Vonage Preps for IPO or Sale

Posts: 9 · Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:39 am Post subject: Vonage Preps for IPO or Sale

The Wall Street Journal Online has just posted an article titled Net-Phone Firm Vonage Gives Mixed Signals. Here are the first two paragraphs:

Quote:

Vonage Holdings Corp., a pioneer in selling Internet-based telephone service to consumers, is sending mixed signals to Wall Street.

Vonage is both preparing for an initial public offering of stock that could raise as much as $600 million and exploring selling itself to a larger company at a price that could top $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The article goes on to discuss how the initial public offering is shaping up, how Vonage compares to some competitors, and the pros and cons of an outright sale. Being in the Journal of course, the article does not emphasize the wishes of Vonage customers. Instead, it notes in paragraph three that:

Quote:

Venture investors, including Bain Capital, 3i Group PLC, Meritech Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates, have poured $408 million into Vonage, of Edison, N.J., and are likely ready to start collecting a payout.

Please read the article for yourself so you can get the full context.

My bottom-line hope is that Jeff Citron and the Vonage Board make sure that whatever happens, Vonage does not start to act like just another Baby Bell, cell phone company or one of the cable outfits.

I signed up for Vonage because of price, features and the unique fact that there are no "Gotchas" in the fine print. If Vonage starts messing with success and changing too much of what brought me here in the first place, I won't be happy.

What do you think?

What's most important for Vonage to keep if it goes public or if it is sold to another company?

Sean

Posts: 170 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Dec 05, 2004 Posts: 170

I feel the most important factors would be price and keeping the service available on a stand-alone basis like it is. For example, if one ISP bought Vonage, it should be available to people with other ISPs as well.

I don't believe that becoming a public company would have a negative effect on consumers.

Maaz

Posts: 129 · Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 1:23 pm Post subject:

Just don't sell to Big Telco (Verizon, SBC, etc...)

I'd really like Vonage to just issue an IPO. Companies, such as Vonage, who sell out to larger companies, don't really change the world.

Vonage is an innovator, just like Apple Computer. Just think... If Sony bought Apple in the 90s, we would still be carrying around cassette walkmans. Very Happy

But seriously, I'd like Vonage to continue to change the industry. I'm a little annoyed that Skype sold to eBay. Not that that really matters, but I just figured I'd add that one in.