SlipStream Data Touts Success

One dialup accelerator claims to have broken away from the competition, into the lead.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [June 20, 2005]

The company has 2,000 ISP customers, over 35 wholesalers and distributors, close to 3 million users, and sales in over 40 nations. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada-based SlipStream Data claims to rule the accelerator world.

Of course, this remains a highly competitive area, with different providers offering genuinely different solutions. It's no Coke v. Pepsi duopoly. Companies like Artera Turbo, Propel, QuikCAT, Bytemobile, ICT, Proxyconn, and many more still offer genuinely different products with a variety of strengths and weaknesses.

Ron Neumann, CEO of SlipStream, dismisses most of the competition. "The only competition we acknowledge is Propel," he says. While it is true that only a few of the products on the market can scale for large ISPs (see Propel Courts Large Service Providers), regular sized ISPs do not need to fear that their acceleration options are about to go away.

While SlipStream is working hard to satisfy its global carrier customer base, by developing software for mobile devices, for example, Neumann says the company still believes in the local ISP, citing data from an IDC report in March, 2005, which says that churn rates at most local ISPs are less than two percent per month, while the national average is close to 4 percent. The conclusion is simple, "dialup is not disappearing."

Services make money, and money keeps the ISP alive
Neumann points to an ISPCON session he attended, run by Mike Cassidy and Doug McDonald, called Top 10 Managed/Value-Added Services of Today and Tomorrow (and 5 to Avoid). Cassidy and McDonald told attendees that the skills they already have will show them how to decide which value-added services to provide:

• You know your customers
• You have developed a trust relationship with them
• You have developed your brand
• You know what you can charge for
• Your customers know what you stand for (in terms of customer service and pricing)
• So, ask your customers through formal surveys and just by listening when they call

Neumann says he listens to his ISP customers just as seriously as ISPs listen to their customers. ISPs told SlipStream, he says, that they don't like putting software on user desktops, but that the SlipStream solution is reliable and easy to support. ISPs liked being able to own brand the accelerator. They asked for more solutions

A new strategy slips in
So the company reoriented its strategy. SlipStream is no longer just an accelerator. The company has created an open architecture allowing it to add services to its platform. Now the SlipStream accelerator is just a piece of the product.

SlipStream has built an open but proprietary architecture it calls the SlipIN that allows it to integrate services provided by other companies. For example, the first platinum partner is Guelph, Ontario-based parental control software vendor NetSweeper. Solutions currently being integrated include Edmonton, Alberta-based Gennux (see Addressing an Anti-Spam Challenge) and audio stream enhancer Sound Genetics.

Neumann hints that the company is working with dozens of software providers. Neumann feels he's won the dialup accelerator war and is looking to conquer new territory, working with many, many allies.

— End