August 1st, 2007
Did you ever REALLY think Vonage stock would go below $2 a share?
Well, it has happened.
Happened today.
Remember in a universe long ago and far away (nearly 18 months ago) when Vonage stock kicked off their IPO at $17.50 and public sale at $17.00 a share?
Since then, the backsliding has persisted. Investors have ignored all of those whistling-past-the-graveyard Vonage announcements about increasingly higher percentages of E911 coverage, new features, more heavily discounted pricing, etc.
Then, Vonage’s pickup of more than 10,000 orphaned SunRocket subscribers didn’t seem to matter to investors either.
Today, reality struck. The stock finished at less than $2 a share.
The big issuse in the decline :Verizon patent ruling worries, as well as the overarching realization on the part of investors that Vonage’s essentially one-trick schtick will be overcome by triple-play broadband providers.
I mean just a few days ago, it was announced that Comcast’s DigitalVoice has more subs than Vonage.
Several months ago, I pointed out that one way for Vonage to come back would be to package up with Cricket Wireless. No word on such an initiative, though.
How much lower can it go? Penny stock territory?
“It is a call on a win of a lawsuit against Verizon,” the one and only Jim Cramer wrote on Monday. If (Vonage) loses, the stock goes to zero.”
Oh, that. In April, a jury ruled Vonage had infringed on several key VoIP-related Verizon patents. No ruling yet from theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
