Zvrs acquires purple

How do you feel about the ZVRS acquisition of Purple?

  • Excellent!

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • Meh.

    Votes: 4 57.1%

  • Egads!

    Votes: 2 28.6%
  • Total voters
    7
V

VRSEngineer

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I'm not sure what to feel about this.

My first thought is "Damn, there goes another competitor..." because it means one less provider for the D/deaf. Just look at the ISP industry. That industry is a monopoly. ZVRS acquiring Purple is a sign that there will be more and more monopolies as time goes on. Who's next?

And I was going to give Purple a trial run for their services, too! So much for that idea, as I'm not completely satisfied with ZVRS's service so far.
 
What? Purple sold to ZVRS?
Purple provided P3 for free.
ZVRS provided what???
 
its finally time a vrs company buys out another against the giant. its time to give the giant a run for its money.

authentic -- i cant tell if you are being sarcastic or what .. but pretty much all of VRS's gives out a platform of some kind to use their services with. i'm not gonna start explaining what each vrs has to offer. thats is whole another topic.

whats funny is that purple is very behind in innovations in my opinion but they have the customer base that Z can use. its all about generating vrs mins in order to have money and come up with new ideas.
Z is still coming out with ideas all the time and its good.

in my opinion for number of customers use and preferences is in decreasing order is:
sorenson
zvrs
purple
convo
globalvrs

Now combine z and purple. are they equal to sorenson? i dont think so - but they are on the curve going up. its just a matter of time. just like microsoft and apple. many people are still using microsoft due to a large number of corporations still using microsoft -- but more home users are switching to apple products. VRS industry is the exact same way.

will apple surpass microsoft in everyway? they could. could Z surpass sorenson? they could. its all entirely possible.
 
I have worked with Mark Bella at Purple and found he and his Company to be very reputable and good to work with. Additionally, NexTalk has been working with CSD (the parent company for Z) for many years. I am hopeful that this consolidation will be good for the deaf community. Time will tell.

NexTalk is taking a different approach to this issue. We launched the ACCESS platform two years ago with the intent that it would be agnostic. The ACCESS program includes the ability to place both video and text relay calls via existing FCC approved providers. As A Subscriber to the ACCESS platform, you would have the ability to choose which of the 5 VRS providers you would like to use when you place a VRS call. If you decide that you don't like the service that one provider is giving you, you can go into you setting and switch your preferred provider to someone else. This allows you to keep using the same communication tool when you switch providers.

Based on this business model (providing the Deaf community an agnostic communication tool that works with all VRS/TRS providers) we are less concerned about consolidation in the marketplace.

Thanks,

Gary Tanner
CEO
NexTalk
 
zvrs paid purple debts
fcc approve the settlement for purple fraud billing
 
doesnt matter if it once or twice. zvrs is making things right. you have got to admire a vrs company cleaning things up if they didnt think the customer base wasnt worth it. whats important is that things are going in the positive direction finally.

look at the past -- we have come a long ways from tty calls with expensive landlines to fake vp numbers to interoperability and hopefully we will see equivalency with all vrs within the near future.
 
The acquisition won't improve things. The ROT in the company is still there. Getting a new CEO sounded exciting.... but the same people who caused problems in the past are still there.

Having worked at ZVRS and worked within the managment team, I can tell you what I saw.

Sleeping Upper management - Over the past few years the Upper Management in ZVRS was asleep at the wheel. They did nothing to improve things, there was no innovative products, no changes. Its like Upper Management was collecting fat checks while sitting on their butts doing nothing. At the lower level, many noticed a problem with the Z5 software. I alerted management directly and indirectly many times to no avail. They simply didn't care and didn't have way to fix the issue. Its like they didn't seem to want to fix the issue. Its possible the new CEO has changed things now.

Lack of Innovation - While I worked there, there was nothing innovative or new. While Z5 was nice... it was never improved upon or really tweaked to be the best it could be. It was stuck in development because everything in the company was tied to Stratus Video, its sister company, which shared all the servers and databases. Stratus didn't want new innovation on the Z5 client and ZVRS needed but was stuck. Now that there is a separation of the companies, Z5 still hasn't been changed or improved.

No proper flash system other than the Z-box. Z-box was decent but still had issues.

The iPads had NO flasher system for a long time and it was a main cause of losing customers who ported back to Sorenson shortly after acquiring their iPads.

Confusing Policies with Customers. I personally witnessed several instances where customers were told one thing, then a week later Upper Management decided to change the policy in a 180 causing Customers to become angry and upset at having been lied to. Lower Management was left to deal with shitty policies and no means to make things right with Customers.

Treatment of employees - In 5+ years I worked with ZVRS, there was NOT ONE SINGLE RAISE, not even a Cost of Living Adjustment (CLA). I knew several individuals who worked there far longer than me who were still receiving the same pay rate. Meanwhile upper management team was collecting bonuses and raises.

Favoritism - There wasn't much in the beginning, it got worse when the new CEO took over. Certain key individuals in the company thrive on favoritism and they install their people in key positions. I suppose this is normal in many companies but it was sad to see this happen in ZVRS. It used to be if you were a good employee and did good work, you would be recognized for it (but still no pay raises). Now its more about who you know and whose but you kiss.

Merging with Purple sounds like a great idea and possibly a short term boost to the bottom line. I don't think it will fix the issues ZVRS has been having. Will it improve their "numbers". I don't think it honestly will.

If you want to see a great company, Look to Convo or Sorenson. They both pay and treat their employees much better and focus on the Deaf Community.
 
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