Acquisition :: VoIP Biz-News.com

Number of results 24 for acquisition

15/03/2012 - Avaya buys videoconferencing company Radvision for $230 million

Avaya has signed a deal to buy videoconferencing vendor Radvision (Nasdaq: RVSN) for $230 million. The deal will immediately give Avaya a strong presence in the videoconferencing market at a time when the sector is starting to sizzle.

Both company's boards have approved the deal and Avayla said it expects to close on it in the next 90 days.

In the process, Avaya gets a very strong videoconferencing product, which gives it another tool with which to battle Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) as it continues its development in the unified communications market.

And, as Zeus Kerravala, founder of ZK Research points out, it also gives Avaya more value for its $1 billion IPO that it filed for last June.

The company has had a video presence, of sorts, with its own desktop product, but the Radvision acquisition puts it at a different level.

"With this acquisition we will seek to extend video conferencing to any device, anytime, anywhere, making it as easy as a phone call, seizing the opportunity to deliver a fully-integrated solution and architecture that we believe sets us apart from the competition," Kevin Kennedy, president and chief executive of Avaya, said.

For Radvision, an Israeli company founded in 1992, the deal it's an opportunity to climb out of the hole its been struggling in since Cisco bought Tandberg. Before the sale, Radvision had been a major technology partner with the networking company, and sales to Cisco, at one time, made up about 40 percent of Radvision's revenues.

Over the past several quarters, Radvision has worked hard to dig out, but has struggled to establish itself as a stand-alone provider of videoconferencing systems, especially in the critical North American market, despite its very solid Scopia product line.

And, after what looked like a turnaround fourth quarter of sorts--it beat analysts estimates easily on sales and earnings--Radvision issued first quarter earnings that were soft at best, with revenue and earnings well below what analysts expected.

Avaya said Radvision's enterprise video infrastructure and endpoints will be integrated with Avaya's Aura Unified Communications (UC) platform.

Ira M. Weinstein, senior analyst and partner, Wainhouse Research, called the deal a win for both companies.

"The addition of the Radvision video portfolio to Avaya's business collaboration solutions is a powerful combination, he said. "This is a win for both of these companies, their channel partners, and their end-user customers."

Radvision shareholders will receive $11.85 a share. Radvision shares closed up 12.3 percent at $11.20.

For more:
- see this release

02/02/2012 - ShoreTel acquires M5 Networks for $160M as it looks to develop cloud business

ShoreTel (Nasdaq: SHOR) has agreed to acquire M5 Networks in a deal valued as much as $160 million, giving it a major entrée to the booming cloud services business in the form of a strong hosted VoIP and UC operation.

M5 shareholders will receive approximately $84 million in cash and 9.5 million shares of ShoreTel stock, which equates to a total of $146.3 million in initial consideration based on a ShoreTel's average stock price over the prior 30 trading days. In addition, M5 shareholders may receive additional contingent consideration of up to $13.7 million. The contingent payments are payable over the two years after closing and are based upon the achievement of certain revenue performance milestones for the year ended Dec. 31, 2012. The deal is expected to close by the end of March.

Privately held M5, which was recently given a visionary position in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for UC as a service in North America, caters primarily to businesses of between 50 and 500 seats. It has more than 2,000 customers and more than 60,000 recurring revenue seats in the U.S.

M5 itslef made a pair of major acquisitions recently, in April buying contact center software vendor Callfinity, and in November 2010 buying hosted VoIP provider Geckotech.

With forecasts pointing to continued growth in the hosted UC market, Gartner estimates the market to be $700 million today and expects it to grow at a 36 percent compounded annual growth rate to $2.2 billion in 2015, the deal could be very good to ShoreTel.

ShoreTel CEO Peter Blackmore said M5 brings a proven hosted UC solution to the company. And, he said, ShoreTel, after eight months of performing an extensive buy-versus-bill review "determined that the secret sauce in hosted UC is not just a well developed R&D solution, but more fundamentally experienced in running a very different business model."

Blackmore said M5 also was attractive because it brought with it a low churn rate, high average revenue per unit, competitive customer acquisition cost, and expertise in running in 24/7 datacenters.

"The management skills required to run a hosted business are in many ways different from those necessary for the on-premise business," he said. "For us to build this expertise would have taken time and investment and would certainly have involved distraction and therefore risk to our current business. We therefore determined the best way to enter this market quickly and establish a strong position is to find a company with a proven business model, a significant recurring revenue stream, a good management team, and then bringing that organization into ShoreTel as a new business unit."

Blackmore also said ShoreTel plans no changes in its current distribution model.

On the nuts and bolts side:

ShoreTel is acquiring M5's entire operation including its customer base, distribution capability, and proprietary network, and will be extending offers to substantially all of its 200 employees;
Following the close of the acquisition, M5 will be operated as a ShoreTel business unit;
M5 CEO Dan Hoffman will become president and general manager of the new business unit;
M5 engineering teams will remain separate, but will cooperate and coordinate in order to leverage the innovation and best practices of both groups; and,
The current ShoreTel Champion Partner reseller program will evolve to include the ability to offer hosted services once the reseller has been qualified and certified.

For more:
- see this release
- see the earnings call transcript from SeekingAlpha

17/10/2011 - Polycom acquires ViVu, looks to expand into broader video-conferencing market

Telepresence vendor Polycom (Nacdaq: PLCM) today announced it has acquired low-cost videoconferencing and video collaboration company ViVu. Terms of the cash deal, which closed Friday, for the privately held startup were not released. Polycom expects the transaction to be neutral to earnings.

ViVu is one of a number of vendors offering a scalable cloud-based architecture and enterprise-class secure platforms, without any proprietary hardware. ViVu's video collaboration software can be embedded into web applications such as enterprise, social and vertical industry applications to enable instant web-based HD video collaboration. The company, which offers a monthly service for under $10, in September rolled out its own app for Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad 2 and iPhone 4. The iOS component means the videoconferencing product now is available on PCs, Macs, Android devices and iOS devices, without requiring any proprietary hardware.

The company was founded in 2008 and employs about 25 people. Clients include TIBCO and Thomson Reuters.

ViVu gives Polycom a fast-track to embed HD video into web-based applications through an OEM model, accelerating time-to-market and adoption of Polycom HD video collaboration solutions, while driving awareness of the Polycom brand powering video collaboration inside a wide range of applications.

Polycom said its goal with the acquisition is to "make it possible for millions of people to use video collaboration as their preferred method of communication--easily, reliably and securely--regardless of network, carrier, protocol, application or device."

The acquisition is expected to be a key enabler for Polycom to continue to provide customers with the highest quality, scalable video collaboration. Polycom said it will leverage ViVu technology in its RealPresence Platform.

"ViVu is a compelling acquisition for Polycom as their technology provides a scalable architecture to quickly deploy rich video collaboration for a range of web-based applications for social, business and industry-specific applications, such as those for healthcare, finance and customer service," said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Polycom's executive vice president and general manager of UC solutions and chief development officer.

ViVu software applications are potentially wide-ranging and include customer service, telemedicine and financial services.

ViVu video collaboration software technology is already embedded into a number of enterprise applications. A couple of examples include TIBCO, where ViVu powers the HD video collaboration in TIBCO's enterprise social platform tibbr, enabling users to collaborate in real-time, and Thomson Reuters, where it powers the video collaboration inside Thomson Reuters' financial content application, helping financial professionals collaborate to view and discuss the latest news.

The acquisition of ViVu gives Polycom innovative and scalable software technology for web-based applications--as well as first-mover advantage--to deliver HD video collaboration for social media and vertical market applications.

For more:
- see this release

Related artices:
ViVu brings its desktop group video conferencing to Apple's iPad 2, iPhone 4
Polycom offers enterprise a full tablet video-conferencing solution
Polycom scores telepresence win with German pharma Merck

12/10/2011 - Neustar pays $650M to acquire TARGUSinfo

Policy management and addressing solutions management company Neustar (NYSE:NSR) has made its second acquisition of the year, entering into a definitive agreement to pay $650 million for TARGUSinfo.

TARGUSinfo, an independent provider of real-time, on-demand information and analytics services including Caller ID, offers services to help its customers identify, verify, score and locate their customers and prospects.

The deal, said Neustar officials, extends Neustar's position in the $30 billion information services market by combining TARGUSinfo's Caller ID and online information services, such as lead verification and scoring, with Neustar's strengths in network information services, including address inventory management, network security, and marketing analytics. It's expected to close in the fourth quarter.

TARGUSinfo generated some $149 million in revenues for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, representing 20 percent year-over-year growth. Following completion of the transaction, Neustar will have annual revenues of approximately $750 million generated from a more diversified platform of information and analytics services offered to a wider range of enterprises.

"This transaction is a significant and logical step in our growth strategy," said Lisa Hook, president and chief executive officer of Neustar. "Neustar has long provided communications, media and marketing companies with insights derived from their own data. By combining with TARGUSinfo, we will be able to offer a much more diverse portfolio of services in the real-time information and analytics market."

In a blog post, Hook described the evolution of the deal as having formed over a meal between she and TARGUSinfo founder George Moore.

"Neustar's acquisition of TARGUSinfo wasn't the result of an investment banker bringing one of us the idea," she wrote. "Our combination stems from a meal I had the pleasure of sharing last year with George Moore, who founded and built TARGUSinfo into the formidable company it is today.

"Over dinner, George and I both became excited about the possibilities of what our two companies could do together," she said. "Since then, our senior teams have grown equally excited about how, by bringing these complementary companies together, we can broaden the scope of the services we offer to a larger and more diversified customer base."

Neustar shares closed at $28.04 Tuesday, up 1.6 percent, or 44 cents.

Hook less than a year ago assumed the CEO role at Neustar, taking over for founder Jeff Ganek in November 2010. She previously had been president and COO. The company in April agreed to a $39 million cash deal that will give it the Numbering Solutions business from Evolving Systems (NASDAQ:EVOL).

For more:
- see this release
- see this Washington Post article

06/10/2011 - Report: Microsoft deal for Skype expected to be approved

Despite concerns that an Italian company's filing might block--or at least hold up--the European Union's approval of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) $8.5 billion acquisition of VoIP provider Skype, it now appears the regulators will give it the green light.

For years, Microsoft has butted heads with the EU over anti-trust concerns, bundling and licensing deals.

The Financial Times is reporting that the deal will be allowed to go through without requiring a second round of investigation. That phase could have delayed the deal well into 2012.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the acquisition in June. Regulators in Russia, the Ukraine, Serbia and Taiwan, also now are expected to approve the deal, following the lead of the U.S. and the European Union.

Last month, an Italian VoIP provider that competes with Skype, Messagenet, filed a complaint asking that Skype be unbundled from Windows, saying again that the inclusion of the technology in its Windows OS would be unfair. It also asked regulators to open up Skype's 124 million-strong Internet phone network to competitors' services by having Microsoft publish the Skype's computer coding to allow services to interconnect.

Messagenet contends that the merger will likely make the software even more interoperable than it is today.

The Financial Times said EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia would OK the deal without remedy.

Microsoft has promised to keep Skype available on rival software platforms.

For more:
- see the FT story

22/08/2011 - Skype makes deal to acquire startup GroupMe

VoIP provider Skype, looking to break into the mobile group messaging business, has entered into a definitive agreement to buy GroupMe, which enables users to text and make group calls for free to selected contacts on mobile devices. Reports say Skype paid up to $85 million for the one-year-old startup.

GroupMe's group messaging experience works across mobile devices and platforms including Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry, and phones with Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android OS; it also recently rolled out an in-browser chat component. The service has a few million users who send upwards of 100 million texts per month, but the company, which has secured some $11.5 million in funding to date, was beginning to see competition--in the form of Apple, Google+ and Facebook offerings--heat up.

"This acquisition is another step towards our vision to provide a global multi-modal and multi-platform communications experience," said Skype CEO Tony Bates. "It complements our existing leadership in voice and video communications by providing best in class mobile text-based communications and innovative features around group messaging that enable users to connect, share locations and photos and make plans with their closest ties."

Bates said the acquisition, together with its acquisition of Qik earlier this year, augments Skype's role as an innovator in driving unique mobile user experiences.

"We think the mobile group messaging space is very important," said Bates. "It means furthering the breaking down of barriers to global communications."

Skye said the two companies would, for the time bring, continue to operate separately.

Skype itself is waiting for its own acquisition by Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) to be approved by European regulators. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the deal in June.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Wall Street Journal article

10/05/2011 - Microsoft to Acquire Skype for $8.5 Billion

Microsoft and Skype have just announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Skype for $8.5 billion in cash from the investor group led by Silver Lake.

07/01/2011 - Skype to Acquire Qik

Skype has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Qik, a provider of mobile video software and services. Qik has 60 employees, and is headquartered in Redwood City, California and has an office in Moscow, Russia. The transaction is expected to close in January 2011. The companies informed that terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.

13/10/2010 - Qualcomm Acquires iSkoot Technologies

Qualcomm has acquired iSkoot, a San Francisco-based pioneer of providing services at the intersection of mobile and the internet. iSkoot works with leading device manufacturers and U.S. mobile operators to bring popular social networks and new internet services to mobile handsets in an intelligent manner that reduces data bandwidth usage on the network and saves battery life on phones.

iSkoot is now a subsidiary of QuIC, Qualcomm’s subsidiary focused on enabling and optimizing open source software with Qualcomm technologies, and will focus on three areas: continued support of its current customers; integrating its offerings with Qualcomm’s products; ,and developing open source data management contributions for mobile devices.

iSkoot began in 2005 with the simple premise that internet services would be even better if they worked on the handsets most people use today and over wireless networks most people can access.

iSkoot’s Kalaida Platform is architected to move data-intensive tasks through iSkoot-managed proxy servers. The proxy servers intelligently transcode and aggregate the traffic such that the actual frequency and size (number of megabytes transmitted) of data transmissions is greatly reduced. By this method, Kalaida brings the power of cloud computing to consumer mobile devices and gives operators the ability to deliver compelling interactive experiences with minimal impact on network and handset performance.

Since its inception, iSkoot has mobilized many of the internet’s most popular services, like social networks, consumer email and IM. Leading U.S. operators offer iSkoot services, such as a free mobile app that aggregates access to social networks, customizable news feeds and consumer email services within a single application.

12/10/2010 - Phone Power Announces Acquisition of VOIP.com

Phone Power has acquired VOIP.com, a Voice Over IP service provider headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. Phone Power has built a solid reputation in providing cutting-edge communications solutions to both residential and business customers. This is the third acquisition for Phone Power in the last twelve months. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition grows the Phone Power customer base over 25%.

“VOIP.com is an excellent fit for Phone Power as we continue to grow,” said Ari Ramezani, CEO of Phone Power. “We are very pleased to welcome VOIP.com customers into the Phone Power family. We look forward to utilizing our combined synergies to provide all of our customers the most advanced features that technology has to offer and a world class customer service experience. The VOIP.com brand will contribute significantly to the company’s organic growth potential.”

Moving forward, the VOIP.com brand will co-exist independently with the Phone Power brand. Phone Power plans to manage the VOIP.com brand by continuing to invest in marketing, infrastructure and customer support. VOIP.com clients will gain access to Phone Power’s advanced features such as their free softphone, mobile apps, and free international calling.

16/09/2010 - Calix to Acquire Occam Networks

Calix and Occam Networks announce that the companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Calix to acquire Occam Networks in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $171 million, which is approximately $7.75 per outstanding share of Occam Networks stock.

Upon the completion of the acquisition, each outstanding share of Occam Networks common stock (other than those shares with respect to which appraisal rights are available, properly exercised and not withdrawn) will be converted into the right to receive (a) $3.8337 per share in cash, without interest plus (b) 0.2925 of a validly issued, fully paid and non-assessable share of Calix common stock. After the completion of the acquisition is, former Occam Networks stockholders will own between 16.5 percent and 18.9 percent of the outstanding shares of Calix’s common stock based on the number of Calix shares outstanding as of September 15, 2010.

Additionally, after the completion of the acquisition, one non-management member of the current Occam Networks Board of Directors is expected to be appointed to serve on the Calix Board of Directors.

The combined organization of Calix and Occam Networks is expected to provide communications service providers across North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, and select global markets with an enhanced portfolio of advanced broadband access systems, and accelerate innovation across the expanded Calix Unified Access portfolio. The acquisition is expected to result in more access options over both fiber and copper for communications service providers to deploy, which could expedite the proliferation of advanced broadband services to both residential and business subscribers, including such services as high-speed Internet, IPTV, VOIP, Ethernet business services, and other advanced broadband applications.

Calix expects to complete the acquisition in the fourth quarter of 2010 or first quarter of 2011, subject to Occam Networks stockholder approval, receipt of required regulatory clearance and the satisfaction of certain other customary closing conditions. Occam Networks stockholders representing approximately 27 percent of Occam Networks’ outstanding common stock have signed an agreement to vote their shares in favor of this transaction. It is anticipated that the acquisition will be accretive to Calix’s non-GAAP earnings per share in the second quarter of 2011.

16/07/2010 - VocalTec and YMAX/magicJack Announce Merger

VocalTec and YMAX Corp., the creator of magicJack and other products and services have successfully merged and will be traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol: CALL. VocalTec stock will seize to be trading using the symbol (NasdaqCM:VOCL) after close of business today July, 16th 2010. It will commence trading using the symbol (Nasdaq: CALL) on Monday, July 19th, 2010. The parties believe that the combined company has an enterprise value of $245 million and a per share value at least $17.50. The previous holders of VocalTec will have 1,173,294 shares of common stock following the merger. VocalTec expects to have revenues ranging from $110 million to $125 million this year. With over $40 million cash/securities on hand and no debt, VocalTec expects to show a profit in the current quarter. For additional information on this announcement we recommend that investors read the entire press release and the VocalTec press release describing the stock split and review the form 6-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that we expect to be filed on or before Monday, July 19th, 2010, described below.

The combined companies have the use of over 30 patents, some dating to when VocalTec invented VOIP. In the current legal world we live in, this protection is crucial. The company believes that its patents, technology, and inventions are prior art to other existing patents and may also expose patent invalidity. The combination of patents and softphone/softswitch technology were the primary drivers of the merger. The combined company is much stronger now.

YMAX brings the success of the magicJack in the form of brand equity, distribution and advertising across many outlets and over 6,500,000 magicJacks sold since 2009. The largest reaching CLEC in the United States in terms of area codes available and certification in number of states, it has its own chip development and application server/softswitch company. VocalTec also adds softswitch, application servers and the softphone to the mix. The combined company will have cost reductions through different synergies.

VocalTec's advantages over its competitors, including Skype, include:

1.A softphone, sharing a user's favorite numbers, available across many platforms:

a.A computer
b.A computer with a magicJack connected enabling the use of a regular telephone (corded or portable) with the ability to be the second line in a house or the primary number
c.A computer with a femtocell-enabled magicJack allowing calls from a user's cell phone to go through a home computer and achieving superior call quality in your house while saving valuable cellular plan minutes (to be available later this year)
d.Via mobile applications on iPhone and iPad mobile digital devices and mobile devices running the Android and Blackberry mobile technology platforms (beta versions today, formal release in Q4 of 2010)

2.Free phone numbers given out to all our customers and easily dialed from any telephone
3.Free telephone services for magicJack to magicJack calls
4.Free telephone calls from our softphone users to anybody in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands
5.Underlying network carrying these calls is a dedicated telephone network with over 130 very powerful servers, session border controllers and application servers. This network has proven to have 99.99% uptime in the last year
6.Free voicemail, directory assistance, and local and long distance calling in the U.S. and Canada
7.User contacts stored on our network so where ever they might use the softphone, the contact list will be downloaded to the app
8.We believe we have the best VOIP call quality using in the U.S.
9.magicJack received the 2009 Most Innovative Product of the Year award from RadioShack
10.The ease of use of the magicJack and softphones particularly when traveling

Ido Gur, who will remain in charge of VocalTec's Israeli operations, states, "I am excited about the potential to become the worldwide, leading provider of VOIP and softphone applications using SIP. I strongly believe that the synergies enabled by this business combination will allow us to achieve this target. I trust the leadership and of Dan Borislow to make this a reality."

31/03/2010 - Covad and MegaPath Announce Merger Agreement

Covad and MegaPath announce an agreement to combine the operations of Covad and MegaPath. Pending federal and state regulatory approvals, the transaction will create one of the largest managed service local exchange carriers in the United States. The combined businesses will have the largest Ethernet, DSL and T1 footprint in North America and be the only MSLEC capable of providing a full range of Internet, voice, security and VPN services nationwide.

Covad offers IP broadband services in more than 4,400 central offices nationwide through its commercial and wholesale distribution channels. Covad wholesale partners include leading providers such as AT&T, Verizon Business and Sprint; MegaPath delivers value-added communication services, including hosted VoIP, managed security, MPLS VPNs for connecting multiple sites, and SSL VPNs for connecting remote users and business partners. MegaPath distributes its services via a large direct sales force and channel sales partnerships, and has over 19,000 direct SMB and enterprise customers.

By combining Covad’s robust network infrastructure with MegaPath’s wide selection of products and value-added services, the transaction promises to provide the companies’ partners and customers with a superior selection of cost-effective IP voice, data communications and security solutions.

The combined businesses will be owned by Platinum and MegaPath investors. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is subject to federal and state regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of Q3 2010.

24/02/2010 - GENBAND Selected to Acquire Nortel’s CVAS Assets

GENBAND will acquire substantially all assets of the Nortel Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions Business. The acquisition is subject to court and certain regulatory approvals in Canada, the United States and other jurisdictions, as well as other closing conditions.

The acquisition will combine GENBAND’s next-generation media, session and security gateway technologies and Nortel’s softswitch, media gateway and application technologies, offering service providers a best-in-class, end-to-end switching and global services portfolio.

Once the transaction is approved by the courts and closed, GENBAND will have enhanced its research and development, sales, and support operations spanning the globe. The company will have products deployed with over two-thirds of the world’s top 100 service providers and will cover broad markets including fixed, mobile, cable and broadband operators. GENBAND will continue its commitment to existing business partnerships with plans to expand product, service and support relationships following the close of the Nortel CVAS transaction.

GENBAND has teamed with One Equity Partners and other existing shareholders to secure the Nortel assets.

05/06/2009 - Fine Point Acquires VoIP Gateway Seller Sonic

Fine Point Technologies has agreed to buy the German software and systems integration service provider Sonic Telecom.
Sonic has been an authorized reseller of Fine Point's device management technologies since 2005 - but also selling VoIP gateway systems and services.

29/05/2009 - NextGenTel Buys Tele2 Norge Broadband/VoIP Operations

Norway's second largest broadband supplier, NextGenTel, has bought the broadband and VOIP business of Tele2 Norway.
The deal will strengthen NextGenTel's position in the Norwegian market by adding 97,000 broadband subscriptions - of these 23,000 are VOIP subscriptions.

15/05/2009 - Vonage highlights HD voice in new marketing push

Vonage has released the new marketing campaign it announced in its first-quarter earnings report, and the company's pitch seems to have shifted from touting its low-cost calling to highlighting the quality of its HD voice service. The "Sounds Good" campaign is produced by TBWA\Chiat\Day, which Vonage said is a "firm known for creating impactful messaging on highly regarded brands."

Andy Abramson at VoIP Watch points out that Vonage isn't alone in offering HD voice, and could run into stiff competition from Skype and others. The firm could also encounter interoperability issues if a Vonage user calls someone outside the Vonage network who isn't using the same HD codec or is transcoding between different ones. But Abramson also notes that Vonage's new push could lure AT&T Call Vantage customers as well as others who passed on Vonage because of concerns about call quality for business uses.

Though the HD voice offering gives Vonage a trendy selling point, the firm will have to carefully watch how another costly ad campaign affects its bottom line. Vonage cut marketing cost per customer acquisition to $290 from $319 in the last quarter, and it needs to continue moving in that direction if it wants to reach break even. Will a new marketing campaign help Vonage attract new customers and reduce churn, or will it simply end up raising the company's expenses without a corresponding revenue gain?

For more:
- see the VoIP Watch post
- see the Smith on VoIP post

07/05/2009 - Vonage posts smaller loss, but higher churn for Q1

Vonage reported first-quarter earnings Thursday, showing a smaller net loss than the previous quarter but higher churn, which put net subscriber lines down more than 6,000 for the quarter. The company reported a net loss of $7.7 million on revenue of $224 million, which was down from the $10.3 million loss the company posted in the fourth quarter of 2008.

While Vonage's ARPU crept up by $0.50 to $28.86 and it brought its customer acquisition cost down $19 to $290 when compared to the previous quarter, its churn increased from 2.9 percent to 3.1 percent. Vonage also appears to have cut about 5 percent of its workforce, as the company ended the quarter with 1,413 employees, down from 1,491 at the end of 2008.

"We continued to improve our financial performance during the first quarter of 2009, with solid gains in adjusted EBITDA as well as increased cash flow from our existing customer base," CEO Marc Lefar said. "We also expanded initiatives during the quarter to improve productivity and reduce costs across the company, while continuing to invest in new growth opportunities including mobile applications and international products and services."

In the earnings release, Vonage announced it has tapped TBWA/Chiat/Day, "a firm known for creating impactful messaging on highly regarded brands," to launch a new marketing campaign for Vonage in the second quarter. It is a questionable decision for Vonage, as the company likely will increase its marketing cost per customer acquisition, a serious drag on the company's bottom line that it appeared to be intent on reducing this quarter. Churn remains a problem as well, and will have to be reduced from current levels for the company to see sequential growth.

For more:
- see the Vonage earnings release here

03/04/2009 - Google and Twitter talk acquisition

Google and Twitter may be in late-stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. Or it is early-stage and the two are simply talking about working on a real-time search engine.

Regardless, Tech Crunch quotes multiple sources that Google wants Twitter. If a deal goes down, it would likely be cash and/or stock and some number north of a rumored valuation of $250 million. Facebook offered $500 mil, but that was an all-stock deal, so Twitter took a pass.

Twitter's value is in real-time search and its huge community of users and brands. The collection and analysis of information embedded in all of those Tweets in real time is big bucks; skip ads and proceed directly to time-sensitive data mining.

For more:
- Tech Crunch stirs the pot on a Twitter/Google deal. Post.

Related articles
Twitter hangers-on beat the bird to the money - FierceVoIP
FierceVoIP has a twitter and we're not afraid to use it. VoiceCon 2009: BoT (Best of Twitter) - FierceVoIP

09/02/2009 - SkyWi may be selling, but Telekenex isn't buying

The SkyWi/Qwest saga just got stranger. On February 4, the embittered VoIP/ISP said it was going to sell off its VoIP operations to California-based CLEC Telekenex. Two days later, Telekenex issued a terse one paragraph statement saying that it had "discontinued its discussions."

More specifically, the release said-

"Telekenex today announced it has discontinued its discussions with SkyWi, Inc and One Connect IP. Telekenex is making this announcement because of press reports that Telekenex was in discussions concerning an acquisition of the companies."

Since SkyWi's earlier press release had a quote attributed to Telekenex's COO and founder saying Telekenex was excited about the opportunity to expand its customer base, this has got to have SkyWi customers wondering just what in the world is going on. Customers were about ready to be sold off to a California firm, but that move would introduce other uncertainties in service during the transition.

Did someone jump the gun before final terms were worked out? Did Telekenex discover some sort of land mine during a due diligence process to make them run away screaming?

If you've heard something, drop us an email.

For more:
- VoIP-News with a brief summary.

05/12/2008 - Sipcall Acquired by Droplet Technology

Droplet Technology has acquired privately-held Sipcall. Christian Rees, Sipcall's President and Founder, has joined Droplet as Director of Service Platforms. Financial details of the deal were not announced.

In April 2008, Sipcall launched "Hipsip," a mobile data service that allows users to make carrier-friendly VoIP calls worldwide from any mobile phone's web browser, using only their local mobile calling plan. Droplet has already begun integration of the Sipcall SIP infrastructure into Droplet's interactive mobile video service platform.

In order to meet consumer and enterprise demand for higher quality interactive video across a wider range of devices and networks, communication service providers worldwide have made significant new investments in IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network infrastructure. SIP is the Internet-derived standard used for setting up IMS calls and multimedia streaming sessions over IP networks. Working in close collaboration with leading mobile operators, Droplet is the first company to combine state-of-the-art all-software Internet video and voice technologies with an industry-standard IMS framework to enable interactive mobile video services that can run on virtually any camera-enabled 2.5G or 3G handset, as well as on any PC with a webcam.

30/10/2008 - SightSpeed Acquired by Logitech

Logitech has agreed to acquire privately held SightSpeed for approximately $30 million in cash. SightSpeed is an award-winning provider of high-quality Internet video communications services. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in early November.

The acquisition of SightSpeed will provide Logitech with video calling technology and a software and services development team that can be focused on future video calling initiatives that can enable cross-platform video communications with an intuitive, lifelike experience, for people sitting in front of a personal computer or with their family in a living room.

SightSpeed has approximately 25 employees. The company?s management team includes technology leaders with backgrounds in Internet services and software technology development. The SightSpeed services are based on SIP, a standard that enables the services to be interoperable with other Internet communication services.

Impact on Financial Results for Current Fiscal Year
The impact of the acquisition on Logitech?s current fiscal year results is not expected to be material.

26/09/2008 - SkyWi Completes Merger with One Connect IP

SkyWi has successfully completed its merger with One Connect IP, making the combined entity one of the largest regional companies to provide Internet, VoIP, and other related broadband services to customers throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Nevada. The merged company will operate under the SkyWi corporate brand and its service offerings will continue to be sold under the SkyWi, One Connect IP and ZiaNet brands.

The merger assembles a unique combination of facilities-based wireline network infrastructure; rapidly deployable, carrier-class wireless last mile; enterprise-class VoIP telephony; and UltraSpeed broadband Internet access to a range of residential and business customers throughout markets that surround Tier 1 metropolitan areas, as well as Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

More than 95% of the Internet coverage in the U.S. is classified as Broadband 1.0, which means that when fully-loaded, most traffic to the end user is around 200Kb/s and rarely peaks beyond 2 - 10Mb/s. Broadband 2.0 refers to traffic that can be sustained up to 10Mbp/s and can peak as high as 100Mb/s. SkyWi focuses on delivering Broadband 2.0 infrastructure with an eye on scaling up to new technology as they become available; such as Gigabit Wi-Fi as recently announced by the IEEE.

The merger also enables SkyWi to offer wholesale services to ILECs and CLECs enabling them to more efficiently utilize their existing physical network infrastructure. In many cases they will be able to increase their fixed asset utilization by as much as three times.

05/09/2008 - iSkoot Acquires Social.IM

iSkoot has acquired Social.IM, the social network IM client. This acquisition positions iSkoot to grow beyond mobile VoIP and create a compelling and valuable consumer solution with a growing lineup of Web communications that can be integrated and pushed to your phone.

Social.IM built a customizable desktop application and Web service that adds real-time communication and desktop notifications for social networks, online communities, and Web sites. The technology includes a desktop IM client and also the capability to deliver new message alerts, information, and content to social network or online community members. Social.IM also released a developer API that allows for social network application developers to reach their users on desktop.

iSkoot already delivers mobile VoIP solutions for carriers and millions of consumers around the world. But this year, the mobile VoIP leader has begun to focus on the development of mobile products and services that integrate the mission-critical Web services that consumers value most into mobile handsets.

The acquisition is the latest in a series of significant developments for iSkoot. Earlier this year, the company hired CEO Mark Jacobstein, an experienced mobile services executive who played key roles at Digital Chocolate and Loopt. Also, after the success of the iSkoot powered Skypephone, Skype and iSkoot announced a new five-year agreement. As part of the deal, iSkoot received for the first time the exclusive rights to offer the Skype mobile services though carrier partners in eight countries.