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June 05, 2007
Jon Arnold / Chris Lyman - Fonality and Open Source Telephony
On this week's Canadian IP Thought Leaders podcast, Jon spoke with Chris Lyman, CEO of Fonality. The topic was open source telephony, a space that Fonality has become a leading player in. Chris and Jon talked about the state of open source telephony, and how using Asterisk, Fonality has been driving adoption not just in the business market, but in the home as well.
Looking ahead, Chris also talked about how new features will be the key to growth, and how over time, open source will become increasingly stable, which itself will set the stage for broader adoption. On the Canadian front, Fonality has a local footprint, and Chris talked about the market opportunity he sees there, as well as how Canada differs from the U.S.
Chris Lyman, Chief Executive Officer, Fonality
Fonality is Chris' third startup. Prior to Fonality, he founded and led Virtualis, a top-ten Web Hosting company. Chris bootstrapped Virtualis for 3 profitable years until raising $8 million in venture capital, and eventually growing the firm to over $7 million in recurring revenue. Keys to Virtualis' growth were its Web-based control panel and its 44,000 member online reseller channel. Chris sold Virtualis to Allegiance Telecom (NASDAQ: ALGX) in late 2000, re-branded it to hosting.com, and joined the Allegiance management team as Vice President of Web Hosting Services. There he led the acquisition and roll-up of additional hosting firms. In 1994, before Virtualis, Chris founded a media-focused systems integration firm in Los Angeles. Chris is a licensed SCCA-Pro driver and owns a motor sports racing team.
Posted at June 5, 2007 06:13 PM
