TelCentris Unlox Product Box with VoxOx

Updated Nov. 5, 4 pm PST: See below for details on funding

TelCentris, a new San Diego company, says it has released a beta version of its free consumer service called VoxOx, which combines Voice-over-Internet telephony and other types of communications into a single screen on a computer desktop. The company says its universal communicator service is the first in a coming generation of consumer software products that combine voice, video, instant messaging, text, e-mail, fax, and social networks into a single screen on a desktop.

While competitors such as Skype offer VoIP and rival Digsby aggregates messaging, social networking and e-mail onto a single screen, the company says that VoxOx combines all these features into a single product—with an iPhone-like graphical user interface. The name VoxOx is a play on “voice over X,” meaning the system can send voice over any type of network.

TelCentris says it has targeted communications-overloaded GenXers and “Millenials,” those born between 1980 and 2000. That’s a different tack than rivals that have been trying to get corporate customers to commit to their hardware and software for Voice-over-Internet telephony. It might be an easier sell, but Voice-over-Internet telephony is rapidly becoming a commodity, meaning the competition is getting fiercer and players are looking for ways to break out of the pack.

TelCentris was founded by CEO Bryan Hertz, his brother, Kevin, who is chief technical officer, and father Bob, chief information officer. The CFO is Michael Faught, who has 25 years experience in finance, management, and technology commercialization, according to the company’s Web site.

A spokeswoman for TelCentris says the founders bankrolled the company themselves, with some additional angel investment. She added that TelCentris has been generating revenue by powering small telephone companies with its Unified Communications Service Delivery Platform, as well as providing Hosted PBX service to dozens of small-to-medium businesses.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.