2008 Year in Review: Top 5 VoIP stories

If there was any one big surprise looking back at the events of 2008, it was Skype's continually forceful presence in the spotlight. Amazing how an American-owned company with a corporate HQ in Luxembourg manages that. I suspect a lot of people expected Skype to be sold off to Google by now, especially with that multi-billion dollar write-off. Sometimes I wonder if they got the memo that they were bought by eBay. 

Cable companies continue to clean up on VoIP through triple-play offerings, but I suspect there are some contributing factors involved beyond the one-bill/best bundle price attraction that we don't mention here - like customer service. 

The "Me-Too" VoIP mob continues to shrink, a prediction that purple pundit Jeff Pulver made a long time ago when he said that cheap minutes were not a sustainable business strategy. Same thing when it came to the mobile VoIP plays. Might explain why Jeff split VoIP and now is following his social media muse. 

Consolidation of VoIP companies continues apace, driven by tight credit in most instances. About the only factor preventing more details is the same tight credit - buyers know they can get good deals, but unless they have cash on hand or a publicly traded stock, it won't happen. Meanwhile, sellers know they won't get a premium price for their companies, so unless they have to sell (i.e. run out of cash), they know they should stay firm. So long as they are cash-flow neutral, and/or have some cushion in the bank, it pays to wait out the storm. 

Finally, hosted UC solutions are all the rage, a natural evolution from enterprise-centric stand-alone offerings. Carriers are happy to sell as much hosted as they can, and they don't care what the brand name is. 

- Doug