November 3rd, 2006
Is the telephone apocalypse now?
Chris Lyman is certain of it.
He told me yesterday that Fonality's PBXtra is just that, the end not just of traditional telephony but of traditional telephony channels.
Instead, he said, data VARs like All Covered are taking over the business phone market. "It's a lot harder for the interconnects to learn the router than for the data VAR to learn the telephone," he told me.
Most Fonality customers still use PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), now VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), so in terms of users and wiring there is no change.
Instead a small server handles telephone switching functions rather than a true switch. Lyman said his solution has the exact same features as a regular switch, for 40-80% less.
The real difference is in the channel. "Avaya and Cisco pay their channel a large commission check. Their costs are too high because they went proprietary. It's too complicated so they need to pay their channel.
"We have a channel. But we don't need to pay 40%. We really simplified it."
Where does this go next? Into consumer electronics stores like BestBuy, which now owns the data VAR GeekSquad. Which is where I left Lyman yesterday, copying a line from that infamous ad against Harold Ford Jr. "GeekSquad, call me," he said.
In this case, however, after Election Day is fine.
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Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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