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Om Malik on "VoIP Silos": "Om Malik: Enough Of These Damn VoIP Silos Om's latest rant on 'VoIP Silos' resonated with me and took me down a different path than I expected. Om, thanks for bringing back some 'spreadsheet memories.' 18 years ago I watched the way that third-party software developers in the spreadsheet marketplace came to market with products to enhance the end-user experience only to find that the companies they were supporting liked their ideas so much that they incorporated the best selling features into future editions of their spreadsheet products and platforms. In most cases the entrepreneurs who were in the 'add-on' spreadsheet marketplace were left on their own to build up their brand, educate the marketplace on what they did and while there were a lucky few who ended up with a retail distribution deal, in the end, many of the companies never made it because of the underlying realities of selling into a retail consumer channel. Close to twenty years later, this same pattern seems to happening again, except this time is it in the IP Communications marketplace and the focus is on independent device developers and the underlying disconnect of offering a customized version of their product tailored to a specific service provider. Om - It might be that the vendors playing in the 'VoIP Silo' game are following their direction from the cellular industry as a mea"