snom's IP-PBX Strategy: Give It Awaysnom's IP-PBX Strategy: Give It Away

snom debuts its own IP-PBX software with an interesting price point.

snom makes phones. That's their thing. They make SIP phones and have a phone that works with Microsoft OCS, among other notable developments. But as of today, there's also a snom PBX, the strategy for which is unique in the industry:

Give away the PBX in order to make the phone sale.

That's a little bit of an overstatement; snom will give away its new IP-PBX software, called snomONE, only to the sub-10-seat market; higher-scaling versions will cost money, albeit not much. snomYellow, which scales to 20 seats, will cost $895, and snomBLUE, which goes up to 150 seats, will sell for $1,495. All three versions include the same features/functions; there's no distinction in functionality based on size. The prices are suggested list; snom sells on a two-tier distribution model.

This development follows on snom's acquisition of a company called PBXnSIP, whose software is the basis of the new snomONE. Mike Storella, snom's director of business development, told me that the play here is to drive sales of snom IP phones by giving away the PBX, or selling it at a low price. Not surprisingly, he takes issue with those who predict the death of the desk phone.

"Our sweet spot is the $129-$349 list price" for a phone, he said. "People most of the time buy a business phone and keep it for 10 years or longer. I think $20 a year makes it a very very valuable productivity tool"--especially if the call control software that runs the phone only cost around $10-$45 a station at most.

For the SMB market, it's definitely an interesting approach. snom has been one of the leaders in SIP phones, which has given them a profile on the desktop that could mean users are willing to trust them to run those phones behind the scenes. Especially if they're paying little or nothing to get that capability.