Monday, March 05, 2007

The Most Overlooked Speaker of ETel

The most overlooked speaker of E-Tel? Moshe Maeir of Flat Planet Phone Company.

Moshe was part of Om Malik's very excellent launchpad event, and presented his company to the audience. In the talk, I think the most exciting idea of the show was lost, and I wanted to point it out. Moshe was speaking about his company's ability to setup a phone system in a matter of minutes, and used as an example Yahoo stores. Let's just dwell on that one for a minute.

Can you imagine what an insane paradigm shift this would be, to provision a phone system when you would start a Yahoo! Store? Click a box, and you have the complete communication setup for your new business. No PBX to purchase, no phone lines to order, nothing. You would get an 800 number and an IVR. You could setup your own SIP phones, or make them point to your existing cell phone. Who would do this? In this case, Yahoo! might do it for you automatically. But, it could be any web designer with a talent for Java script. From where I sit, this would be a radical decrease in both capital outlay and schedule - a good deal for everyone except PBX manufacturers.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Thomas
I couldn't agree more, Moshe for me was the hit of the show and was completely overlooked in our chase for " social telephony"
I think the flatplanetphonecompany is one of the most visionary products I have seen.

Thomas Howe said...

Yeah - he really was.

Moshe said today that it was his fault, as he should have tried harder, but I wonder if the problem was that people's heads weren't in the right place to hear him.

Unknown said...

Guys,
I appreciate the compliments! Though marketing is all about knowing your audience and delivering the appropriate message. I fell short in that respect.

Shit Company Blogger said...

"Click a box, and you have the complete communication setup for your new business. " - I missed it but I presume it uses the public Internet for transport. Now do you really only want voice over Internet for your business? I don't!

Thomas Howe said...

Actually, it doesn't have to use the public internet at all. If it does, or does not, I won't comment on, as it's not my service. The point is that using Web technologies for the provisioning creates a radical new way to deploy voice communications, very simply, very quickly.