The videoconferencing business’s colorful upstart now has a bigger war chest. Yesterday Blue Jeans Network raised another $50M in funding in a round led by Battery Ventures. They will be using the funds to take aim at the likes of Polycom and Cisco.
Blue Jeans has been taking a cloud-based, interoperable solution and making some waves by bridging the gaps from telepresence down to skype on mobile devices. The idea is fairly uncomplicated: bring on-demand cloud technology to bear on an industry that has been characterized by large fixed costs, and make it one that scales to whatever physical infrastructure one has or wishes to build for it.
And this morning Level 3 Communications jumped on the bandwagon. They’re working with Blue Jeans Network to put together their next generation video collaboration service. Level 3’s collaboration solutions derive from the Global Crossing acquisition. They’ve long been a challenger in the corporate market, and quickly moving to what could be a disruptive technology makes a lot of sense for them.
Of course, anything that puts more bits on the network works in Level 3’s favor, and nothing produces more bits than uncacheable video streams. Telepresence, for example, is one of those applications that could really get the most out of bigger pipes. But while its adoption by the corporate world has been growing steadily, we have yet to see steep part of the S curve.
Ok, so how long before Cisco decides it’s time to use its cash hoard to try and buy out this threat?
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Categories: Internet Backbones · telepresence · Video
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Very funny Rob. I think the real question with that stock these days is when will the sellside models notice how much the interest expense is set to fall thanks to Bernanke and some Broomfield help.
The convert being in the money obviously is deleveraging but from what notrom calculated, it looks like 40mn next year, 100mn more in the following year. Lower leverage ratios and those size moves down in interest expense mean plenty to the ‘dispute’ around that FCF and its calculation.