Does the VoIP market need more innovation or does it just need more focus? This is a question to the serial entrepreneurs who are painting the landscape. Everyone is trying to get into this industry, from the call centers who sold for Ma Bell the last 20 years to the small rural ISP trying to bundle services.
With huge purchases like that of Skype and EBay, and AOL launching the AIM VoIP, there is a lot of good arguments for … innovation paying out. Recently in an online article I read the quote:
Innovation in the VoIP world is just starting, says one venture capitalist. And the entire industry needs to be looking beyond basic “find-me, follow-me” services to truly disruptive opportunities, according to Charles Moldow of Foundation Capital.
The article continues to discuss IP call centers as disruptive… http://telephonyonline.com/voip/news/voip_call_center_050406/. I believe in what the quote says, but the whole article is a sham as far as this not existing. It does exist, accept it seems this specific VC just discovered it for this article and that specific investment. VoIP call centers have been around for a very long time. I set-up a VoIP call center in Manila over 5 years ago as the back-up to a Canadian call center for the other hours.… so its not really amazing or disruptive. I would say it’s the norm. I believe its Challenger in Australia
The whole outsourcing like VoIP callers on Ebay, bidding for outsourcing is interesting. It’s kind of like a LivePerson model but VoIP enabled market for complete outsource mobile workforce is a cool idea, but labor intensive.
If it’s softphones, I really have to say that they have a lot of hope if you can make a softphone or voip call on one piece of software available on almost any device. Something like that may be disruptive… but would people use it… I guess 60 -70 million Skype users answers that question. That’s definitely a disruptive direction to go in. If you look at the Xten Eyebeam, now CounterPath, the idea of adding Video to the mix brings in more thoughts. Vocalscape has the Eyefon SIP softphone which is great for the VoIP industry for sending and receiving… but is customer service the way to go, and is that disruptive….
But what is the cool, wow, ahhh factor. What will make Venture Capitalists want to take a big bite out of your next round.
Well I could see things like:
- VoIP enabled websites, websites that talk… that’s a huge market place
- VoIP software allowing VoIP calls on any device, this is a big market
- Someone creating a SIP registry for all providers to run through, so free calls or “low toll charge” calls can happen between networks
- Calling Cards for unlimited calls over VoIP to VoIP phones and softwares for free and cheap calling. (Requires someone coming up with a SIP registry for all providers.)
- Build a search engine that you can click numbers and it calls
- Build a browser where you put the phone number in a box and it calls
- Add VoIP calling to home alarm systems and bundle them
- Add VoIP to Televisions
- Add TV channel streaming to softphones, make calls, watch TV, all on the same device. (Maybe it’s even a recorder as well. Maybe it can let you share files with friends and conversations recorded.) Crazy disruptive…FUN. Useful.
I don’t know the answer of the top of my head. Just that there are a lot of ideas out there, and as much as I think the market needs innovation, I am a strong believer in focus. I believe if you really focus on just one of these and truly build a company off it, you will succeed.
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