8x8 Inc

8x8 reports slight growth

Pete Wylie — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:06:24 -0400

8x8, the provider of Packet 8 broadband services, announced its fiscal 2Q2009 results Thursday, and it finds itself in a considerably better position year-over-year. Although 8x8's income is down to $44,000 from $1.2 million last quarter, it now is debt free and has $16 million in cash, while last year's 2Q report showed a $2.6 million net loss.

The company added 1,846 new customers in the quarter, bringing its total customer base to more than 13,700 companies, according to the release. It also grew its cash and investments for the sixth-consecutive quarter, bringing its total to $15.8 million, an increase of $1 million from last quarter and nearly $3 million from the same fiscal period in 2008. Revenue was up a slight $100,000 from last quarter, increasing to $16.4 million from $16.3 million.

"8x8's money saving Virtual Office communications services are more critical than ever to businesses," said 8x8 Chairman & CEO Bryan R. Martin, in the release. "With nearly $16 million in cash and no debt, the Company remains well positioned in its efforts to transition more and more small businesses away from budget-wasting legacy phone solutions."

For more:
- see the 8x8 release here

8x8 Announces 1Q09 Results, gets Knocked for Service Outage

Doug Mohney — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:40:20 -0400

As 8x8 was announcing its 1Q09 results, the company was blogged on a service outage to some customers.

Revenues for the first quarter of 8x8's 1Q09 results (ending June 30, 2008) were $16.3 million, up from $14.7 at the same time last year and $16.3 million for the previous quarter. Packet8 business services revenues grew to 56 percent of total revenue in the first quarter, as compared to 44 percent in 1Q08 and 50 percent of the total revenues last quarter. Business services grew by 12 percent from the last quarter and 41 percent compared to 1Q08.

On the downside, residential and video revenues declined 6 percent from the previous quarter and 12 percent from 1Q08. Overall gross margin for 1Q09 was 68 percent. Under GAAP, net income for the quarter increased to $1.2 million, as compared to $508,000 at 1Q08. During 1Q09, the company added 1,053 net new customers and now serves more than 12,000 businesses with Packet8 services.

Over at TMCnet, blogger Tom Keating reported a "major outage" at Packet8 followed by various updates and clarifications. It appears Packet8 had a service interruption on the residential side of 1 hour and 15 minutes, with business customers "fallover"-ed immediately; residential customers were supposed to fall over after 15 minutes or if they rebooted their VoIP devices.

For more:
- IT News Online carriers 8x8 1Q09 results
- TMCnet blog on Packet8 service outage

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8x8 jumps into SIP trunking
SPOTLIGHT: 8X8 Inc moves into profit

8x8 jumps into SIP Trunking

Doug Mohney — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:33:19 -0400

8x8 has added SIP trunking with a legacy twist to their business services.

Packet8 Virtual Trunking is a broadband agnostic (i.e. will run on any vendor's broadband connection) SIP trunking solution. The legacy twist comes in with an IAD appliance at the customer site by a professional installer to handle bridging between a business's existing PSTN network and the SIP trunk. Virtual Trunking provides dial tone along with local, long distance and internal call routing services from the Packet8 VoIP network to the existing equipment. Features include E911 support, caller ID, CNAM, national directly listing and online billing and account management.

From a marketing perspective, 8x8 is also offering a hybrid solution. Service providers have focused on offering SIP trunking as a value-added feature to broadband connections while Microsoft has added SIP trunking support as a feature to its SMB IP PBX solution. Will the appeal of lower phone bills without having to rush to a capital-intensive migration to IP phones prove appealing? Will potential customers stick to one-stop/one-bill shopping rather than mixing broadband pipes and virtual value-added services?

In a conversation with FierceVoIP, an 8x8 executive said the company is sufficiently comfortable with the quality of broadband services that there shouldn't be a concerns over quality of service delivery. VP of Marketing Hue Rees said most potential problems emerge around the initial service installation, a reason why the company has built up a channel of telecommunications resellers to install the IAD and service on site; this won't be a plug-and-play offering.

For more:
- 8x8 announces Virtual Trunking Service

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8X8 Inc moves into profit
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8x8 Drops International Rates

Doug Mohney — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:46:34 -0400

8x8 has announced reduced Packet8 international calling rates to select countries and added Mexico to the list of places where customers can get a virtual phone number. Packet8 subscribers can call China for $.01 per minute, $.059 to India, $.10 per minute to Vietnam and $.13 to the Philippines. The rates are available to all Packet8 business and residential customers, including MobileTalk mobile VoIP international callers.

Packet8 subscribers can establish a virtual number in one of 16 cities in Mexico for $9.99 per month. Packet8 offers international virtual numbers in 19 different countries around the world, allowing subscribers to either create the appearance of a local office in another country or by providing a local phone number for friends and family to save on long-distance calling charges.

For more:
- Review the 8x8 press release dropping VoIP international rates

Related articles:
8x8, Inc. Offers Free International Mobile Calling With New Packet8 MobileTalk Trial Program
Packet8 profit not due to consumer VoIP