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December 30, 2008
Mobivox CEO: Looking Ahead to a Successful 2009
By Greg Galitzine, Group Editorial Director
Montreal, Quebec-based Mobivox provides innovative voice-activated access to a host of Mobile VoIP services and applications, including world-wide calling, group communication and voice-to-text services.
Its voice-activated mobile services platform, MOBIVOX (News - Alert)|PL, combines an optimized voice user interface, cloud-based contact storage, and a comprehensive, network-agnostic telephony infrastructure.
Just this month, the company rolled out an enhanced version of their solution adding French and Spanish language capabilities to the offering. The MOBIVOX|PL platform now interacts with names and spoken commands in French and Spanish, particularly the idiomatic Spanish spoken widely in Latin America. The company reports that they are working on adding support for the Spanish spoken in Spain, and further plans call for adding a Portuguese-language capability early next year.
Peter Diedrich (News - Alert), the company’s CEO took some time to respond to a series of questions regarding the financial markets’ effect on business and the future of IP Communications.
GG: When you look back on 2008, was it a good year for your company?
PD: The past year has been a transition year for Mobivox. We successfully demonstrated and established a business-to-consumer mobile VoIP service and migrated our business model to a platform offer of voice-activated value-added services for owners of large audiences, including service providers and online communities. This strategic shift and our related launch of the feature-rich Mobivox|PL platform have been well received by the industry; our early partners, such as Unyk and Jajah; and prospective partners. We continue serving consumers directly in a test-bed environment.
GG: What was your firm’s biggest achievement last year?
PD: Our biggest achievement this year was making the transition from a pure-play consumer offer (with a “free-calling” twist) to a platform provider now engaged with partners to help them further monetize their audiences. This is an achievement at many levels and is about far more than technology or productization. Serving partners instead of (or in addition to) consumers requires major changes in employees’ thinking and in market perceptions. Initial response from new and potential partners, as well as journalists and bloggers who cover our space, indicates we’re on the right track.
GG: In your view, please describe the future of the IP Communications industry?
PD: The transition to VoIP or IP communications across the board is likely to slow a bit in early 2009 because of uncertainty about the economy and then accelerate based on bottom-line opportunities. A requirement for rapid expense containment will drive decisions in the consumer, small and medium business, enterprise, and service provider segments.
This necessity favors scalable, hosted platform solutions like Mobivox|PL, which enable partners to defray capital expenses and reduce market-entry costs and complexity significantly. Players that can offer that kind of capability on a retail or wholesale basis will certainly be well positioned to take advantage of an expected uptick in VoIP adoption.
From the perspective of an end user — a consumer or small business — cost or expense containment will be a discipline. Low-cost communications offers will grow in usage as people change the manner in which they communicate.
Successful players will build scale, and subscale players will need to think about exiting or becoming part of a larger consolidated play. For a traditional carrier or challenger carrier/service provider, capital efficiency will be at a premium. If new services need to be introduced to protect market share or maintain revenues, service providers will require the absolute minimum capital investment and the rapid ramp of new revenue and profit from the investment. Those looking at going to market through service providers need a business model that minimizes capital but provides profit potential for the service provider.
GG: How do the current market conditions affect your potential customers? Do you think they will hold off on purchasing new solutions or do you think the economic conditions will spur them to make purchases that will allow them to be more competitive?
PD: Our potential customers are first and foremost our prospective partners. To date, like everyone else, we have seen some turmoil and indecision. However, we have purpose-built into our offering value propositions that enable our partners to either deploy services that help them retain customers or drive incremental revenue.
Additionally, specifically with our international long-distance offers, we have seen a growing appetite for services that save people money.
Lastly, even though our offering asks no capex of our partners, we fully expect to expect the unexpected. Any sales or deployment process with a partner could go quiet at any time next year. Given internal reorganizations and other distractions for potential partners, companies like ours need to keep our funnels full and our movements nimble.
GG: What sets your company’s solutions apart from the competition?
PD: Mobivox|PL stands as the only platform on the market that combines a multilingual voice user interface with a network-based user address book, enabling partners to offer voice-activated value-added services to any users, with any device. Many phone-based services require users to have a certain skill level, a certain device type or a software download. The Mobivox platform, delivered entirely from the cloud, instantly serves a partner’s entire addressable market.
And while many value-added services (including voice-activated ones) are available on the market, the Mobivox|PL platform offers a scope that enables partners to work with one supplier rather than several suppliers. The range of services allows for packaging strategies specific to the partner’s target audiences.
Additionally, end users’ ongoing dialogue with a partner-branded Mobivox voice assistant opens a new channel of CRM for the partner to acquire customers and increase customer loyalty. The Mobivox platform stores user-activity information – or can integrate with partner CRM platforms – such that relevant messaging can be delivered within the context of the user’s dialogue with the platform.
Lastly, while many VoIP plays to date have been exclusively about minutes, Mobivox is not. Mobivox-powered services are monetized through monthly subscription, high-margin services rather than through minute volumes.
GG: If you had to make one bold prediction for 2009, what would it be?
PD: In the mobile VoIP space and VoIP sector overall, consolidation will take off and accelerate as investors make tough choices and companies seek to ensure long-term viability and differentiate their services. At the same time, consolidation in the infrastructure markets will continue.
With no IPO markets in sight next year and maybe 2010, M&A will pick up again. With VC and private equity also constrained by unpredictable capital markets and credit availability, M&A will be the exit of choice for some small and medium players.
Greg Galitzine is editorial director for TMC’s (News - Alert) IP Communications suite of products, including TMCnet.com. To read more of Greg’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Edited by Greg Galitzine
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