| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Communication Equipment |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Headquarters | Sunnyvale, CA, USA |
| Key people | CEO: Bryan R. Martin |
| Products | Business VoIP phone service Unified Communications |
| Employees | 244[1] |
| Website | www.8x8.com |
8x8 Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT) is a United States communications technology company, one of the largest VoIP service providers in the country. 8x8, Inc. offers integrated voice, video and mobile unified communications solutions for small to medium-sized business and distributed enterprise customers.
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8x8 was founded in 1987 Dr. Chi-Shin Wang and Dr. Y.W. Sing as Integrated Information Technology, Inc., or IIT. The name was changed in the early 1990s.
The founders were both formerly of Weitek.[2] They began IIT as a fabless vendor of semiconductor products for the math coprocessor and graphics chipset markets.[3] The company produced x87 floating point coprocessor and graphics accelerator chips for the personal computer market during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The floating coprocessors were produced for the 286, 386 and 486 generations of microprocessors.
In 1992 the company began shipping a lossless data compression product called Xtradrive.
In the early 1990s IIT began producing chips, software and other technologies for the videoconferencing market. Frustrated by the high prices and low volumes of these videoconferencing systems, the company changed its name to 8x8 and began marketing its own set-top videoconferencing systems for consumers under the ViaTV brand. 8x8 went public on the NASDAQ market in 1997, trading under the ticker symbol EGHT.[4]
Soon after this, 8x8 launched a family of Voice over IP (VoIP) chips and software that were sold to IP phone, IP/PSTN gateway and other manufacturers of VoIP equipment. The Company acquired two companies (Odisei[5] and U|Force[6]), to acquire network/server VoIP technologies, and began selling an end-to-end VoIP services technology solution to service providers in 1999.
In 2002, the company relaunched itself as a VoIP service provider under the Packet8 brand. In 2003, the Company launched its first consumer videophone services on the Packet8 network. In 2004, the company became the first VoIP service provider to offer replacement, E-911 services to its subscribers.[7] It also launched a suite of business services called Packet8 Virtual Office.
In 2008, 8x8 was the second largest standalone U.S. VoIP service provider (behind Vonage) with more than 100,000 residential customers, and more than 10,000 businesses and enterprises who use the company's Virtual Office services for their business telecommunications needs. Since 2008 however, competition has caused a dramatic drop in 8x8's residential customer base. In 2009 and so far in 2010 8x8 has seen their residential customer base continue to erode, with the company currently having less than 60,000 residential customers.
The company continues to develop most of the software and technology used in its VoIP service offerings. 8x8 has been awarded more than 76 [8] U.S. patents related to communications technologies. In March, 2010 8x8 reported that their customer subscriber base had surpassed 20,000 business customers.[9] May 1, 2010, 8x8 acquired Central Host, a California-based managed hosting company and began offering cloud-based hosting services.[10]On June 20, 2011, 8x8 announced the acquisition of Zerigo, a Colorado-based cloud services company and began offering cloud servers and managed DNS services.[11]