Tuesday, August 15, 2006

AccessLine is on the move!!!

Yesterday, Accessline announced that they received $8M in venture funding. This, on top of the recent news about them offering VOIP services in a regional build-out plan. Sounds like they are moving in a methodical and reasonable fashion.
 
I've been impressed with their operations for a long time. They have a clear strategy to address the mid-tier market with a high-end offering and a small business offering as well. They aren't trying to shoehorn in a one size fits all solution.
 
Having said that, their small business offering is more up the alley of this blog and our team has set a TBG alert about AccessLine.biz's pricing policies. They spend a lot of time stating that there are no hidden fees. Actually, it's quite strange that they spend such an obvious effort in this area. Then, they go ahead and charge 30 second minimum call billing, charge for both legs of a connected inbound toll free call, and require a customer to configure rather complex and expensive arrangements of their different products. To learn more, check out www.telephonybuyersguide.com, or view the AccessLine vendor evaluation at http://www.telephonybuyersguide.com/telephony_vendors/accessline.html.
 
Go figger!

posted by TelephonyBuyersGuide @ 10:17 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 07, 2006

Sorry but some more Vonage news... That was news to me, how about you?

Found an incredibly interesting article in the "Star News Online" about Vonage's founder / chairman and his sorted past. I knew the guy was rich but never new how he did it. While 23 years old, it's reported that he and a few friends developed an inventive scheme to bilk money off of literally hundreds of thousands of small investors who bought and sold over the counter stocks. They took in nearly $1 BILLION in this effort and were fined only about $70 million. Some may say this is a nice return investment ($1B on $70M cost) but for me, if true, this does more to explain the success of their current IPO and the sham of a business model they run at Vonage.

I guess I should find solace in reading this because now I no longer need to wonder how they came up with such a lame business model:-)

Go figger:-)

posted by TelephonyBuyersGuide @ 4:22 PM 0 comments

Friday, August 04, 2006

J2 not getting enough new subscribers to eFax...

A few years ago I delved into J2's metrics in a big way. Their eFax acquisition strategy was nearly entirely based upon their free fax service, and then upgrading those free accounts to paid. It was free, who didn't have an account. In the end, they would upgrade roughly 5% of these accounts and make a handsome reward on the paid accounts. Paid accounts that cost 30% more than what would one could get at another comparable service.

Today, go try to find a free account, let alone a 30 day free trial period. I couldn't find the free offering, probably gone. I did however find a way to get the 30 day trial... start a signup and then try to stop, or "chat" with one of their online customer service reps;-)

I just read a Barron's article that said that J2 executives acknowledge a slow-down in customer acquisition and plan to increase prices to cover up for poor projected growth in Q3 '06 - "J2 Needs to Fix Its Fax-Services Growth". Say what? They're completely missing the point! So, what we're to deduce is that the same brainiacs who came up with the scheme that drove acquisition down are now responsible for the next decision that will sink the company... increasing prices.

This incredibly poor business strategy reminds me of the NY subway system... since they were losing money, they decided to increase prices. The issue was ridership, not revenue per rider. So, increasing prices would naturally reduce ridership, making other forms of transportation relatively cheaper, and ultimately reduce financial performance even further as the number of riders fell.

Go figger... I wonder if these J2 execs used to work at Vonage:-)


posted by TelephonyBuyersGuide @ 1:00 PM 0 comments