• Phil Wolff on Tuesday Headlines

  Not sure that Skype's product development wasn't slowing down from the start. Skype R&D has been scaling up but hasn't made the total shift from garage band to orchestra (or from auteur to factory, if you like). Orchestras have formal methods, lots of rehearsal, and strict quality controls at every level of performance. Software houses like Skype may embrace agile methods, but agile methods work best when surrounded by the resources that make all software development effective: workingn gear, tools, business processes, communication, leadership, etc. Pretty sure Skype recognized this challenge when Toivo chose to step aside. And I'm sure the other needed changes are either started or contemplated. But it is always a painful, awkward, and costly process. And Skype now has a huge enterprise customer (eBay) demanding more engineering, faster, at the highest quality, without excusing Skype from its main business. It's a real management test, and we'll see how quickly and well Skype's new management team will face it.

• julian.bond on Tuesday Headlines

  Am I the only one that thinks the MS announcements are all fluff and no trousers? Where's the code I can actually run? I don't care about corporate versions that only work in a shop that runs MS Servers only, I want something that actually works on *my* desktop.

  I really think the challenge for all the IM-VoIP systems right now is to ship early and ship often. Skype should have taught them (as they already knew but had forgotten) that the way to overtake people is to add function faster than the other guys. Google in particular, please take note. GoogleTalk still looks like v0.3. There should have been a v0.4 by now.

  And I'm slightly concerned that Skype is also slowing down. Being part of a big corporate can do that to you.

• continued in the Skype Journal Comment River: 200 fresh comments

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