To: Mike Gordon who wrote (2896 ) 7/23/1998 11:06:00 AM From: JC Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 10081
Mike/Kurt- Thanks for the responses.. the only benefit of these boards I think is to disseminate information and generate discussion.. so here goes. Kurt- It is difficult to tell how the companies are doing (wildfire and webley) since neither company is public, and they hold all their R&D financials, etc close to the hip. I don't think Wildfire is in as good a position as Webley is, but they do ahve a good following and a strong customer base. I get this information from Linx communications, a provider of their own universal number, as well as a reseller of Wildfire. They say they have had customers switch from one to the other, mostly going TO wildfire from their own touch tone system. Mike- I am not sure about your numbers with Portico. As I understand it from Caroline Starr over at Corp Wireless, Portico does deduct from your plan minutes when you call in, or when someone else calls in to the system to reach you. Given the 300 minute plan for Portico at $49.95 that is $.165 per min plus the 50$ activation. Webley has no activation fee, and they charge $.149 a minute plus their $29.95 a month with the full service. If I use 400 minutes on both plans it comes to $66.95 (49.95 + 100*.17) for Portico and $84.55 (14.95 + 5 + 5 + 400*.149) for Webley every month (Not counting the 50$ setup, if you distribute that over the first few months, they are about equal. Portico does have a better VUI than webley, granted, but the VUI can always be upgraded I think, and the info sent to me by Webley says that have many of the portico features coming in the next quarter (Ie: contact dumping, new voices for the interface, corp bundling rate plans, etc). The packet also had stuff that Webley offers that Portico does not. IE: call conferencing and international calling capability for the same .149 a min, since the system uses comp telephony to dial out and only charges you for dialing in. you are right, Wildfire isn't even in the same ball park with Webley and GMGC. I think what it will depend on is who gets the mass marketing and name-branding out there first. I really don't think the media-content capabilities and the VUI of GMGC are that superior that a little marketing and some good R&D and partnerships would'nt allow Webley to steal GMGC's thunder before their self-professed mass market strategy late next year. Repsonses please? JC