Counterpath is easily the number one licensor of soft phone technology.  Nearly every major VoIP carrier offering softphone access options uses Counterpath tech and has paid Counterpath for a license to private label their softphones and bundle them with the service.  Chief among those licensees is Vonage, of course. Counterpath has enjoyed an enviable position of being what I would call the only game in town when it comes to reliable, modular software components that cover all the things VoIP tech vendors need to build solutions: SIP client/server, encapsulation and encoding, quality of service, echo cancellation, and user interface.

It’s hard to be the king of everything in any niche, but Counterpath has more or less achieved that status.

So what does it mean when they start announcing job cuts?  Funny you should ask.  It means our industry is shrinking from exuberance (and it’s about time).  It means the traditional phone companies and cable players (still) have the upstarts by the nads.  And it also means that, no matter how good your technology or sales pitch, if your customers are in trouble, eventually that trouble catches up to YOU.

So how about it, Apple.  Buy Counterpath, fulfill their remaining licensing obligations, and get a decent SIP solution into the iPhone while the price to do so is LOW.   It’s not going to take long for Android to round the SIP corner.