Windows market still attracting interest

With the long term future of Microsoft’s Response Point software still unknown one would think that it’s a signal that the Windows Telephony market is dud. And while Microsoft’s attempt to capture a juicy chunk of the massive small business market seems to have hit a snag, it’s not deterring other VoIP industry players from jumping in with two feet.

One such player is Sangoma. The publicly traded supplier of telephony cards and software out of Markham, Ontario is looking to emerge from the enormous shadow cast by Digium by developing solutions that work with Windows.

Sangoma’s latest offerings (NetBoarder VoIP Gateway Cards and NetBoarder Express 2.0 software), announced today, are designed for those end users, systems builders, reseller and integrators leveraging Windows who want to roll their own VoIP gateways and VoIP phone systems. Similar to what tens of thousands of folks have been doing for the last few years with Linux based platforms like Asterisk.

While a home grown VoIP gateway or phone system is nothing new, Sangoma’s move into the Windows market is and can be seen as a signal that market for Windows based telephony products is a viable one.

Only time will tell if this is the case, but for now at least one Windows proponent is excited about Sangoma’s move.

Nick Galea, CEO of 3CX, whose Windows based phone system has continued to win favor with customers, says the move by Sangoma is, “[Good] for our customers because the complete solution of Sangoma, plus NetBoarder Express 2.0, plus 3CX will be easy to install, easy to use and very cost effective.”

That’s an offering that’s sure to attract interest from the Windows market.

Phone.com launches virtual number service

Virtual number services are nothing new, but when one of your favorite VoIP providers launches their own offering you’ve gotta show them some love, right?

Today Phone.com launched their virtual number service to the general public. The virtual number service, with a bank account friendly cost of just $4.88 per month, allows any user to have one singular number act as a gateway for all life’s various phone numbers (like your cell, VoIP line, land line, etc).

Virtual number services, like this new one from Phone.com, are perfect for business professionals, sole proprietors and small businesses.

In addition to an affordable price tag, Phone.com’s virtual number service features:

• Greetings (including after hours greeting)
• Call handling rules (including call forwarding)
• Standard calling features (like caller id)
• Voice mail (with text transcription and voice mail to email)
• Local number portability (and nationwide number availability)

For information about Phone.com’s virtual number service, check out the press release here or the full features list.

44,000 deployments is pretty impressive

Word out of Fonality today is that their for-profit VoIP phone system offerings have been deployed 44,000 times.

That’s pretty impressive.

Especially since Fonality has only been in business since 2003. And the first year (I believe) was spent as a residential VoIP service provider.

Further proof (if you needed more) that open source and open source based solutions are growing to be every bit as popular as their proprietary counterparts.

Vonage keeps spending more for less

Vonage’s marketing spend is still out of control.

Every quarter since they went public their CEO has spoken to their marketing costs. Yet nothing much has changed.

As Doug Mohney reported, “marketing expense per customer [acquired] – has gone up to $309, despite reducing marketing costs by $3 million from the previous quarter.” At that price Vonage doesn’t turn a profit on a new customer until year two.
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Looking for profit starved channel partners

It is rare that I use this site for anything that is deliberately self-servant. I hope you don’t mind that I am going to do that right now.

I want to tell you some exciting news about a brand new channel program for the QuickPhones wireless VoIP phone.

Over the last three months the QuickPhones offering has been winning bid after bid for us against more well known counterparts – at twice the profit.

You might think it’s crazy to open up these profits to others. Why not keep them all to ourselves?

Well problem is we can’t bid on all of the wireless VoIP opportunities that are happening today. But we do want to win them all and we can – but we need a limited number of channel partners like you.

You don’t have to be big. You don’t have to be well established. You just have to be willing to take advantage of a channel program that offers you the following:

• Discounts of up to 50% off list
• Street price protection to keep your margins fat
• Sales and technical support to ensure your success
• Market development funds to grow your business
• Volume rebates to reward your accomplishments
• SPIFFs for your organization to incentivize your efforts
• Logistical services including blind drop shipments to save on your carrying costs
• and a team of experts at VoIP Supply helping you along the way!

This is a channel program built for your success based on decades of collective channel experience!

To take advantage of this lucrative opportunity all you have to do is agree to the program’s terms, conditions and place an initial stocking order of $3,800 USD worth of QuickPhones product. Product which could resold by you for a minimum total profit of $1,250 USD. There will be no further stocking commitments thereafter.

With a program this lucrative you can imagine how quickly word will spread. Resulting in it quickly becoming another profit starved channel program. We don’t want to see this so we’ve placed a cap of 50 total channel partners for the near future.

Since announcing the program earlier this week we have already signed 10 new partners including well known retailer VoIP Link. We are expecting this number to quickly rise over the next few weeks as we continue our recruitment efforts.

So don’t wait. Once we hit 50 partners we will stop accepting new channel partners.

To sign-up for the program today email me at gsmith@voipsupply.com or give me a call at 716-250-3408.

There is money to be made in wireless VoIP. I look forward to working with you to make it.

Thanks for your time and attention.

Garrett

P.S. If you don’t believe the hype read how the QuickPhones changed my mind about wireless VoIP phones then dig into the QA-342′s full specifications.

P.S.S. You should also read Where’s the money is wireless VoIP? and about a current need in the educational sector that you could deliver!

Video calling – seeing is believing

When Vidtel CEO Scott Wharton and I started chatting about his company’s video and voice calling service, I’ll admit I was a bit unsure. I wasn’t unsure of Vidtel’s service offering, I just wasn’t sure if video calling was really for me.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of speaking with Scott, he’s quite convincing, so I decided to throw uncertainty to the wind and give his video calling service a try.

Two month’s (and many calls) later, I’m a convert. Not just of Vidtel’s service, but of video calling in general.

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Wouldn’t you just buy an iPhone?

I really like a lot of the VoIP companies that are jumping on the iPod touch bandwagon. I can respect the fact that they are trying to show folks how to use their technology.

But if you wanted the ability to make phone calls, wouldn’t you just buy an iPhone? And if you bought an iPod touch, you obviously didn’t do it because you wanted to make phone calls (you probably have a phone for that).

So while I really like and respect these VoIP companies, I don’t see their efforts here amounting to much. Unless of course they’re offerings are more about hype, then driving real business.