Phil Wolff

Skype CEO confirms mobile delay isn't your imagination

September 28, 2006 04:19 PM

Topics: Business | Skype杂志 | ebay | skype | skypejournal | voip

Niklas Zennström chalks up two year delay to "technical hurdles and a lack of suitable handsets" in a Reuters summary of a Helsingin Sanomat interview (registration required). Duh.




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Comments

Posted by: hsjang at September 28, 2006 9:58 PM

MobileVoIP ... it's pretty complicate one.
Even Skype should try new approach in this carrier-centric maeket. In South Korea, MobileVoIP is one step closer to users by imFONE.
For more... check gizmodo article

Posted by: MuppetMaster at September 29, 2006 12:57 AM

And yet, I have had a SIP softphone happily calling through an Asterisk gateway on my Symbian mobile for a while now.

Posted by: Stuart [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 29, 2006 4:34 AM

Phil,
This may be true for voice, however I see no reason why Skype couldn't have delivered a mobile Chat app ages ago. It's based on Jabber anyways. Of course I can get GoogleTalk chat on my mobile etc.

I wish someone could explain the logic for waiting till the "whole" mobile client is complete. It makes no sense to me.

Furthermore, launching a chat only mobile app for Nokia Symbian 60 phones would give them a very useful piece of research and a ready base to provide what many of us want.

Posted by: Rick at September 29, 2006 7:13 AM

Skype has a problem.

Skype has a serious problem trying to get into the cellular voip business. Why? Because the cellular internet environment (not to be confused with Wifi) is completely different than the landline internet market. Your home DSL or cable connection is freely available to the owner (pending net neutrality issue aside), but the cellular connection and mobile phones for your cellular data plans are controlled by the carrier and phone makers. Skype cannot simply ride on the back of their network like they do a wifi or DSL line. It will take negotiation and marketing saavy to get the right-of-way to use a cellular operator's network. And Skype will have to cut these kind of deals all over the world to get broad coverage.

Does Skype need to build a new business model? They can't split advertising revenue currently, because they don't have any. My opinion says that operators would favor a Yahoo, Google, AOL, or Microsoft over Skype due to deeper pockets from advertising business models. The carrier has much more to gain and YMAG have much more to offer.

Woe to Skype! Woe woe to EBay!!

businessweek artcle.

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