The path that technology follows is often laden with challenges, opportunities and growth. The latter tends to be the norm as of late, with tech growth hitting new highs. 8x8 (News - Alert) has seen its share of peaks and valleys in the tech space, surviving the tech bubble burst in 2001 and pushing through the recession of 2008 to eventually become a top hosted VoIP provider.
As such, CEO Bryan Martin (News - Alert) is an often sought-after expert in his field. He’s able to read the warning signs and believes tech has been tempered by experience, improved business models, a more realistic leadership and the outlook for a better future. A recent 8x8 blog post features video interviews with Martin and why 2013 tech run-up is different.
The attitude in Silicon Valley has always been about the tech, according to Martin. And it’s still about the tech -- the fabulous things that are being invented that haven’t been done before. But these days it is more about the dollars and cents that go with the tech and whether or not the business model is right before you just launch into building technology for technology sake. It’s a very different attitude out there in the valley, he says.
This attitude also has an effect on the stock market overall. 8x8 alone, which is a volatile stock, goes up and down with greater amplitude than the overall markets, depending on how investors feel about the stock. The difference this time though, says Martin, is the tools and services 8x8 provides have really become business tools that businesses of all sizes can use to become more efficient and productive.
It takes very little capital expenditure and that helps the business model economics because a business can adopt these things without laying out significant capital, without building infrastructure and without having to build mass sets for chips, Everything is in the cloud and online. It’s available, stresses Martin, for everyone.
Overall, the cloud allows the business to purchase things in unit sizes according to the size of the business and the business model. Consider advertising, which used to be a big deal. If you were going to advertise, says Martin, it was a big capital investment. Now, you can decide how many clicks you want to pay for, what you want to pay for, when you want to make those clicks and you can do it instantaneously. So the tools we have for communications are empowering for these businesses, helping them make money on the bottom line.
As for Silicon Valley, it is in its own kind of world right now, says Martin. Traffic is up, job growth, shortage of homes and more are on the upswing because of the number of workers moving in to the valley. Hopefully that is just the beginning of what is spilling down to the rest of the economy and not just what is going on in Silicon Valley. These businesses are able to use services like those offered by 8x8, save money and be more efficient. When these goals are accomplished, the business is ahead of the game.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey