I spent an hour on the phone yesterday with AOL's VoIP honcho, Jim Tobin and continue to be impressed by how strategic AOL is with their VoIP plans.
Tobin who serves as vice president and general manager of advanced voice services along with his team have charted to be able to be a player in the VoIP space without being boastful or make claims that lead to problems and it appears that they continue to stay on a course they set out late last year to chart.
Like Yahoo's Brad Garlinghouse and AT&T's Cathy Martine, Tobin is very savvy, well spoken and candid. It's ironic how those executives with the most to gain (or lose) seem to be the most matter of fact, straightforward and forthright, while the upstarts and newcomers to the business want to play the game of "we can't comment on this or that." Candidly, it's refreshing to talk or hear what these true professionals have to say and how open they are about their business future.
AOL really is still in a learning mode. They are testing, developing, evolving their VoIP product and working to make it better every day. Riding on Level3, having a working E911 solution and working to insure that their VoIP product is user configuration proof are all keys to their offering. Of course the remain the "easy" choice, as that's the AOL model, but over the coming months we'll see integration with AIM, a softphone and a stand alone VoIP offer more than likely. The marketing, which has been rather light, will begin and AOL will start to see VoIP traction begin.
While AOL's been rather quiet on the "news" front with their VoIP offering, they are working behind the scenes to be a player for the long term in telephony. While Tobin didn't confirm that anything's going on, he did reveal that Time Warner would fund acquisitions so a company with the right fit (technology, culture, valuation, etc.) could possibly happen, but nothing is in the works right now. My gut says Big V is not the kind of company that would fit with the Time Warner culture, let alone AOL's...translation-I don't think JC will be hearing "you've got voicemail" from Tobin any time soon.