Ooma

Last updated

Ooma, Inc.
Company type Public
NYSE:  OOMA
Russell 2000 Component
Industry Telecommunication services
Founded Palo Alto, California, U.S. in 2004 (2004)
FounderAndrew Frame and Michael Cerda
Headquarters525 Almanor Avenue, Suite 200,
Sunnyvale
,
California
Key people
Eric B. Stang
(President, Chairman, & CEO)
Shig Hamamatsu (CFO)
Products Voice over IP, Talkatone
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$ 216.2 million
(FY JAN 31 2023) [1]
Decrease2.svg US$ -19.71 million
(FY JAN 31 2020) [2]
Decrease2.svg US$ -18.80 million
(FY JAN 31 2020) [2]
Total assets Increase2.svg US$ 80.61 million
(FY JAN 31 2020) [2]
Total equity Decrease2.svg US$ 28.42 million
(FY JAN 31 2020) [2]
Number of employees
848 (FY JAN 31 2020) [2]
Website www.ooma.com

Ooma, Inc. is an American publicly traded telecommunications company based in the Silicon Valley, California area. Ooma offers communications services including Voice over IP (VoIP) calling for business, home and mobile users. [3] [4]

Contents

History

Ooma was founded by Andrew Frame, who previously worked for Cisco Systems, and Michael Cerda. [5] [6] Ooma's initial product was a "VoIP in a box" device that had the capability to use peer-to-peer VoIP technology to let users make phone calls over other Ooma users' landline services. [7] [8] The system worked through a "hub" connected to the main phone line and "scouts" connected to other phones. [9] Due to the potential for privacy issues, Ooma never terminated any calls using the peer-to-peer technology. In January 2008, Ooma officially terminated the option of enabling its peer-to-peer technology. [10]

PC Magazine awarded Ooma the DigitalLife Best of Show award in the hardware innovator category for the Ooma Hub in 2007. [11] Frame stepped down from his role as CEO in 2009 and was replaced by Eric Stang. [12] That same year, Ooma released its Telo system, which consisted of a base system to access unlimited calling and caller ID. [13] In 2009, Ooma was awarded an Internet Telephony product of the year award for developing the Ooma Telo and the Ooma Telo handset. [14] That same year, Ooma was given the TMC Labs Innovation Award for the Ooma Hub and Ooma Scout. [15] Ooma received the gold consumer product of the year award as part of the Best in Biz Awards in 2011. [16]

In 2011, it was announced that Ooma's VoIP-In-A-Box was expanding to Canada. [17] [18]

Ooma unveiled its HD2 handset in November 2012. The handset includes one-touch voicemail, an intercom, and baby monitoring features. Ooma also launched Ooma Linx in 2012, which used an AC outlet to connect any phone or fax machine to the Telo base station. [19] In December 2012, Ooma received the Internet Telephony Product of the Year award for developing the Telo, HD2 handset, and Linx. [20] Ooma launched the HD3 handset in December 2017 [21] and the Ooma Telo 4G system with wireless internet connectivity in January 2019. [22]

Ooma worked with West Valley City, Utah, in June 2014 to offer free telephone service to households through a fiber network. [23] In 2015, Ooma was named one of the fastest-growing private companies by the San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal. [24] That same year, it was a gold winner of the Best of Biz Awards. [25]

Ooma acquired security camera startup Butterfleye in December 2017, [26] custom business communications provider Voxter in March 2018, [27] business communications provider Broadsmart in May 2019 and business communications provider OnSIP in July 2022. [28] On September 22, 2021, Ooma announced in an email message to its camera users that "We're sorry to inform you that the operation, maintenance and support of Ooma Butterfleye and Smart Cam security cameras will be ending. As such, the last day of operation of your camera(s) will be October 22, 2021. After this day, your camera(s) will stop working and will no longer record videos. Any videos you currently access through the Smart Cam App will become unavailable."

Funding

The company's initial funding round raised $7.8 million in 2005. In 2006, Sean Parker invested in the company. Ooma held a Series B funding round in 2007, which raised $12 million. Investors included Worldview Technology Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. [29] In September 2008, Ooma raised $16 million in its Series C funding round. [30]

Ooma raised a $18.3 million Series D funding round in June 2009. Worldview Technology Partners led the round. [12] [31]

In January 2012, Ooma raised a funding round of $17.3 million from investors, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Founder's Fund. The company had raised a total of $83.3 million at that time. [32]

Ooma held its IPO in July 2015. The company went public at $13 per share. [3] [6] Ooma raised $85 million from the 5 million shares offered. [6]

Operations

Ooma's service offerings are broken down into two business models: Ooma Telo for personal or home use and business services including Ooma Office, Ooma Office Pro, and Ooma Enterprise.

Ooma Telo

Ooma Telo was released on October 1, 2009. Telo is designed to provide unlimited, free VoIP calls within the United States. It features Bluetooth integration, HD voice, and a cordless DECT 6.0 handset. [33] Existing landline, VoIP, or mobile numbers can be ported to Ooma. [34]

A Premier package adds Multi-Ring, Do Not Disturb, enhanced voicemail service, and Caller ID with Name.

Ooma Office

Launched in 2013, Ooma Office consists of a cloud-based phone system including business applications such as conferencing, virtual fax extensions, and extension dialing. [35] In August 2016, the mobile version of Ooma Office was released. The mobile version does not require the base station unit Ooma Office operates through. Features available through the mobile software include a virtual receptionist, call transferring, local and toll-free numbers, conference bridges, and extension dialing. [36] [37]

In 2020, Ooma introduced Ooma Connect, a base station and adapter that provides a wireless internet connection. [38]

Ooma Office Pro

Launched in 2020, Ooma Office Pro provides all the features of Ooma Office in addition to advanced features including video meetings, call recording, a desktop app (also known as a softphone), robocall blocking, and voicemail transcription. [39]

Ooma Office Pro Plus

Launched in 2022, Ooma Office Pro Plus provides additional features to the Pro tier including: Call Queuing, Hot Desking, Salesforce and Dynamics CRM integrations, Ooma Meetings Recordings, Shared Voicemail Boxes, Expanded Schedules, Call Screening, Digital Call Deflection, and automated texting.

Ooma Enterprise

Launched in 2018, Ooma Enterprise provides a full, customizable unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solution.

Related Research Articles

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, refers to a set of technologies used for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as data packets, facilitating various methods of voice communication, including traditional applications like Skype, Microsoft Teams, Google Voice, and VoIP phones. Regular telephones can also be used for VoIP by connecting them to the Internet via analog telephone adapters (ATAs), which convert traditional telephone signals into digital data packets that can be transmitted over IP networks.

A voicemail system is a computer-based system that allows callers to leave a recorded message when the recipient has been unable or unwilling to answer the phone. Calls may be diverted to voicemail manually or automatically. The caller is prompted to leave a message and the recipient can retrieve the message at a later time.

Vonage Holdings Corp. is an American cloud communications provider operating as a subsidiary of Ericsson. Headquartered in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, the organization was founded in 1998 as Min-X as a provider of residential telecommunications services based on voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). In 2001, the organization changed its name to Vonage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Business telephone system</span> Telephone system typically used in business environments

A business telephone system is a telephone system typically used in business environments, encompassing the range of technology from the key telephone system (KTS) to the private branch exchange (PBX).

Broadvoice is a privately owned company headquartered in Northridge, California. They provide Voice over IP (VOIP) cloud-based telecommunications services to small, medium, and enterprise businesses in the United States. Broadvoice offers telephone services, unified communications as a service (UCaaS), SIP Trunking, telecommunications network and security, along with virtual call centers, so business customers can use voice and video communications via a broadband Internet connection or cellular phone.

net2phone is a Cloud Communications provider offering cloud based telephony services to businesses worldwide. The company is a subsidiary of IDT Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jajah</span> VoIP provider

Jajah was a VoIP provider, founded by Austrians Roman Scharf and Daniel Mattes in 2005. The Jajah headquarters was located in Mountain View, CA, USA, and Luxembourg. Jajah maintained a development centre in Israel. On 23 December 2009, it was announced that Jajah had been bought by Telefónica through its subsidiary Telefónica Europe. In December 2013, Telefónica announced that Jajah would shut down at the end of January 2014.

Mobile VoIP or simply mVoIP is an extension of mobility to a voice over IP network. Two types of communication are generally supported: cordless telephones using DECT or PCS protocols for short range or campus communications where all base stations are linked into the same LAN, and wider area communications using 3G or 4G protocols.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Voice</span> Telecommunications service by Google

Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. phone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the contiguous United States. It is used for call forwarding and voicemail services, voice and text messaging, as well as U.S. and international calls. Calls are forwarded to the phone number that each user must configure in the account web portal. Users can answer and receive calls on any of the phones configured to ring in the web portal. While answering a call, the user can switch between the configured phones. Subscribers in the United States can make outgoing calls to domestic and international destinations. The service is configured and maintained by users in a web-based application, similar in style to Google's email service Gmail, or Android and iOS applications on smartphones or tablets.

snom German brand of VoIP telephones

Snom Technology GmbH is a German company which manufactures Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones, based on the IETF standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Snom's products are targeted at the small- to medium-sized business sector, home offices, Internet service providers, carriers, and original equipment manufacturers. The company, founded in 1996 and headquartered in Berlin, is a wholly owned subsidiary of VTech Holdings Limited, since 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deltathree</span> VoIP company

Deltathree Inc. is an American company engaged in the business of voice over IP telephony services. The company was one of the first in the world to offer a telephony service over the internet, reducing the cost of international calls by over 90 percent.

Unified communications (UC) is a business and marketing concept describing the integration of enterprise communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice, mobility features, audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing, call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging. UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types.

TouchWave, Inc., was a privately held Palo Alto, California IP-telephony network switch provider founded in 1997. TouchWave developed a product line called WebSwitch that was designed to replace traditional private telephone exchange systems in small-to-medium-sized companies. WebSwitch was part of a phone system that incorporates communication features provided by the Internet. The rapid success of TouchWave was memorialized with awards and an acquisition by Ericsson Communications for $46M two years after TouchWave was founded. Ericsson continued the TouchWave product line under the name WebCom, but its efforts have been viewed as less than successful.

Wideband audio, also known as wideband voice or HD voice, is high definition voice quality for telephony audio, contrasted with standard digital telephony "toll quality". It extends the frequency range of audio signals transmitted over telephone lines, resulting in higher quality speech. The range of the human voice extends from 100 Hz to 17 kHz but traditional, voiceband or narrowband telephone calls limit audio frequencies to the range of 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz. Wideband audio relaxes the bandwidth limitation and transmits in the audio frequency range of 50 Hz to 7 kHz. In addition, some wideband codecs may use a higher audio bit depth of 16 bits to encode samples, also resulting in much better voice quality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ribbit (telecommunications company)</span>

Ribbit was a telecommunications company based in Mountain View, California. It was acquired by BT Group on July 29, 2008, for $105 million.

RingCentral, Inc. is an American provider of cloud-based communication and collaboration products and services.

A softphone is a software program for making telephone calls over the Internet using a general purpose computer rather than dedicated hardware. The softphone can be installed on a piece of equipment such as a desktop, mobile device, or other computer and allows the user to place and receive calls without requiring an actual telephone set. Often, a softphone is designed to behave like a traditional telephone, sometimes appearing as an image of a handset with a display panel and buttons with which the user can interact. A softphone is usually used with a headset connected to the sound card of the PC or with a USB phone.

Cloud communications are Internet-based voice and data communications where telecommunications applications, switching and storage are hosted by a third-party outside of the organization using them, and they are accessed over the public Internet. Cloud services is a broad term, referring primarily to data-center-hosted services that are run and accessed over an Internet infrastructure. Until recently, these services have been data-centric, but with the evolution of VoIP, voice has become part of the cloud phenomenon. Cloud telephony refers specifically to voice services and more specifically the replacement of conventional business telephone equipment, such as a private branch exchange (PBX), with third-party VoIP service.

Telesphere is a nationwide Unified Communications as a Service provider for businesses. In 2003, Telesphere began providing highly secure cloud-based voice and data services over a private IP MPLS network to mid and large enterprises throughout the United States and now also in Europe. Telesphere provides hosted VoIP, managed video bridging, MPLS network services, private SIP trunking, mobile integration and many other cloud communications services. Services are available regardless of the geographic location throughout the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fuze (company)</span> American communications and software company

Fuze is a cloud communications and collaboration software platform designed for the enterprise. Fuze was acquired by 8x8. The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

References

  1. ↑ "US SEC: Fiscal Year 2021 Financial Results Ooma, Inc". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. January 31, 2021. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "US SEC: Form 10-K Ooma, Inc". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. January 31, 2020. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  3. 1 2 Gene Marks (December 2, 2015). "Why Ooma Should Be Dialing Up Small Business Owners". Fox Business. Retrieved October 18, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Ooma Sees IPO Price of $16-$18/Share". Street Insider. July 6, 2015. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  5. ↑ "3 Questions For ooma's Andrew Frame". SFist. August 16, 2007. Archived from the original on May 16, 2016. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 Deborah Gage (July 17, 2015). "Internet Telephony Firm Ooma Flops in Trading Debut". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 18, 2016.
  7. ↑ Eric Eldon (July 18, 2007). "Ooma's free land-line calling service". Venture Beat. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  8. ↑ Fred J. Aun (July 19, 2007). "Net Phone Offers Free Calls for Life". Tech News World. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  9. ↑ "Inside ooma's new phone service with CEO Andrew Frame". Connected Social Media. July 30, 2007. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Ooma Home Review - Free VoIP Service For Life". TheVoIPHub. Archived from the original on September 17, 2016. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  11. ↑ Erik Rhey (September 28, 2007). "DigitalLife 2007: Best of Show". PC Magazine. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  12. 1 2 Om Malik (June 23, 2009). "Ooma Raises $18.3 Million, Resets Valuation". GigaOm. Retrieved October 18, 2016.
  13. ↑ Matt Burns (October 1, 2009). "Ooma Telo is here, let the free* calls begin". Tech Crunch. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  14. ↑ Erik Linask. "2009 Internet Telephony Product of the Year Awards". TMC Net. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  15. ↑ "2009 Unified Communications TMC Labs Innovation Award Winners Announced". TMC Net. May 21, 2009. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  16. ↑ "2011 winners: Product categories". Best in Biz Awards. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  17. ↑ Michael Kwan (November 2, 2011). "Ooma VoIP-In-A-Box Service Coning to Canada, Eh!". Mobile Mag. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  18. ↑ Matt Burns (November 2, 2011). "Ooma Invades Canada, US Premier Subscribers Can Now Talk To Their Northern Cousins For Free". Tech Crunch. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  19. ↑ "Ooma, the best Internet phone system, gets better". Hartford Courant. November 12, 2012. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  20. ↑ "Announcing the 2012 Internet Telephony Product of the Year Award Winners". TMC News. December 7, 2012. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  21. ↑ Ooma Inc (December 13, 2017). "Ooma Launches New Products for Its Award-Winning Smart Home Phone Service". GlobeNewswire News Room. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  22. ↑ "Ooma Introduces Advanced Wireless Home Phone Using Sprint Nationwide 4G Network". investors.ooma.com. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  23. ↑ Viviane Vo-Duc (June 11, 2014). "West Valley City teams up with Ooma to save residents money on phone and Internet". Deseret News. Archived from the original on October 22, 2016.
  24. ↑ "Ooma Earns Distinction as One of the Fastest Growing Companies From Silicon Valley Bus. Journal & San Francisco Bus. Times". ADVFN. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  25. ↑ "2015 winners news". Best in Biz Awards. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  26. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (December 20, 2017). "Ooma acquires AI-powered video camera platform Butterfleye for its home security service". TechCrunch . Oath Inc. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  27. ↑ "Ooma Agrees to Acquire Voxter, Provider of Advanced UCaaS Solutions for Businesses". investors.ooma.com. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  28. ↑ Ooma Inc (May 21, 2019). "Ooma Agrees to Acquire Broadsmart, Increasing the Scale of Ooma's Business Communications and UCaaS Platforms". GlobeNewswire News Room. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  29. ↑ "Ooma, home communications co., raises $12M". Venture Beat. March 1, 2007. Retrieved October 18, 2016.
  30. ↑ "Ooma gets $16M in 3rd round". Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal. September 23, 2008. Archived from the original on June 19, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
  31. ↑ "Ooma Gets $18.3M in New Funding". San Francisco Business Times. June 23, 2009. Retrieved July 7, 2009.
  32. ↑ Alexia Tsotsis (January 9, 2012). "Ooma Raises $17.3 Million For Its "Free" Home Calling Service". Tech Crunch. Retrieved October 18, 2016.
  33. ↑ "Ooma's Telo steps up to DECT 6.0 for free calls across the US". Engadget. Retrieved August 10, 2009.
  34. ↑ Rob Pegoraro (May 31, 2015). "Want to move your home number? Take it to the web". USA Today. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  35. ↑ Gina Narcisi (August 15, 2016). "CRN Exclusive: VoIP Provider Ooma Calls On The Channel With Brand-New Partner Program". CRN. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  36. ↑ Stephanie Condon (August 3, 2016). "Ooma Office for Mobile lets SMBs operate from smartphones". ZD Net. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  37. ↑ Michael Guta (August 10, 2016). "Meet Ooma for Office Mobile: Now You Really Can Run Your Business from Your Phone". Small Biz Trends. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  38. ↑ "Business Phone and Internet Service Bundles | Ooma Connect". Ooma.com - Smart solutions for home and business. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  39. ↑ "Ooma Office Pro - The Smart Solution For Business | Ooma". Ooma.com - Smart solutions for home and business. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
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