Last week brought quarterly earnings announcements from iLinc and Onstream Media. The web site "Seeking Alpha" has posted transcripts of the earnings calls from both companies. This is of interest because it is increasingly difficult to find pure-play public companies that do web conferencing as their primary or only business. Most others are either private or represent web conferencing as nothing more than a contributing line item on the corporate parent's revenue statement.
I'm no financial analyst, and earnings calls are pretty tightly scripted and controlled activities, so take my comments with an entire shaker of salt.
My quick knee-jerk reaction to the iLinc transcript is mostly confusion, since the divestment of their audio conferencing business and focus switch to SaaS licensing sales makes period-to-period comparisons all but impossible. I see conflicting stories as continuing operations gross margins went up (a good thing), while overall net losses grew (a bad thing). And that's after some significant operating expense reductions, including staff reductions.
The Onstream transcript shows a more immediately obvious upbeat view of revenue growth for the company and a reduction in net loss, but they're still losing money as a business. Is this the latest industry to fit the old joke? "What's the best way to make a million dollars in web conferencing?" "Start with two million."
Honestly, I wish all of these companies nothing but success. I see lots of anecdotal evidence that people are turning more and more to virtual meetings to avoid the costs, inconvenience, and frustrations of travel. Now all that's left is to turn it into a profit machine instead of a public service.
