I reported troubles at WorldGate Communications back in February 2008 and then reported things got better in the next month saying Ojo Phone Lives! It appears they never truly got through its problems, because their return of the living dead now appears to be over...


According to Rich Tehrani, "Word has it that funding was pulled at WorldGate Communications two weeks ago with everyone being laid off. Requests for information to the company did not get an immediate response. The Pennsylvania-based organization which made high-end designer-looking videophones no-doubt faced an uphill battle competing with Cisco and Polycom - as well as low-cost players like Grandstream."

It's pretty sad that a really cool video phone which had such promise wasn't able to cut it. Rich is right that Cisco, Polycom, and even Grandstream really hurt Ojo's chances. Additionally, Ojo was trying to bundle their own SIP-based trunking VoIP service with the phone (i.e. Vonage), when really this phone is best suited for the enterprise which may or may not be ready for SIP trunking. Or they may prefer a more established and reliable SIP trunking service provider. I think WorldGate would have been better off going the Polycom and Grandstream route in offering the Ojo phone as a high-end executive SIP-based video phone.

Rich has similar commentary when he writes, "WorldGate also had high hopes for success as this article from the Philadelphia Business Journal describes - the company was trying to get cable and DSL providers to sell the company's phones since January 2004. Obviously this strategy didn't work out too well and its a shame - because sometimes you come across technology which is so new, fresh and groundbreaking - it makes you wish it was more successful."

I still have high hopes that video phones will one day be cost-effective to the point that the difference in price between non-video phones and video phones is negligible and they become more omnipresent. Alas, most video calls today are still done in dedicated conference rooms with expensive telepresence systems or using consumer-oriented videoconferencing software like Skype that leverage webcams. There doesn't seem to be anything in-between that is truly taking hold in the market. One day...