Earlier this month, Phone.com announced a marketing partnership with the Tarkenton Companies, founded by NFL Hall of Fame legend Fran Tarkenton. We were drawn to the Tarkenton Companies because of their strong focus on helping businesses with ten or less employees to grow, prosper, and compete effectively with much larger, more established organizations. This fits perfectly with the Phone.com approach. Our mission is to help small businesses enjoy the benefits of advanced phone service and avail themselves of new “cloud-based” services as they become available.

In addition to superior quality, economically priced voice phone services, many entrepreneurs and small businesses also need other forms of support that may seem out of reach financially. Assistance in writing effective business plans, developing a cost-effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, determining how to incorporate, or even addressing Human Resources (HR) issues may keep start-up business people awake at night. Tarkenton’s StarterSuccess offers these kinds of resources at extremely attractive prices along with high quality in the same vein as Phone.com.

As CEO of Phone.com, it is important that you know that we do not believe in “walled gardens” or “islands of functionality.” We recognize that it is not the technology that is important to our customers – it is the value that our underlying technologies deliver! To that end, we continue to move towards making available not just “unified communications” but rather “unified business processes” to our customers. Phone.com has always been about thinking “outside of the box.” Our relationship with the Tarkenton Companies is one more step in that direction and our desire to provide important solutions to small businesses!

On Friday Phone.com participated in the NJTC Venture Summit in Somerset NJ. The event is organized by the New Jersey Tech Council and is well attended by Tri-State area companies and investors.
Phone.com won the award for best communications company and Ari Rabban CEO of Phone.com was also one of the keynotes at the event.
Here is a summary of his advice as was published in NJConvergence:

“Rabban’s advice to those seeking capital: get the right domain for your product; find the right advisers; believe in your dream but also expect rejection; show excitement for your idea; get a partner for brainstorming; and expect three months to stretch into a year before you actually get the financing you are after, even if you’ve signed an agreement. “There are ways to keep some kind of a day job” while keeping the dream going, he said.
“Rabban’s advice to those seeking capital: get the right domain for your product; find the right advisers; believe in your dream but also expect rejection; show excitement for your idea; get a partner for brainstorming; and expect three months to stretch into a year before you actually get the financing you are after, even if you’ve signed an agreement. “There are ways to keep some kind of a day job” while keeping the dream going, he said.”

You can read more about the event here. Some photos are below.

The news and pictures we’ve seen out of Japan recently have been absolutely devastating. We want to reach out to all our customers who may have contacts in Japan to offer our assistance.

Phone.com wants to help. We are waiving the fees to call and send text messages (SMS) to Japanese numbers until the end of March so you can reach out to your family and friends.

All calls and SMS from any of our services will not incur an international calling fee when calling Japan for the rest of March 2011. You will only be charged from your bucket of minutes.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people if Japan.

Phone.com will be at the NYEBN Networking Event & Trade Show at Zanger Hall on 34th St. in Manhattan this Wednesday night. This is a great event for networking with entrepreneurs and it’s free if you RSVP. Stop by the Phone.com table and you might even be able to catch our CEO Ari Rabban. Here’s a link to the event in case you’d like to attend.

We are very happy to announce that once again Phone.com – Virtual Office received TMCNETs annual Internet Telephony Magazine Product of the Year Award.

You can read the full press release here.

From the Press Release:

“We are delighted to be recognized for our growth and innovation”, said Ari Rabban, CEO of Phone.com, “Phone.com is growing and adding more services and features. Our customer base is expanding month after month and we keep getting great positive feedback from both our customers and the industry. We look forward to a productive 2011 where we plan to introduce more new and exciting products that will continue to be an integral part of our customers’ business growth!”

“I am pleased to announce Phone.com Virtual Office as a Product of the Year Award winner. The editors of INTERNET TELEPHONY have verified that Phone.com Virtual Office displays quality and innovation plus provides real needs in the marketplace,” stated Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “I would like to congratulate Phone.com for its commitment to advancing IP communication technologies.”
2010 Product of the Year winners are published in the February 2011 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine, INTERNET TELEPHONY has been the authority in IP communication since 1998™.