Stock Market Kicks VoIP Provider 8×8 Inc In The Pants

Another VoIP provider is having stock market woes. 8×8, Inc., who recently went public, is apparently not compliant with the NASDAQ listing service’s requirement of being at least $1 per share for a minimum of 10 consecutive days. Failure to comply means possibly being delisted. [via VoIP News]

It’s scary to think that VoIP stocks are somehow ending up in “penny stock” category. Considering how much money Vonage secured in VC funding, it’s surprising to see its stock do so bad. Then again, every geek bone in my body says that there’s a lot of machination going on under the service, and that someone - several someones - doesn’t want Vonage or 8×8 to do well.

Conspiracy nonsense? I’m not so sure. When was the last time you saw a consumer product or service as valuable as VoIP do so poorly in the stock market? When you look at all the new Internet web services - some pretty useless - having VC money shovelled into them, you ask yourself if the venture capital firms are idiots, or whether they know something we don’t. I would assume the latter. So then what’s the problem with VoIP in the stock market? VCs have put money into VoIP.

Keep in mind that, in the United States at least, the beginning of each new decade, the stock market crashes - at least as far back as I’ve kept track, which is the early 1970s. If Vonage and 8×8 are true indicators of the stock market’s hope for VoIP (which I don’t believe they are), then VoIP as a publicly-tradedindustry just isn’t going to happen for a long time, maybe never. And just who would benefit from that, I wonder?