Similar offerings, different market approaches.

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While at VON last week, I had a chance to meet with a couple of companies offering virtual office solutions.  This is a hot area that many are trying to get into, but two of the differentiated ones I saw are Phone.com and Junction Networks.

Phone.com is an interesting story. CEO Ari Rabban's partners rescued the defunct domain name some time ago, recognizing the value in the name alone.  Today they offer a variety of home phone and virtual office services starting at just $9.88 per month.  The name is so strong and brandable, however, that Ari hopes to be able to offer a variety of services all under the Phone.com moniker.

At the other end of the spectrum is Junction Networks.  Junction offers a full blown PBX that can be set up in 10 minutes or less.  The system is completely SIP based.  They charge, a la carte, for PSTN connections, phone numbers and the like.  Their biggest differentiator, however, is that Junction's system exposes APIs for literally every element of the PBX.  Their goal is to be a voice services platform for the network that any vendor can attach an application to.

Brand, or platform.  Two similar offerings, with two very different market approaches.  Stay tuned, as I give both of these sytems a test drive in the next few weeks. 

Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.