Ooma.com - The Revolution in Communications

“How exactly does someone (or several someones) decide that it's time to revolutionize an industry that hasn't innovated in 100 years? Well, for starters, it helps when the visionaries joining forces come from companies like Apple, TiVo, Cisco, Intel, Yahoo! and Napster. The very fact that there isn't a phone company mogul in our mix proves we're approaching telecommunications in an entirely new way. It also helps that, like the rest of the world, our founders hoped that VoIP would be "the next big thing." So when no one seemed to be doing more than just putting voice over broadband, we were left scratching our heads. Why just change the delivery method? Why not change the whole game? So that's what we set out to do. We listed everything that's wrong with phone service today - it's pricey, limited, and inflexible - and made it our mission to create a better customer phoning experience. One that lets everyone have certain inalienable rights. Like the right to talk with abandon without watching "minutes." To never be thrown off the phone because someone else needs it. And the right to screen calls and manage voicemails in cool new ways with the touch of a button. Our CEO and founder, Andrew Frame, says it best: "I believe customers should have a better phone experience, one that combines convenience, innovation and cost savings. Just as consumers transformed the functionality of their television through TiVo and their music with the iPod, they can reinvent the way they use their home phone with an ooma system." This is the promise of ooma. 131 years after Alexander Graham Bell's patent that gave birth to the telephone dial tone, ooma is filing patents to let customers "own" that dial tone - forever changing the way they think about home telephone service.”

Needless to say, if it does a fraction of what it promises (being to phone communications what TiVo was to Television, or iPod was to Music) then we’re facing a total killer. The people who are behind this, Cisco’s Andrew Frame, Apple’s Toby Farrand, Yahoo!’s Sarah Ross, and Ashton Kutcher himself as a creative director, make this new startup (on the works since 2005), at least a VERY promising one. Although the details haven’t been disclosed yet, it sounds like a very revolutionary and cool system, that is cheaper than landlines (that’s what they promise), and will be useful for all 380 million Americans out there.

How long will it take for these guys to capture the market? What will be the reaction of traditional Telephony Companies? When will Google buy them off (as they did with kind of similar system GrandCentral)? Will Google be able to?