Yahoo outsources phone service to Jajah

YAHOO HAS DECIDED TO outsource its Internet phone system, which runs on its messaging program, to Austrian start-up Jajah.

Jajah announced the decision on Tuesday saying that, from now on, they would be connecting all calls between users on Yahoo Messenger, as well as taking over all aspects of customer support and billing. The company press release didn’t say what the deal was worth, but did mention that no Yahoo employees would be moving to Jajah.

97 million users purportedly use Yahoo messenger, making this an absolute whopper of a deal for three-year-old Jajah, which has managed to build up a solid customer base of its own of 10 million people.

As well as computer-to-computer calls (which are free), Yahoo has also been running a 'phone in - phone out' service, for which it charges a cent per minute for calls to US-based phones. It also operates for other countries, but at higher rates.

Jajah was founded to let people make cheap international phone calls by connecting them through a system similar to that based on calling cards. A user enters his phone number and the phone number he want to call on the Jajah Website, and Jajah then calls both numbers. If the dialed number picks up, the calls are connected, allowing both parties to speak to each other on a normal, non computer phone.

According to Jajah’s CEO, Trevor Healy, Yahoo users probably won’t even notice the difference, apart from maybe a few banners here and there with a Jajah logo. He added "It's the beginning of a very good strategic shift for us" .

Maybe the Vole will think so too. µ