Jajah is in the VoIP space. But unlike other companies trying to replace the phone with the computer, JAJAH believes phones (all 4-billion+ worldwide) are great the way they are. Its strategy is to leverage them to build a global, Internet-based telephony infrastructure able to serve all devices, locations, and types of business.

While calls initiate over a computer or a mobile phone, users actually talk via local landlines or mobile lines, and tap into the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) for the last mile. Here’s how it works: You type the number you want to reach into your Web browser — JAJAH calls you on your landline or cell phone, then once connected, JAJAH calls the party you are trying to reach.

You can also tap all kinds of capabilities, including conference calls, scheduled calls, SMS (text messages), and its newest feature now in beta — Dynamic Buttons— that enable you to make and receive calls, text messages, voice messages, and emails through any website, Jajah will let users customize their call preferences and manage their identity. For example, if you want to make calls without revealing your number, you can “click to call” directly through a community, blog or a web site. Jajah does not require any download: only a web browser (on your computer or your phone) and a regular phone.

Since going live in February of 2006, the company has attracted more than 2 million registered users in some 55 countries, and won numerous awards — including being named a 2006 Red Herring 100 Winner and a 2007 Pulver 100 winner, the IP industry’s premiere listing. The company also secured a total of more than $29 million in venture capital from Sequoia Capital, Globespan, and, most recently, from Intel Capital and T-Mobile parent company, Deutsche Telekom.

Since day one, JAJAH has been based on Microsoft technologies to support massive scalability via the Microsoft .NET 2.0 platform. According to JAJAH’s Chief Technology Officer Amichay Oren, "We used Microsoft  .NET technologies to develop JAJAH as a WEB 2.0 high performance and highly scalable application. We also used .NET technology for developing our home grown real-time billing and payments solution as well as Microsoft SQL Server as our database, OLAP and reporting server.”

I tested the service and it works very well. if you want to try it, go to www.jajah.com. Once registered and signed up (it’s free), you can place a call to anywhere in the world, from your landline phone or even mobile phone at dramatically reduced rates — up to 95 percent less than traditional phone calls. Part of JAJAH’s goal is to provide many basic calls for free — something it believes is possible.