One of the first Skype Developers to make use of the Skype API was Alex Rosenbaum. He launched SAM which I believe is still the number one downloaded answer machine for Skype. SAM is now part of a range of products including a cellular gateway being developed to help small business users more efficiently use Skype. KishKish is the name of this new company.

SAM - KishKish SAM will pick up the call, play a greeting message and the "all-time classic beep", so the calling party will leave a voice recorded message. Why try SAM? SAM provides controls that Skype Voice Mail still doesn't manage. If you have a desktop machine and it's on all the time then SAM has some features that may be useful to you.

KishKish Book enables users to create groups, sort contacts within these groups, set alerts, and initiate multi chats and conferences. While we are still waiting on Skype's contact management features to emerge, the KishKish team is working towards new methods of managing Skype data.

KishKish Mobile: This is the most interesting solution of the lot. It is a Cellular Gateway for Skype users. Receive the Skype call when You are away from your PC. Call your Skype contacts from your mobile phone, etc. It seems like many other systems until you see they have set up a system to forward Skype calls over GSM. Thus saving you SkypeOut minutes. More details here

I hope to take a more detailed look at their gateway solution soon. While it is likely to have more appeal in Europe than the US it's good to see the KishKish team working to integrate Skype cost effectively with mobiles.