Global Expansion

Thousands of subscribers signed up for Voicemail; consultants, actors, physicians, repair men and many more. What began in California became worldwide as we expanded into Europe and Scandinavia,. Scheduling athletes at the 1988 Seoul Olympics proved its value on a global stage. Telecom providers on the Pacific Rim adopted voicemail as infrastructure. By 1987 we had 35 voicemail centers in 14 countries worldwide. we were successful, profitable, and global. We were the sole provider to telecoms world wide!

Then came the Storm

The VMI Board had a terrible nightmare! They dreamt that Octel, Centigram, Digial Sound and other vendors were running away wth the Voicemail market. Worse, rather than adding enterprise to the Telecom market they were leading, they decided to abandon it.  The board was thinking in a world of insanity with greed and delusions of grandure overwhelming all sensibility.

We had a solid lead internationally and were positioned as vendor of choice with the Bell Operating Companes.  We had become a global standard for all Voicemail systems and services woldwide . Enterprise systems were destined to be integrated with the PBX and the market for small stand alone systems would eventually disappear. Dow Brian's premature passing left VMI with no chance to carry out the board's plan to build small systems and challenge Octel, Centigram, Digital Sound... Never!

A New Direction.

The board elected a new Chairman and appointed a new CEO, unfortunately with no experience with voice processing, computer technology or the enterprise marketplace.  The founding members of the board and the team resigned and 13 short  months later the telecom revenues were gone, the enterprise system was years away, the company's decision had alienated VMI vendors and the voicemail industry. VMI closed its doors and walked away from a company that a year before had a market cap of over $60M. The founders cried, the Public Telecoms cried, the Bell Operating Companies cried, the Indusry cried!  What a waste! What a loss!  How would Voicemail Services carry on?