Broad IP Riding Off Into The Sunset Print E-mail
Written by Adam Gosling   
Friday, 08 September 2006
It looks like Broad Investments has failed to raise additional capital to fund the further running of its VoIP start-up Broad IP. As a consequence the Board has had management take the axe to the fledgling broadband phone company.

The Board of Broad Investments told the ASX today that it has moved to protect it profitable mobile phone application and content businesses from the cash draining experiment in IP Telephony it made earlier this year.

Just over a week ago the Board had a price query on its plunging stock price from the Stock Exchange and responded with a statement that it didn't really know why. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that the Broad IP deivision was $100,000 a month overweight.

The board has decided there's better money in ringtones and will go for broke with its MTX (Pocket Portal and Mobile Applications) and Glovebox (Mobile Content) divisions which "offer the greatest prospect for faster growth and early cash flow generation," says the latest statement.

The Broad Board says it has taken "prudent steps" and has moved to "reduce cash burn" by changing its business plan and strategy which it did only five months ago when it launched the Broad IP venture.

Now it is "scaling down under-performing operations". The statement isn't very precise and at 5pm on a Friday I'm afraid I'm not going to call them, but the statement says

"The Board has therefore agreed that henceforth it will focus its resources more into MTX and Glovebox and reduce its direct activities in the more competitive telephony (Voice and Data) market through outsourcing and other strategies, including discontinuing services that absorb excessive cash," says the statement.

"Following its decision, the Board has in the last two weeks taken stops to considerably reduce expenditure through contractor and staff reduction in areas associated with telephony and data service and the scaling down or suspension of some offering which will save more than $100,000 per month.

"Further and most importantly, the restructuring of the under-performing subsidiaries will quarantine or reduce any continueing exposure or liabilities to BRO [the parent company]," it says.

Related news items
Newer news items
Older news items
 
mobilised

Carrier News

Ructions At Engin Signal Changing Strategy
With the 30 per cent acquisition of pure play VoIP service provider, Engin, by the Seven Network, it was only a matter of time before major upheaval filtered its way to the broadband telephony provider's staff.
Older news items
 

Industry News

Vendor News

Aspect Maps Out UC Product Plans
Contact Centre software specialists, Aspect Software, has embarked on a corporate strategy to educate the market on the part the contact centre plays in an organisation's overall unified communications strategy.
Older news items
 

VoIP Solutions

Product News

WA Dept Education Goes IP With Panasonic
The West Australian Department of Education and Training has chosen Panasonic for the upgrade of all future school telephony systems to IP-capable solutions.
Older news items