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Fonality Scores $12M for Open Source PBX

Source: gigaom.com

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When the times get tough the tough choose cheaper, open-source phone systems. Such seems to be the theme of Fonality CFO Dan Rosenthal’s chat with me about the company’s latest $12 million venture funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth Fund with participation from existing investor Intel Capital. And you know, I don’t think he’s wrong. The company is “sometimes profitable,” according to Rosenthal, and has grown rapidly in the last few quarters. Supporting that growth is one of the reasons for the third round of funding.

The Ciscos and Avayas of the world won’t keel over because Fonality’s selling more phone systems and software (while beefing up its retail distribution network at stores such as Best Buy and through Dell), but Fonality has a really good chance to play big, because its open source roots mean its phone systems for smaller offices costs tens of thousands less than similar system over a multi-year time period. For a 70-person office its PBX costs about $23,100 up front compared to more than $30,600 in annual leasing fees for a comparable system from Cisco.

The economic downturn might actually help Fonality find more customers, especially since most entrepreneurs (who would be in the market for cheaper phone systems) tell me recessions are the best time to start a business.

Published on September 4th, 2008 under , , , , ,

Esme Dumps Her Dell, Office is Next

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

Esme Vos and I share alot of the same viewpoints. We both like posh hotels, fine dining, travel, wireless and on MuniWireless. Today when I saw her post about going non-PC, I couldn’t agree more. This is more about going less Microsoft.

Basically as more and more of us live connected to the cloud and as Mac and Linux users figure out that first before the Windoze crowd wakes up, you’ll find more of the tastemakers moving in that direction.

On my Asus eee PC I use Open Office, Thunderbird and Mozilla. On the Mac I’m using Mailplane and Google Mail for a cloned account of my Exchange server. At week five of my experiment I’m relying less and less on Microsoft Exchange. I’m even using Google Apps more each day.

Published on March 28th, 2008 under , , , ,

Dell Joins Fonality To Conquer SMB VoIP Market

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Dell seeing the value of providing VoIP solutions to it’s vast customer base of small business has chosen to partner with Fonality, a leading SMB VoIP Solution provider.
CEO of Fonality has written a lengthy post to TrixBox weblog and a very good explanation of the facts and needs for the business venture. It explains the view from Fonality’s perspective.
From Dell’s stand point, it is going to the market well prepared with Fonality and Nortel, with Fonality filling up the group 5-125 user business while Nortel will fill the needs of 5-500 user business’.
I think this is a very good news for Fonality and it should clean up things like back doors that everyone jumped up about, including me, and resort to open operations. If you need feedback from your clients, request it. (They did clean up the last act.) TrixBox can go a long way.
For now, all I can say is, Congratulations!

Published on January 24th, 2008 under , , , ,

Dell Thinks Small Biz is Big Biz for VoIP

Source: gigaom.com

Dell begins bundling Fonality’s open-source software with its enterprise servers today, its latest gambit to compete in the already-crowded VoIP market — this time targeting companies with 125 employees or fewer.

This is fertile ground: Analyst Alan Weckel of research firm Dell ‘Oro Group estimates annual PBX revenues, including those from VoIP phone systems, will exceed $7.5 billion by 2011. Much of this growth could come from small- to medium-sized businesses. Weckel told The Wall Street Journal in August that he thinks 35 million small businesses will adopt IP phone service before 2010 (about 11 million currently use it), a number that’s likely to ramp up if the economic situation worsens.

Granted, this is a market that has never fulfilled its promise. Few of the many hosted-PBX service providers are even making money. Yet Dell (DELL) still sees opportunity in hawking VoIP to businesses. Why? They buy more gear than cost-conscious housewives. If there is one thing Dell knows, it is that empires can be built on the incremental profits inside lots of gray boxes and the software that runs on them.

Dell is a relatively late entrant here. Cisco, Avaya, Nortel and Alcatel-Lucent, to name a few, are established players in the VoIP space, though their products also target larger customers. In the small business space, Digium and Microsoft, which released its Microsoft Office Communication Server in 2007, will be the chief competitors. (Microsoft has claimed a working relationship with Dell in the past.)

Late or not, Dell lives to put the squeeze on the margins of its peers. The Fonality VoIP Phone System will be priced at about $750 per employee for a five-employee system, or $9,999 for a system that will serve 25. This is far less than Cisco-class proprietary system, which can cost as much as $2,000 per employee. Being open source, Dell-Fonality boxes are simpler than most too, and capable of self-installation — an additional savings worth thousands of dollars.

“The big five phone systems-vendors are going to wake up today and see Dell as a competitor and it’s going to be a watershed event — the end of the phone system-oligolopy,” Fonality founder Chris Lyman said.

It certainly is a watershed event for four-year-old Fonality (as Lyman tells Found|READ), which has been selling its own branded VoIP boxes since 2003. Fonality now has 5,000 business customers (and 130 employees). It could sure use Dell’s sales channel to scale. Dell has between 6 million and 7 million small business customers, according to IDC.

Fonality will get a standard revenue share: hardware proceeds go to Dell, software revenues flow to Fonality (Dell won’t disclose the exact breakdown). Users will get their bill from Dell. Tech support will be handled by Fonality for at least the first year, Lyman says. Dell’s service is available for purchase today, via phone. Customers can order systems at Dell.com by February.

Published on January 23rd, 2008 under , , , , , , , , , , ,

Skype, Dell in deal to make fast VoIP calls

Source: voipcentral.org

Skype Software is ready to join with Dell to make faster VoIP XPS mobile system. This mobile system includes following two modules :

a) XPS M1210
b) XPS M2010.

According to this new deal, Dell will provide software in which customers can access Skype’s voice and video Internet. Firstly, Dell will load Skype on the XPS 2010 (mobile entertainment system) which has features of 20.1-inch high-definition display with integrated Web cam. The XPS 1210 will configure with Skype as a part of an optional audio-video communications package. This configuration has following features:

a) Integrated rotating Webcam
b) Noise-isolation earbuds
c) Mobile broadband capability.

According to Brett Faulk, Marketing Director,

Dell is committed to deliver cutting-edge technology that provides voice and video connectivity virtually anywhere.

Skypers are able to connect the PC-based calls to other Skypers without having worry about the cost of calls or long distance calls. Due to this reason, the Dell XPS M1210 and M2010 are available immediately worldwide market.

Now Dell customers are able to use the benefits of Skype for their optimized computing environment. By this way, Dell customers can easily use internet to talk their friends and family. The good hardware designed Dell products will make more convenient to Skype callers.

In March, Skype had launched its seven new consumer voice applications named Tellme. This new services were created by Voice XML developers. This voice services allow the developers to use Tellme Studios to build voice applications.

Via: TMCNet

Published on June 1st, 2006 under , , ,

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