Re: No Google Voice for original hub
Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 9:23 am
I have to say I'm surprised by the pass Ooma's largely getting in this forum on the GVE issue. What burns me is what I believe has been Ooma's misleading and deceptive marketing of GVE. Here are a few lines from the March 2009 news release:
http://www.ooma.com/media/press-release ... experience
> "ooma Adds Features to Enhance Google Voice Experience"
> "...compatible with its current and future home phone systems planned for summer release."
> "An ooma system consists of the ooma Hub connected to a broadband connection and an existing home phone."
The description of each of the GVE features uses present tense, as though the features currently exist.
I activated my Google Voice account in July of last year. I loved (and love) it and within a few weeks, I was ready to ditch the landline. I purchased the Ooma Hub a short time later with the expectation, reached after reading their own marketing material, that it would soon support Google Voice extensions. (It took me an hour so to realize that the GVE were not, in fact, live.) I had no reason to believe they wouldn't be coming soon, and wouldn't be supported by the Hub, so I went with it and Premiere, too. I made the second mistake of porting my primary number to ooma in October and canceling my Time Warner digital phone account -- the "press 1" required on call transfers makes Google Voice now pretty much useless with my primary line. (Stupid me figured, "GVE has to be coming soon, right?!?")
I do PR for a living. The March 18, 2009, news release, in my opinion, is highly unethical and, for me, has called into question ooma's business practices. If they later learned GVE couldn't be supported by the Hub, then testing of GVE certainly wasn't far enough along to have made the March announcement in the first place. Why not come out with an official statement -- in these forums or elsewhere -- on the status of GVE, based on what they announced a year ago? Have I missed that?
Finally, this can't be compared to a car or computer being out-of-date within weeks or months -- ooma announced certain features would be available on "current" systems and it appears that was and is not true. I'm OK with the actual phone service delivered by ooma, but I won't be an ooma apologist.
http://www.ooma.com/media/press-release ... experience
> "ooma Adds Features to Enhance Google Voice Experience"
> "...compatible with its current and future home phone systems planned for summer release."
> "An ooma system consists of the ooma Hub connected to a broadband connection and an existing home phone."
The description of each of the GVE features uses present tense, as though the features currently exist.
I activated my Google Voice account in July of last year. I loved (and love) it and within a few weeks, I was ready to ditch the landline. I purchased the Ooma Hub a short time later with the expectation, reached after reading their own marketing material, that it would soon support Google Voice extensions. (It took me an hour so to realize that the GVE were not, in fact, live.) I had no reason to believe they wouldn't be coming soon, and wouldn't be supported by the Hub, so I went with it and Premiere, too. I made the second mistake of porting my primary number to ooma in October and canceling my Time Warner digital phone account -- the "press 1" required on call transfers makes Google Voice now pretty much useless with my primary line. (Stupid me figured, "GVE has to be coming soon, right?!?")
I do PR for a living. The March 18, 2009, news release, in my opinion, is highly unethical and, for me, has called into question ooma's business practices. If they later learned GVE couldn't be supported by the Hub, then testing of GVE certainly wasn't far enough along to have made the March announcement in the first place. Why not come out with an official statement -- in these forums or elsewhere -- on the status of GVE, based on what they announced a year ago? Have I missed that?
Finally, this can't be compared to a car or computer being out-of-date within weeks or months -- ooma announced certain features would be available on "current" systems and it appears that was and is not true. I'm OK with the actual phone service delivered by ooma, but I won't be an ooma apologist.