Tim Cohen, Editor At Large
4 November 2004
Johannesburg — Hymax urges caution in choosing providers
THE arrival of VOIP (voice over internet protocol) in February will be "chaotic" as companies position themselves in this newly deregulated market, says John van den Munckhof , CEO of Hymax, a company preparing to take advantage of the liberalisation.
Van den Munckhof said yesterday that a range of companies, including the big telecoms players, internet service providers and even cellphone companies were interested in the market.
The advent of VOIP is a consequence of government's decision to deregulate the telecoms market earlier this year, creating a buzz in the industry mainly because of the prospect for significantly cheaper calls, especially for high-volume business users.
This new terrain is likely to boost data traffic on SA's telecoms networks and result in declining voice traffic, as voice traffic moves to what were previously data systems.
Ordinary users might not even notice any physical difference when they use the telephone at work as the behind-thescenes switching infrastructure automatically re-routes telephone calls down data lines.
But setting up the new system to take advantage of the cost reductions significant savings technically on offer could well require some technical rejigging behind the scenes.
Most modern PABX systems are already capable of making the switch, but the change could require upgraded bandwidth. But equally, for companies that already have diginet and DSL lines, for example, cost savings are theoretically conceivable over and above the general savings the new technology offers.
In short, it is potentially a hot market. But for this very reason, the number of players aiming to jump in is large.
Hymax, formally merely a "box-dropper" of PABX systems, is a good example of such a company. It has been boosting its management, realigning its service offering and changing its products to position itself to expand into this new business space.
According to CEO Rob Ferguson, the company's previous focus on providing PABX systems to small and medium sized businesses might have been a narrow one, but its customer base of about 20000 has provided the company with a potential channel to market the new technology.
The Hymax name was well-recognised and this, too, provided an opportunity to generate some "marketing topspin", he said.
The company's previous focus was in the Cape Town area, but it has relocated to Johannesburg, attracting some wellknown industry players.
Van den Munckhof previously worked for Plessey and Motorola, and recently left Dimension Data where he was MD of the converged communications division.
Ferguson brought McDonald's to SA, before becoming a founding shareholder of private equity firm Thynk Capital, along with Hymax director Neil Macdonald and Robin Frew.
Thynk Capital and its partner, Rand Merchant Bank's investment division RMB Ventures, have re-engineered the business to position it as a provider of a single solution for the overall management of the telecoms requirements for small businesses.
While big businesses have the capacity to hire people in-house to manage their networks, small businesses need a full managed solution and a company which can provide a broad service.
"They want one bill and one person to talk to," said Ferguson.
And how should business respond to this new-fangled technological offering? "Just don't sign up with the first person who walks in the door," says Van den Munckhof.
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