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During these days I’m wondering if innovation is lead by technology/services or by money.

Yesterday I read a lot of posts and articles on the new VoIP service Ooma. It’s basically a new P2P service where all the service logic has been moved from the network to the customer premise, through a high-end device that will be used to access to the service.

The promise behind this? FREE voice all over U.S. But “free” has always a cost. And this cost is “only” $399 that you have to pay to get one of their Linux-based devices.

To use that service you only have to plug your normal telephone into the box and, if you have one, you can plug your PSTN line into it as well. When someone dials a number, if the number is a PSTN landline, the call is routed to the Ooma device “closer” to the location of that number and will be terminated. So, any Ooma user who plugs the PSTN line is basically “sharing” their line.

All this said, it’s pretty clear that what described above is not an innovation neither something that I bet on. There are a lot of counter-indications, much more than benefits for me. Privacy, legal interception and so on.

Jeff Pulver did something similar with FWD long time ago, where in place the Ooma devices there were shared Asterisk PBXs. But, unfortunately for Jeff, they hadn’t the pocket full of the money that Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the Founders’ Fund, Draper Richards, WI Harper and Worldview Technology Partners gave to Ooma, a total of $27 millions.

I believe that this last point makes the difference. If someone gives you all that money, it means that something cool is happening behind the scenes so anyone pays attention on that. Or, we presume so. At the same time, we have to be aware that usually only one/two companies out of ten are successful when backed from VCs, the remaining are usually closed down, sometimes despite good profits (not as good as VCs want).

In conclusion, at this stage mine is a thumb down for Ooma. I hope (for them) to be wrong, but this is really more than a challenge. I highly recommend to read comments by other VoIP bloggers like Alec Saunders, Andy Abramson, Phoneboy, Aswath and Ken Camp. Basically, I see “thumbs down” by all of them. Pat Phelan sees a winner in Ooma instead.

As usual, stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy this courtesy by Ken “Willy Wonka” Camp:

Oompa Loompa Loompa Dee Doo,
Oooma seems to have nothing for you.

UPDATE: following up all this buzz around Ooma, you can create your “Ooma-like” service in a few weeks thanks to PhoneGnome. Check it out.

innovation, luca filigheddu, ooma, voip