MSN in with Live Messenger, Waiting for Google GTalk

Microsoft dove into the IM VOIP business with the launch of its Windows Live Messenger, making the voip marketplace a little crowded and a lot more interesting. With Live Messenger you can make pc to phone calls and video calls which makes it a direct competitor to Skype.

But features wise Live Messenger is not exactly up to the mark with Skype, at least not yet.

First, for PC to Phone calls you will need to sign up with Verizon. So there are two sign ups for anybody starting with Live Messenger. You need to sign up with msn (if you don't have an account with them) and then you need to sign up with Verizon for pc to phone calls.

Second, unlike Skype, MSN Live Messenger doesn't give you a phone number for others to call you. So when Skype offers both a SkypeOut and SkypeIn service, MSN just offers Live-Messenger-Out so to speak.

Then Skype offers free calls to anywhere in the US till the end of 2006, which is helping it add to its user base. MSN offers nothing to entice those users back from Skype.

MSN plans to let its users talk to Yahoo users and this may help MSN & Yahoo a great deal. MSN + Yahoo will make a huge user base, at least for pc to pc calls. Skype has no plans to open up its messenger to other IM users.

But the money is in converting those pc to pc calls to pc to phone calls. And it remains to be seen which company does it the best.

As I mentioned in my previous post, with all the big players jumping into the IM Voip market, it may prove to be a boon for the consumers, if prices go down and quality improves. Stay tuned for the possibility of market consolidation. There are other players in IM Voip market like NetZero,Earthlink. The big companies, MSN, Yahoo and Goolge, may go shopping for smaller voip companies to give themselves some initial customer base to work with.

Now if you will excuse me, I got to go make a pc to phone call :-)

Vonage Downgraded by Research Analyst for ... What

Pali research analyst Richard Greenfield downgraded Vonage stock from `neutral' to 'sell' after he discovered Vonage is offering existing customers a discount rate of $19.99 a month to stop them from switching carriers. Vonage charges new customers $24.99 a month.

Is that really such a bad thing in a market economy where competetion thrives and companies go to great lengths to retain customers. Is that really a sign that the comapny is doing badly.

How many times have you called Sprint or American Express to cancel a service to be given a free offer like a free newer cell phone or a free year of service. Retaining an existing customer is much cheaper for any company than getting a new customer.

Vonage lowering the monthly rate for customers who want to switch, in my opinion - just this one single marketing strategy - is not such a bad reflection on the company. And eventually Vonage may gain from this IF they act on the reasons why customers want to switch. May be its the call quality or may be its their customer service.

But anyway I wouldn't sell my American Express stock just because they offered me a free one year on my Skymiles card, neither would I sell Vonage because they offered to lower my monthly rate. I would rather take the offers. BTW I don't own any of the above two stocks.

Free Skypeout in US & Canada

OK, here is the best VOIP offer so far. Skypeout now offers FREE unlimited pc to phone calls, both landlines & cell phones within US & Canada untill the end of 2006. Sweet deal... I am sure this the most aggressive step taken by any VOIP company to gain a foothold in the market. Yahoo recently launched it Yahoo messenger with Voice pc to phone voip service. NetZero and Net2Phone also offer similar services. But given Skype's free unlimited offer, they will have a tough time gaining any marketshare, at least till the end of the year, provided Skype maintains reasonable call quality. But then in any market place free offers generally come with a not so great qaulity. Skype's challenge will not be gaining market share, which it will, but rather holding on to it after 2006, when it will have decide how to make some money. After all it cannot serve all these non-paying customers for ever. It will be interesting to see how successfully Skype converts its free customer base to paying customers. In the mean time I don't think Yahoo is just going to sit tight and watch. I am sure they will come up with some competing offers, if not totally free, but very competitively priced and with added features that Skype doesn't have. And lets not forget Spokn which is in beta and now offers free domestic and international calls. Though nobody knows how long they will offer the free sevice or if it's just a part of their beta testing and when they will go will go live. Spokn's call quality is not up to the mark, at least not yet. And if it can improve its call qaulity and keep the free offer open it can be a serious contender too. And last but not the least, guess how interesting it will be if Google with all its might, wants to offer a pc to phone service through its Google Talk. Let's hope for that day when Skype, Yahoo and Google all fight it out for market share and we the consumers win.

Ditch the Phone Company, Buy more gas.

Hi,

Welcome to my the VOIP Gazette. I am a new VOIP user. When I was looking for a VOIP provider I was a complete VOIP novice. My only aim was to switch to VOIP and save some money on my long distance bill. My story begins when I set out to find a provider. The more time I spent on the internet looking for provider, the more I got confused. I had so many questions. Not all voip providers are made equal. My parents live in India, I make frequent India calls. That brought one more complication to my VOIP search. Some like Netzero Voice (has a free one month offer now) and Yahoo Messenger with Voice offer PC to Phone service for a fee and have good international rates. Some offer Phone to Phone service only. Some voip providers have excellent international rates but not so good call quality. Then there are providers like Spokn, still in beta, which offers free PC to Phone service, both domestic and international. Wow.... free international calls... am I dreaming. But anyway, with so many variables to consider, I went back to the internet, tried to read about voip as much as I could, narrowed down my choices. And today I am a proud voip user. Didn't somebody say, "when the student is ready, the teacher arrives". In this blog I plan to discuss my voip shopping experience and some of my findings. Stay tuned. Let's all ditch our regular phone company, switch to voip and save a few bucks, so that we can buy some more gas :-). Stay tuned.