Bob Marley Series 7/7. 2600hz. The Telecom Platform of the Future-Today. “Redemption songs..Emancipate yourself from mental slavery”
1 Nov
Darren Schreiber, CEO & Co-Founder and Patrick Sullivan, COO & Co-Founder 2600hz.
As Bob Marley said: “Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom? ‘Cause all I ever have, redemption songs, redemption songs. Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. Have no fear for atomic energy……” What Bob was talking about was the telecom platform of today in the enterprise communication space.
On Friday, October 26, 2012 I sat down with the captain, co-founder, CEO of 2600hz , Darren Schreiber. When Darren was 11 years old and asked for a roll of telephone wire for a Christmas present from his parents, he created a whole chain of events that would culminate in his cloud telecom startup which “builds massive architectures that power the world’s communications.” Oh and did I mention that he and his co-founder, Patrick Sullivan, COO bootstrapped the entire operation? Impressive, especially in the difficult telecom space.
When Were You Founded? 2600hz started as an open source project in July 2010.
Business Model? Freemium. Even though their basic platform software, Kazoo, is completely free, the company is quite profitable based on requests for training, customization of the platform and support. If you host ON THE 2600HZ SERVERS it’s “freemium.” If you download the software and run it yourself, it’s 100% free.
Programming Language? I never heard of it before, but I guess you if are a telephony guy you’ve heard of Erlang, developed by Joe Armstrong at Ericsson.
Secret? Telephony users want to be “up” (aka working 100% of the time). If a website is down for a while, most users will come back later, but if your telephone system is down (even for a few minutes) it is a business disaster. 2600hz makes a system without the parts failing through their ability to distribute usage from one virtual data center to another–automatically. Revolutionary!
Flexibility. Business is always changing. Kazoo (based on open-source APIs), the platform built specifically for scaling and managing a growing telecommunications infrastructure while keeping the cost low, low, low. With Kazoo you can create new applications as needed or integrate it with any service you desire.
Team. Darren Schreiber, CEO supernerd telephony guy, who in his spare time guest lectures at major universities on VoIP technology and leads paid international VoIP trainings. His SF HQ trainings sell out more quickly than a Bob Marley concert. Patrick Sullivan, COO with 10 years of B2B major account sales and management experience plus several excellent French engineers so you know the product is elegantly designed as well as functional.
Target Market? Carriers, device MFRs, business, developers and resellers.
Takeaway: So if you want to “emancipate yourself from mental slavery,” from the expensive carriers, want customization, want to be running 99.9999% of of the time–go virtual, go cloud, go 2600hz.
Note: The name of the company, 2600hz, originated from the tone (1960s) that the telephone companies used to signal the start and end of a long distance call. This allowed certain phone freaks (Steve Jobs and urban legend “Captain Crunch”) to make long distance calls for free by making this tone. Here is the two-minute YouTube video where Steve (Jobs) was interviewed about this tone and the related technology. http://www.
*Erlang not Earland!
Thanks for the great write-up. We’re excited by the project and excited to be featured here!
Just one quick clarification – if you host ON OUR SERVERS it’s “freemium.” If you download the software and run it yourself, it’s 100% free.
Just making sure that was clear to any on-lookers.
Sincerely,
Darren Schreiber