Stealthy talk

One of the many themes I find myself talking about more and more is brand extension with voice as a loss leader, and today we have another good example from electrical/electronics retailing giant Dixons in the UK (which owns PC World). Undercut the voice-dependent competition and sell lots of DECT phones, WiFi APs, routers, WiFi phones and other peripherals (like WiFi handsets later on). This cross-selling opportunity into the core product line has always been cited as the rationale for Best Buy selling Vonage in the US, but Dixons takes it a step further and doesn't have to give up any revenue share. There seems to be some mystery as to who is behind the service, so if anyone has any skinny on this issue, please let me know. One Diamond Cluster value reader in the industry observes:

"I normally hear from our guys when someone is setting up E1 lines and routers, but this totally slipped under the radar. Looks finally like VoIP is going to hit the high street in a big way..."