8x8
More info
- Creator
- Chi-Shin Wang, Y.W. Sing
- Released
- 1987
- Type
- Cloud telephony (UCaaS)
The video-codec chip maker that traded silicon for cloud phone service and named itself after a pixel block.
It began in 1987 as Integrated Information Technology (IIT), a fabless chip company started by Chi-Shin Wang and Y.W. Sing to build math coprocessors and later video-codec chips. The name 8x8 points at the 8×8 pixel block that video compression works in — the same tile JPEG chops an image into.
Around 2002 it launched Packet8, a residential VoIP service, and in 2006 it pivoted to business customers. Today 8x8 is a cloud phone system spanning calls, contact centre and communications APIs, in the same market as Twilio and RingCentral — a long road from circuit boards to subscriptions.
Sources
8x8