At the end of the day, the projections were way overstated in the first place. While "possible" they were for an absolute best case scenario with everyone that has ever made a long distance phone call or roamed to jump ship onto NOR all at once.
The dialogue on here always seems to repeat the same things over and but fails to analyse a few points that I think are important.
Has the product perfomed as expected? World Phone:By the fanciful projections bandied around by punters, no. However the company seems to think it has. They were, after all, having to dial back the network due to the demand in the early days. Even though this was still mainly from free minutes, it proves their reach to potential clients if nothing else. One major flaw in the initial release was the one price fits all mentality, anyone who was following the comments would have seen this over and over, comments in regards to the price being too expensive from corridor to corridor. This obviously has been addressed (nearly) and we should continue to see improvements as we move forward. I don't doubt that having the entire world to price will be a slow and tedious (and ongoing process). Another major criticism was the need for data and messaging. This came both from the customers and from the hotcopper crew. They obviously took both on board as that is exactly what they are working on now. So in summary they learned a number of the things from the launch till now. a) The demand is massive, b) They were not quite ready initially (however this is impossible to know without releasing) c) The pricing needs to be dynamic in nature and varied to be competitive in each and every region. d) The market is not very forgiving and it is wise not to give ambitious deadlines and just focus on the business. The early/over reporting can be blamed for both the hefty rise and subsequent fall imo. I don't mid the delay in Android, I'd prefer it was ready now, but I'd rather it was done properly the first time and not rushed out half assed as that will do far more damage than good.
Corona: there was an interview with P.O. quite a while back where he states they were dealt with quite harshly with initial attempts at Corona. I can't remember the exact wording but it relates to the reaction they got from companies from the initial trial and their initial methods of approaching them. This was the main reasoning for the revamp of Corona that is currently happening and obviously the new features would have come from this as well. The fact they got the trials in the first place shows there is a demand, but people aren't going to jump ship that quickly. There might be many features they get from their current providers that are over and above just cheaper calls. There are a lot of factors involved in the cost of a service for a company, including things like how easy accounting is as a result of it. I get the feeling that not being able to fully itemise each user individually and really break down the cost/expense data into detail hurt them as this is what a lot of the new features for Corona seem to entail. The way of business these days is to roll every cost involved into a specific account or contract and maybe they couldn't provide that initially and hence the lack of uptake and return to the drawing board.
White Label: Lets be honest, they aren't really ready to sign one of these yet. Android is still in development and that would be the main vehicle for VNPT. Not sure how the other deals would be structured but you can bet your bottom dollar based on everything else that companies will be saying ït's really good, but to be truly great we need it to do x,y,z. Which is then heading back to the drawing board and re-tweaking, adding features etc.
So in summary yes it is a great product, yes there is demand for and yes they will make lots of money IMO, but it's going to take as long as it takes. Corona is in final Beta testing. I'd prefer they didn't give a timeline on when it will be expected because the whole point of testing is that you don't know what you will find or what you may need to address. The main point is that they are acting very transiently, they are taking all suggestions on board and building a tailored solution to the demands of their clients. Releasing, gaining insight, acting on the insight and following through. The demand is there, they just haven't gotten the mix quite right yet. All the talk of a CR is after all only speculation, the last interview that was posted with PO he states thay have found many ways and are getting very clever at organic marketing using twitter and the like. So they are well aware they don't have money to spend on advertising. Therefore any projections made on the last quarter that include this figure are unreliable. It won't take much for this to take off. But it might not happen straight away. There are a a lot of things they are working on and all have massive potential. I don't think the comments from people saying there is no demand or the market is small are correct. The demand is there and the market is huge.....they just haven't quite perfected the recipe yet....
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