Tsahi has a transcript of a really good interview with Vonage CEO Alan Masarek on his BlogGeek.me blog along with a video.
In reading the interview, it struck me that Vonage has clearly moved into the business communications market fully, following the successful integration of all of their acquisitions which included two Comunicano clients, Simple Signal and Telesphere along with the purchase of Nexmo two years ago.
Masarek's comments about microservices mimic what we hear from Dialpad's Craig Walker from his speech at IT Expo back in February. What also comes through is how consumer voice still is a significant portion of Vonage's recurring revenue base, but it seems to be being deemphasized compared to the business efforts.
Consumer VoIP was once the bastion of fierce competition with AT&T's CallVantage, Earthlink, AOL and Vonage fighting for the top spot, while other players now rolled up like Broadvoice and others wadded in like sparring partners, only to be KO'd by Vonage and big cable. Even 8×8, which carried the torch for so long with their Packet 8 monicker has pretty much moved out of consumer, leaving that to the likes of OOMA.
Two reasons..One cable with their triple play offers has made voice a commodity, making it hard for subscribers to not want what amounts to as subsidized phone service. The second reason is cord cutting.
But, just as we have OTT television rapidly chewing into the cable companies' pockets, voice won't be able to be so subsidized and companies like Vonage and others with a consumer play offer will be in the cat bird's seat to pick off the OTT loving users who simply see the cable providers broadband pipe, as this century's "dumb pipe." And with that, there will be huge opportunity.