The 2008 VoIP Fierce 15 arrives – Whew!

After numerous discussions, long nights slaving over a hot stove, walking five miles in the snow, yadda-yadda, we settled in on the last two Fierce 15 members late on Monday.

You can find the 2008 VoIP Fierce 15 here.

In a particularly volatile economic environment, one of our spoken fears was to have a Fierce 15 nominee show up on the list today and be bought out.  Or worse yet, end up going bankrupt at the end of the week.

Last week ago, the former scenario took place.

Logitech swooped in and bought SightSpeed for $30 million. SightSpeed does SIP-based video solutions and would have been on the list for leveraging video conferencing above and beyond vanilla VoIP calls. True, the deal doesn't close until November, but it is exceedingly rare that deals don't close - in which case there's a bigger problem than anyone has let on.

Do we give Logitech a Fierce blue and orange ribbon for buying technology and a services company?  Note that Logitech has joined the ranks of other companies moving out of one-off, simple hardware sales into the recurring revenues model, as well as the me-too (ugh, I hate it!) low-cost phone business? A decision for another day, me thinks.

The other we-can-argue-it case is the whole MetaSwitch vs DCL tail-wagging issue. DCL is a privately held company; MetaSwitch is the division generating 78 percent or so of the company's total revenues AND the biggest brand name in the VoIP and carrier space.  At some point, DCL needs to swallow its corporate pride and re-brand the company as MetaSwitch, with DCL's legacy drivers business off to the side; easier sell to the Wall Street Journal and other business pages if you're <ahem> ultimately going that route.

- Doug