Monday, June 25, 2007

OnState inks deal to help bring voice to eBayers

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

Lincoln-based OnState Communications Inc. has built its business model on bringing its hosted voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) to Skype users. But at last week's eBay Live conference in Boston, the company came face to face with a subset of Skype users it expects to vault the company to break-even by next year -- eBayers.

Through a new partnership with New Jersey-based Seamless Development Inc., an e-commerce platform developer, OnState's peer-to-peer call center application will be included in Seamless Development's eBay-specific customer communications portal for eBay-based businesses. That portal is based on the platform of OnState's main partner, eBay Inc. subsidiary Skype.

According to Pat Kelly, who founded OnState with GeoTel Communications Corp. founder Wayne Andrews in 2004, the agreement with Seamless gives OnState access and exposure to a community of small and midsize businesses that are based on Internet technology and open to new technologies, such as Skype, which is owned by eBay.

"We're selling to the converted here," he said.

It is a model Kelly hopes to repeat with other e-commerce developers, such as Utah-based Infopia Inc. and North Carolina's Channel Advisors Corp.

Kelly expects the company to begin generating revenue in July when beta testers go from a free model to paying for the service, and is aiming at breaking even during the first quarter of 2008.

According a recent report by ACNielsen International Research, 1.3 million sellers worldwide use eBay as their major source of income. Coupled with almost 200 million Skype users worldwide, Kelly thinks the 42-person OnState is in a position to thrive in the growing industry.

"If we get even single-digit penetration in that market, it will make our business viable," he said.