Flash phones were supposed to be hot this year. The market has instead seen only four players so far: Ribbit, TringMe, flashphone.ru, and this startup I came across yesterday - Indafon. I guess Ribbit’s successful exit might speed up the Flash side of VoIP. Anyway, Hungary based Indafon has had about 50,000 users trying its product in Hungary. The company is now targeting a global audience for the next stage of its trial.
As far as VoIP development within Flash environment is concerned, one of the biggest challenges is to maintain call quality when connecting a Flash player with PSTN networks. There are problems related to codecs, for instance. Flash is not open to some of the codecs. Adobe is beta testing Flash Player 10, the new Flash media server. This one is expected to support real-time voice and video transfer more adequately. Adobe is also sorting out the codec issue.
Flash phones have not had any measurable impact on VoIP market yet. There is potential however to make some of the apps easier to use e.g. click-to-call. But then some of that stuff can also be done with embedded Java based clients. Like other non-Flash based Voice 2.0 companies, Indafon is also looking to monetize its app through partnerships, whitelabeling (email providers and social networks), and the good old PSTN termination business. The company also plans to offer a flat-rate monthly calling plan.
And like other Voice 2.0 companies, Indafon also started with an open source platform. The company started - some years back - with Asterisk, and though they have kept some parts of the former system, the company has also re-written a substantial part of its platform to match its needs.