Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Yesterday, XTEN Networks announced a new version of their X-Pro softphone with TAPI support.  Call X-Pro TAPI, it is a drop-in component for any application that formally required a TAPI compliant voice modem to make telephone calls.  The press release talks extensively about Outlook support because with this new release, X-Pro can now do click to call dialling from any Outlook contact record.  More important, theoretically X-Pro TAPI is also a drop in component to convert any TAPI compliant system into a VoIP system – think of the impact on legacy CRM systems, and call centres.

Once again, close your eyes and repeat after me: softphones are platforms. 

At the beginning of 2005, Adventis published their annual Prescriptions.  This is the look back / look forward forecasts that all analysts publish every year.  One of the scarier statements they made, if you happen to be an incumbent was this:

Service providers need clear lifecycle strategies and must decide not just what to offer but what not to offer. Don’t let competitors cannibalize your business for you. For example, VoIP’s lower cost structure is not only changing the economics of the game, but also lowering the barriers for entry, enabling new players as well as established MSOs and CLECs to challenge core businesses. In the U.S. consumer market alone, the RBOCs have $30 to $47 billion of EBITDA at risk over the next five years.

To put that in perspective, the US Communications Market today is about a $115 billion per year industry.  $30 billion at risk is huge.

Cable Digital News published the Q2 2005 Cable Telephone Results today.  Over 1 million subscribers added.  That’s a half billion dollars in annual revenue that has shifted from the ILECs to cable.  Pretty scary stuff if you’re an ILEC. Adventis is looking very prescient.

Q2 2005 North American IP Telephone Subscribers by MSO
Source: Kinetic Strategies Estimates, Company Reports