Ooma Stock

Ooma, Inc. (Ooma) provides communications services and related technologies that bring unique features, ease of use, and affordability to businesses and residential customers through its smart software-as-a-service (SaaS) and unified communications platforms.

For businesses of all sizes, the company delivers advanced voice and collaboration features, including messaging, intelligent virtual attendants and video conferencing to help them run more efficiently. For consumers, the company’s residential phone service provides PureVoice high-definition voice quality, advanced functionality and integration with mobile devices.

The company drives the adoption of its platforms by providing communications solutions to the large and growing markets for business, residential and mobile users, and then facilitate growth by offering new and innovative connected services to the company’s user base. The company’s customers typically adopt its platforms by making a purchase or rental of its on-premise devices, connecting to the internet and activating services, for which they primarily pay on a monthly basis. The company has achieved high levels of customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty. The company’s business and residential phone service solutions are each top-ranked by the company’s customers according to surveys by PC Mag and Consumer Reports.

The company’s services rely upon the following main elements: the company’s multi-tenant cloud service, on-premise devices, desktop and mobile applications, and calling platforms. Ooma’s cloud provides a high-quality, secure, managed and reliable connection integrating every element of the company’s platforms. The company’s platforms power all aspects of its business, providing a high-volume, low-cost infrastructure for its communications solutions, and enabling a number of other applications and services for productivity, automation, monitoring, safety, security and networking infrastructure.

The company generates revenues primarily from the sale of subscriptions and other services for its business and residential communications solutions. The company generates its product and other revenue from the sale of the company’s on-premise devices and end-point devices. The company primarily offers its solutions in the U.S. and Canada, with limited offerings in certain other countries.

Solutions

Ooma Business

The company’s intention is providing business communications services that are simple, easy to use, and deliver excellent value to small, medium-sized and large companies. The company offers a range of solutions to fit each business’ needs, along with personalized support to resolve any issues in deploying and maintaining Ooma services. The company refers to Ooma Office, Ooma Enterprise, Ooma AirDial and OnSIP collectively as Ooma Business.

Ooma Office

Ooma Office is a cloud-based multi-user communications system for small and medium-sized businesses designed to manage communications in and out of the office with a suite of business features at affordable prices. Ooma Office is simple and intuitive to setup and use, mobile-friendly, scalable, and provides a variety of configurations to meet the company’s customers’ specific needs. Customers have their choice of equipment for voice service, including IP phones, smartphones, PCs and traditional analog phones.

Ooma Office has three service plans, which are generally sold as monthly subscriptions:

Ooma Office Essentials provides a curated set of essential business phone features that enables teams to connect seamlessly with customers and co-workers, including virtual receptionist, SMS and MMS messaging, extension dialing, multi-device ring options, ring groups, call park, audio conferencing, digital fax, music-on-hold, intercom/paging, and voicemail-to-email audio files. The Office Mobile App allows virtual deployment without hardware, so users can make, receive and transfer phone calls, listen to voicemails, text, and manage their Ooma account on-the-go from any iOS or Android device.

Ooma Office Pro offers everything in Ooma Office Essentials while adding a set of more robust features, including HD video conferencing (Ooma Meetings), call recording, call analytics, caller info match, enhanced robocall blocking, voicemail transcription, and integrations with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 applications. Additionally, the Office Pro Desktop App conveniently enables Pro users to have their complete business communications system on their PCs and Macs to make and receive calls, host and join video meetings, use SMS and MMS messaging, access company directories, access in-depth caller profiles for both inbound and outbound calls, and other capabilities. The Desktop App works anywhere the computer has an internet connection, keeping employees and teams connected while working from home, on the road, or in the office.

Ooma Office Pro Plus is the company’s top-tier service plan that offers everything in Ooma Office Pro while adding powerful employee and customer tools, including advanced call management, call queuing for satisfying basic call center needs, hot-desking to facilitate hybrid work environments and shared workspaces, expanded videoconferencing options for Ooma Meetings, and CRM integrations with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

The company also offers the following two services to its Ooma Office customers:

Ooma Connect delivers fixed wireless internet connectivity to replace or back-up slow and DSL, satellite, and cable services. This solution consists of the Ooma Connect Base Station and the cellular antenna, which provides wireless internet through a nationwide advanced cellular network. The company’s Continuous Voice technology for internet back-up improves call quality by sending redundant voice streams across both the primary and wireless Internet link.

Ooma Managed Wi-Fi is a plug-and-play enterprise-grade Wi-Fi solution that is designed to take the complexity and high cost out of wireless networking for small and medium-sized businesses. Ooma Managed Wi-Fi enables businesses in industries, such as retail, restaurant, and hospitality to support Wi-Fi IP phones on Ooma Office, Wi-Fi access for guests, and securely connect online payment systems and cloud-based applications, such as Microsoft Office, Google Workspace or CRM systems.

Ooma Enterprise

Ooma Enterprise is a highly customizable, flexible, and scalable unified-communications-as-a-service (‘UCaaS’) solution that complements Ooma Office and allows the company to meet the needs of organizations of all sizes. Telecommunications and networking services available through Ooma Enterprise include mobile and softphone telephony, presence and instant messaging, multiparty audio, video and web conferencing, and call center capabilities with full Application Programming Interface (‘API’) support.

The company’s enterprise UCaaS platform enables easy drag-and-drop call flow management, using modular applications that can be selectively enabled to suit customer needs. Some of these applications include WebRTC, Call Center, Mobile and Desktop applications, Team Chat, and a distinctive reporting portal for end users and administrators. For the company’s call center customers, the company offers agents and call center managers the ability to visualize their performance through their day or over time with custom reporting solutions. Additionally, Ooma Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams allows every device enabled with the Teams app – desktops, laptops, smart phones and tablets – to become a fully functional business phone that connects Teams users to external phone lines.

The company’s platform is built on an open API architecture that enables agility, customizations, and integrations into back-end solutions, such as CRM, predictive analytics, accounting and customer renewal systems, either internally or via third party developers. The company’s global cloud-based network provides business-class security, redundancy, and failover, as well as uniquely routes calls through the shortest path to provide the highest voice quality. This gives Ooma Enterprise customers the ability to streamline business processes and ensure their customers are serviced faster, boosting satisfaction, repeat orders, referrals, and revenues in addition to enabling their users to improve productivity.

Ooma AirDial

Ooma AirDial is a complete integrated solution for businesses intended to address the decommissioning of legacy copper-wire analog phone service, also known as plain old telephone service (‘POTS’). This ‘copper sunset’ has created a significant challenge for maintaining safety communications devices and business-critical systems that require a POTS line – ranging from fire alarm panels to elevator phones, fax machines, public safety phones, building access systems and more – that often cannot be migrated to voice over internet service. Ooma AirDial provides a turnkey replacement for POTS lines by combining the Ooma AirDial base station with virtual analog phone service and a data connection through a nationwide wireless network at one low monthly rate. Ooma AirDial also comes with an intuitive, web-based portal that enables users to view and manage remotely the status of all Ooma AirDial devices together. Each base station can support up to four safety devices. Ooma AirDial can be self-installed or professionally installed through Ooma or third parties.

OnSIP

In July 2022, the company acquired Junction Networks, Inc., which does business as OnSIP, from Intrado. OnSIP provides UCaaS solutions designed to make communications approachable for smaller sized business, much like Ooma Office, allowing customers to utilize modern communications tools to enhance their business while streamlining deployment and ongoing management. OnSIP customers can choose between unlimited monthly plans and metered ‘pay as you go’ plans.

Ooma Residential

Ooma Residential includes Ooma Telo basic and premier services, as well as the company’s smart security solutions. The company’s residential phone service provides PureVoice HD voice quality, advanced functionality and integration with mobile devices. Overall, the company’s residential platform enables an ecosystem for connected services by integrating with other automation solutions to enable innovative and valuable features.

Home Phone Services

Ooma Basic offers unlimited personal calling within the U.S. and features, such as voicemail access, call waiting, caller ID, network address book and 911 calling, with text alerts when 911 is dialed from the home. The company’s Ooma Mobile HD app allows users to make and receive phone calls and access Ooma features and settings with any iOS or Android device over a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection. The app includes unlimited mobile domestic calls, subject to normal residential usage limitations, and enables users to make international calls on their mobile devices using Ooma’s international calling plan.

Ooma Premier offers a suite of advanced calling features on a monthly or annual subscription basis, including custom and anonymous call blocking, receiving incoming calls on the Ooma Mobile App, call forwarding, three-way conference calling, backup number, and integration with a variety of devices and services to enable new functionality and automation, such as Google Voice, Dropbox and Amazon Alexa. The company also offers other premium subscription services to the company’s customers, independent of Ooma Premier, including an international calling plan and voicemail transcription service.

Home Phone Products

The company offers three ways to connect to its residential phone services:

Ooma Telo is a complete home communications solution designed to serve as the primary phone line in the home, delivering high-quality voice communications, advanced calling features and connected services that are not offered by traditional landlines. Users make a one-time purchase of an Ooma Telo base station and plug it into a high-speed internet connection and standard home phone devices. Users have the option to transfer their existing phone number for a one-time fee or to select a new number at no cost. Once set up, users have access to free nationwide calling, international calling with low rates and the features described above.

Ooma Telo Air is a wireless Ooma Telo with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities that connects to the internet using the home’s Wi-Fi network and can be paired with mobile phones to answer incoming calls from any phone in the home.

Ooma Telo LTE combines the Ooma Telo base station with the Ooma LTE Adapter and battery back-up to deliver an always-on home phone solution with all of the advanced features provided by the company’s unique cloud-based residential platform.

Ooma also sells a variety of accessories, including handsets with smartphone-like features, remote phone jacks and battery backup, as well as a range of sensors for home security and monitoring.

Talkatone

The company’s Talkatone mobile app is available to anyone with an iOS or Android mobile device and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play for free. Registered users choose their own phone number to make and receive free texts and calls to most U.S. and Canadian numbers using a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection within and out-of-network. Talkatone also enables users to call, text, chat and share with friends and family that do not have the app installed. Advertising is displayed within the mobile app and users can choose to purchase premium services, such as ad-free usage and international calling plans.

Marketing and Advertising

Online: The company uses online marketing, including search engine marketing, search engine optimization, online video, digital display advertising and social media to attract customers as they do online research for the products and services the company offers. The company continues to reach out to its prospect leads over time using e-mail and telemarketing until they purchase or the lead is retired.

Traditional: The company uses radio advertising to build awareness and interest for its products and services, which benefits both Ooma Business and Ooma Residential. Radio advertising provides an opportunity to build the Ooma brand cost-effectively, educate prospects on Ooma’s unique combination of quality and value, and capture prospects’ attention. Businesses and consumers who hear the company’s ads are directed to its web site, the company’s inbound sales personnel, and/or to key retail partners.

Word-of-mouth: The company actively mobilizes its customers and brand advocates to spread word-of-mouth marketing by sharing Ooma news and information through social media and e-mail. The company sells additional services to its existing customer base by offering free trials and promotional offers, as well as sending e-mail communications and leaving messages on their Ooma voicemail service.

Sales and Customers

The company has a diverse and growing customer base across a wide range of industries. The company’s business and residential products are sold through direct channels, retailers, value-added resellers, master agents and other resellers. The direct channel, value-added resellers and master agents are the company’s primary distribution channels for business customers. Direct channel and retail are the company’s primary distribution channels for residential customers. The company’s direct sales force is focused on business sales and includes trained sales representatives located in the U.S. and Canada.

The company’s retail distribution includes national and regional consumer electronics, big box retailers and leading online retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Costco.com, Walmart.com and others. The company also has strategic partnerships with third parties, such as T-Mobile, which enables the company to sell its services and products to certain of their customers.

Intellectual Property

As of January 31, 2023, the company had 41 issued patents and 4 patent applications pending in the U.S. and 2 patent applications pending in foreign jurisdictions, all of which were associated with U.S. applications. The company’s issued patents will expire approximately between 2031 and 2040.

Regulatory Matters

As a provider of internet communications services, the company is subject to a number of FCC (Federal Communications Commission) regulations. Among others, these regulatory obligations include contributing to the Federal Universal Service Fund (‘USF’), the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund and federal programs related to phone number administration; providing access to E-911 services; protecting customer information; and porting phone numbers upon a valid customer request.

In Canada, the company’s service is regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (‘CRTC’), which among other things, imposes requirements similar to the U.S. related to the provision of E-911 services in all areas of Canada where the traditional telephone carrier offers such 911 services.

Competition

The company face competition from a broad range of providers of communications solutions and other connected services for business, home and mobile users. Some of these competitors include:

Established communications providers, such as Comcast Corporation, Verizon Communications Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc;

Other cloud-based communications companies, such as RingCentral Inc., Vonage Holdings Corp (acquired by Ericsson), 8x8 Inc., Nextiva, Inc., Intermedia.net Inc., Dialpad Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Zoom Video Communications, Inc., and Alphabet Inc. (Google Voice); and

Traditional on-premise hardware business communications providers, such as Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., and Mitel, Inc.

Additionally, the company’s new AirDial product faces competition from other companies, including Verizon Communications Inc., Granite Telecommunications LLC, and Napco Securities Technologies, Inc., as well as other service providers that bundle their offerings with POTS-related products from POTS replacement equipment manufacturers, such as DataRemote Inc.

History

Ooma, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware in 2003.