VocalTec Communications Ltd. (www.vocaltec.com) will launch an ASP business and a consumer Internet telephony phone portal during the second quarter of this year.
The ASP, one of three newly organized divisions of the company, will be based in Fort Lee, N.J., and will use the company's Web-Enabled Call Center platform as the basis for its business. In the United States, the ASP will target call centers operators - including large call centers whose operators may still be wary of IP solutions, says Elon Ganor, VocalTec's chairman and CEO. Ganor says the ASP will rely on a network operations center to connect the call centers to web pages.
The consumer IP phone portal is "a pure Internet play, targeting eyeballs," Ganor says. "It will be a web-based communication portal, or IP telephony portal, that will provide existing and innovative technologies that enhance the consumer experience in its communication needs," he says.
VocalTec's core business, the IP Telephony Products Group, will be based in Herzliya, Israel and led by President Ari Palti, who has come up through VocalTec's R&D ranks. In addition, the core business will concentrate on making as much money as possible as soon as possible, Ganor says. In the past, VocalTec has taken on custom work and less profitable customers for the good of the industry. Those days, Ganor says, are over.
"We created this industry," he says. "We nurtured this industry. Like any pioneer, we followed every opportunity because we needed the revenue. There's no need to nurture this industry any more. The industry is taking off. VocalTec has to take care of itself."
In other news, Deutsche Telekom AG (www.dtag.de) will not renew its contract with VocalTec once it expires at the end of March. Under the contract, Deutsche Telekom bought VocalTec products every quarter whether it needed them or not.
As if to emphasize VocalTec's maturity, Ganor also announced the licensing to Deutsche Telekcom of VocalTec's Web-Enabled Call Center solution for $11 million.
VocalTec expects to invest between $30 million and $37 million in its core IP telephony business during fiscal year 2000, and between $5 million and $8 million in its new service business.