Yahoo to outsource Messenger phone calls to Jajah
NEW YORK - Yahoo Inc. is outsourcing the Internet telephone functions of its instant messaging program to the startup Jajah. — Jajah will connect the calls to and from users of Yahoo Messenger and handle billing and customer care, the startup said Tuesday.
Context & Ripple Effects
Yahoo built phone calling into its instant messaging program back in late 2005, when it added a Skype-like calling ability to the IM service and positioned Messenger as a cheap alternative to traditional telephony. Three years on, the company is handing the actual plumbing — call connection, billing, and customer care — to startup Jajah rather than running it in-house. The move reads as a classic asset-light retreat from infrastructure at a portal under pressure to focus. It also set up an odd arc for Jajah itself: the startup later drew a $207M acquisition by Telefónica before its technology was ultimately shut down as a neglected VoIP property.
First-order effects
- Yahoo Messenger users keep making PC-to-phone and phone-to-PC calls, but the underlying service is now operated end-to-end by Jajah — call routing, billing, and support all shift off Yahoo's books.
- Yahoo converts a capital- and operations-heavy feature into a partner relationship, cutting its direct exposure to telephony termination costs and customer-service overhead.
Second-order effects
- Jajah gains a marquee distribution deal that validates its white-label model and likely makes it more attractive to other IM providers looking to outsource voice — strengthening its hand ahead of the Telefónica acquisition.
- Rivals like Skype and Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger face a competitor that can iterate on calling features without carrying the operational burden, pressuring them to decide whether to build, buy, or partner for their own voice backends.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward portals treating communications features as brand surfaces layered on rented infrastructure — a structure where the visible consumer product and the invisible network operator are different companies with different economics.
- If outsourced-voice deals become standard, value consolidates in the wholesale call-termination layer, setting up exactly the kind of consolidation-and-sunset cycle Jajah itself went through after being acquired and eventually shut down.
The trend: Consumer internet companies are increasingly renting core infrastructure from specialized operators so they can keep the brand-facing experience while shedding the cost and complexity of running it.