Skype Journal: Damaka
February 28, 2005 12:30 PMI missed the announcement on Feb 9 about Damaka. Damaka is ostensible another SkypeKiller, (the last one I checked out was Teleo) according to the Press. Like Teleo it is using the GIPS Voice engine and it claims it is SIP. After installing it, having a "crash" and my testing buddy two reboots we finally both managed to add each other as a buddy. It probably a bug but until we both rebooted we couldn't even connect. Then we had an uneventful and clear call.
What did I learn?
Currently Damaka doesn't offer any inbound or outbound number options, in fact it is very much a walled garden. Unlike Teleo it does require authorization to add a buddy. It failed to offer more than a two line option, the interface is clumsy (compared to Skype) and it just looks like a development that is at least a year behind Skype. I understand from reputable sources that it may not be a SIP client at all.
There are other walled / controlled options that are already more interesting for companies. For example Pangean Tech. has been developing an interesting platform. I'd like to see the bar raised. Anyone not designing for best in class is simply kidding themselves today. Skype is gaining 150K downloads per day. You have to have something real.
Then I installed and briefly tested this VoIP software yesterday night. One thing I didn't realise before was that Damaka is a actually a walled garden and does not offer interop with other SIP-based VoIP providers. In this perspective, I am a lot less enthusiastic about it and I rejoin tomtom's opinion that this one is unlikely to catch up as end-users don't care what underlying technology is used. With Damaka they get less features than with Skype and about 50 million less people to connect with.
Damaka: Skype's the limit
Link to GIP's Damaka announcment: Newsroom
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Comments (1)
Interesting comments on damaka. Have you tried the software recently? You can do call outs to a regular phone line, file transfers, IP Radio, RSS Reader and even desktop sharing. I don't know any other software that can do all of that! And it's all direct peer-to-peer which means you don't have to deal with a supernode. I would strongly encourage you to check out the latest features. The company has gone a long way in the past few months! I am a frequent user and has been getting all my friends to use it. No problem at all.
Posted by: Hopper at October 2, 2006 10:21 PM