Comcast and Plaxo: Synergy or What?

This is for the first time that a major telecom service provider has acquired a major social networking company. There are several possible synergies in this deal. I will pick on one of them. And that is the small business (virtual PBX) offering bundled with the relevant Voice 2.0 apps (communications aware mashups).

All major service providers are exploring Voice 2.0 strategies. Only BT has gone public with its Web21C developer program so far. While most service providers recognize the value of teaming up with their existing telecom vendors to bring in the developers, these switch vendors in turn do not have access to all the developers. They definitely do not speak and Web services language and do not typically provide Web 2.0 APIs except a couple forward looking VoIP platform vendors. In order to gain access to a vast developer pool, service providers have to tap into social networking, which is one of the main driving forces behind Voice 2.0.However while social networks are driving a lot of Voice 2.0, these are mainly Proof-of-Concept exercises. A Voice 2.0 developer does not expect to monetize its application across networks such as Facebook because there are no supporting billing and OSS systems in place. If you integrate a billing capability and are able offer a bundle of communications services over a social network, you could have a revenue stream. I do not expect Facebook type companies to go in that direction but a business networking company such as LinkedIn or Plaxo are able to charge fees for inter-community communication. LinkedIn charges about $19 per month just to be able to send half a dozen emails to other LinkedIn listed people not falling within your list of connections.

And if you are able to charge for emails, you could certainly be able to monetize other Voice 2.0 applications developed for Plaxo. I think the best bet would be a virtual PBX service offered to Plaxo members i.e. hosted PBX for small companies hosted off a web interface. That web interface could be Plaxo. This way Comcast will not be limited to its own footprint. Its SME offer has some value but it cannot put in IP trunks everywhere. And what about smaller businesses who do not use leased IP lines? With a hosted PBX service, Comcast could offer services to anyone with broadband access including these smaller businesses.

Integrating virtual PBX services with Plaxo open up lots of interesting possibilities. However there needs to be tight integration of the ‘PBX extensions’ with landlines and cellphones with some sort of parallel ringing feature. There are plenty of such solutions available in the market. Comcast itself has such capability. There also needs to be integration of with cellphone address books for instance. Plaxo has already achieved that I think. Plaxo is far ahead of LinkedIn in terms of the third party hooks/pluggins and apps.