Back to Techies Land

Entering into Fall (it sure feels like Fall with close to freezing point temperatures in Montreal last night), back from vacation with the kids, I am attending Fall VON in Boston this week. It is very busy, as one could guess and filled with new ideas, new technologies and energetic people. A great place to be for a VC, trying to figure out the benefits of the new telecom puzzle.
 
Yesterday, one of our portfolio companies launched an amazing new product called Vox.  You can visit their website at www.voxlib.com and download it for free. It gives you the ability the make a Skype call from any cell phone. We are very proud and happy about this launch. Everybody has been working extremely hard to get it right and make it happen. This first product truly demonstrates how the economics of telecommunications, as we traditionally know it, are completely transformed. This is not a new topic obviously but Voxlib brings it to another level. Judging from the level of downloads yesterday, people were quick to figure out the value of Vox. Congratulation to the team! 

On another note, I just listened to a presentation from a large VoIP provider at VON and it felt like being teleported back to 2000. Charts and graphs were presented on losses, slicing it every possible way, as a % of sales by category, tracking it over time etc. While I do understand the purpose and need of it, I can’t help having this awkward feeling. It reminds me of a few Board meetings of technology companies in the late 90s where some Board members were harassing the CEO because “you are not losing enough money, your competitors are losing faster!” However new or differently the growth an industry may be going through, this will never feel right to me.