional phone line with a VoIP service that provides an automatic least cost routing of outbound calls via either the PSTN if a "local" no charge call or a "long distance" call over a designated VoIP service if calling outside the local calling zone. At the same time, as with all VoIP services, it provides the ability to add calling features such as Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, No Answer Transfer, etc. managed through a web interface yet maintains access to essential services such as E911, home alarm systems and 800 numbers. As a result of this announcement, PhoneGnome now adds an intelligent call routing and management service: the ability to direct inbound calls according to "Relevance" of the caller in the correct context at the time of the call. For instance, if the caller is a key "VIP" customer, it would be forwarded to my mobile number, unless I was currently in a meeting in which case it would be sent to voice mail. But, if iotum identifies via Outlook that this caller is someone with whom I have a meeting scheduled later in the day, the call would be sent to my mobile phone regardless of my current availability status. Another input to the handling of a call may also be my current MSN Messenger status. It's all very powerful and the Iotum expert system works automatically and transparently, in the background changing my call management preferences as I go about my day working between my home computer, my laptop and scheduling and attending meetings. I set the rules; I get to change the rules.
As Bruce Stewart says in his more detailed description and review of this partnership, "This deal makes sense on so many levels. Both services are really easy to set up and use and complement each other nicely."From a market perspective:
I think we're going to see a lot of partnerships of this caliber with iotum. And the potential partners are Skype, Yahoo, MSN and AOL at the consumer level or one of the PBX providers such as Nortel, Panasonic, Linksys (Cisco), Avaya or any other potential VoIP-based PBX manufacturers at the enterprise level. The major question is: when will these players realize that offering intelligent premium services, such as the Iotum Relevance-based Call Management service, is a key stepping stone to their future growth beyond the legacy telephone system. Thursday, April 27, 2006
The Commercialization of Internet Web browsers: the Prologue
Posted
6:36 p.m.
by Jim Courtney
To add some pre-history from someone who was there: Mark Andreesson and some of his grad school colleagues had developed the Mosaic Web browser at the University of Illinois Champagne-Urbana ("UICU"). UICU then went out and sought licensees; Quarterdeck Corporation (of DESQview and QEMM fame) was the first licensee, signing an agreement with UICU in February or March of 1994. Then Marc went off with Jim Clark to form Mosaic Communications in early April 1994 (I can still visualize seeing the WSJ article announcing their startup). UICU realized they may have something that could be a royalty generator and signed a deal that resulted in the creation of Spyglass as a commercial entity which received the worldwide rights to license Mosaic on behalf of UICU. In the summer of 1994 Quarterdeck went through a restructuring (in which I was personally involved on the sales and marketing side); their engineers decided to build a web browser from scratch even though they had licensed rights to the UICU Mosaic code; these rights at the UICU end had been transferred to Spyglass. However, since QEMM was so highly pirated, Quarterdeck was seized with a software piracy "protectionist" mentality such that they missed the iterative “sharing” culture of the Internet. Meanwhile Marc and his colleagues developed their Netscape product from scratch (they never had a UICU/Spyglass license) and made their beta builds available on the Internet for testing and feedback starting in September 1994. (Clark et al were forced to change their company name from Mosaic Communications to something else - Netscape - as a result of a potential lawsuit by Spyglass who felt they owned the Mosaic name.) By the time Netscape launched an official release version in the spring of 1995, they had a very large, worldwide user base. Quarterdeck released its product in May of '95 but never got market share or traction; the world had already gone Netscape as the default browser. Never was sure how much real revenue Netscape was generating in its initial post-release days but, as Alec has mentioned, it certainly "sold" as a stock on Wall Street. Another recollection: At Quarterdeck we ended up re-negotiating the royalties, initially set at $5.00 per license with UICU, down to $0.50 per license with Spyglass. Eventually Microsoft came along, recognized a browser was a feature, not a product, and went on to embed IE within Windows. Zap goes any revenue model. So to put a conclusion to Mark's question about where the world would be without IE -- any browser product would have been a component of a larger offering -- either as an infrastructure application or in a developer toolkit. Quarterdeck was eventually sold to Symantec in 1998 as Symantec needed a Windows Uninstaller to avoid a copyright lawsuit on another Uninstaller product they had -- Quarterdeck had CleanSweep. If I recall correctly, shareholders got $0.65 a share for a stock that had traded as high as $39 in late 1995. One final note: one feature of the Quarterdeck browser has never made it to Internet Explorer to date - an ability to open multiple web pages in windows within a single "master" browser window. Was a great feature that has only over the past year gained widespread popularity, first in Firefox and potentially in MSIE 7.0: now it's called "Tabs". Sunday, April 02, 2006
On the need to empower your lowest paid employees.
Posted
9:39 p.m.
by Jim Courtney
Simon Cooper, a senior executive at Marriott, and a graduate of the same Executive MBA program I took twenty-one years ago, said his biggest fear as a hospitality industry executive was that his lowest paid employees were the ones in constant contact with the customer. I can say I have seen several instances, in hotel chains he managed (Delta and later Marriott) where these employees were empowered to do spontaneously whatever it took (within reason) to satifsy the customer. The most recent example is outlined in my post about the vandalisim inflicted on my new Volvo S60 three weeks ago where the staff at a nearby Courtyard Marriott assisted me in several ways with no questions asked. There is a reason Courtyard Marriott tends to be my preferred hotel chain. Tuesday, March 28, 2006
SlingBox rocks ... the sequel
Posted
10:09 p.m.
by Jim Courtney
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