The U.S. House of Representatives (the lower half of the United States Congress) approved the use of Skype and ooVoo today. Thousands of electeds and staff can now use video calling do the people’s business. The Committee on Administration opened its public Wi-Fi networks to these services after a year of debate and discussion and an intense bout of security testing in the last few weeks. The House’s secure local area networks and secure Wi-Fi networks remain off-limits.
A year is instructive. Organizations with more than 1000 employees typically adopt technology more slowly and deliberatively than small ones. They are more familiar with security and business risks and consequences, so they are cautious. They are responsible for fixing things and supporting users, so they have procedures and methods for managing IT lifecycles. In this government’s case, they must also be careful to follow laws and ethics guidelines for procurement. Stacy Pies and the rest of Skype’s government affairs team has been working with Members of congress, their staff, security and IT people for years.
My take away: technology consumerization and video calling’s intrinsic value brought Skype and ooVoo in the door. Skype GA’s ability to cultivate relationships over years, understand specific workplace subcultures, adapt to changing organization priorities, and to apply resources when needed helped internal champions close the deal.
Mobile operator Three partnered with design studio B-Reel to bring the high-touch experience of in-store selling to the efficiency of centralized service. Three Sweden calls the service 3LiveShop, a blend of call center software, CRM, video calling, multitouch user interfaces, heads-up display, and in-store retail culture. It looks gorgeous.
Conversion rates in retail stores are very high, and are painfully lower in online stores. The Fireclick Index reports 74% of online shoppers abandon carts with products before checkout; only 2.3% of shoppers buy. This adds up when the lifetime value of a customer is high and switching costs are low.
Three things inspire me.
That a large phone company executive gave real budget to such a crazy idea and let it come to market. Was this a corporate culture hack or the product of a vibrant innovation system?
That the design process focused on both users: the sales rep and the customer. Too often design favors one or ignores the other.
That the results found human eye contact and rapport were as crucial to success as navigating all the information overload. Video is the real value add, building trust and keeping attention. Touch means operators can respond quickly, within the timeframe of a live conversation.
Here’s hoping a future phase gives some of the touch-screen magic to the customer, for some deep co-creation and collaboration. And that the Swedes get the go ahead to roll this out to the rest Three.
P.S. They built the user experiences in Adobe Flash. Why not Skype? Skype is already a partner with Three.
First, Skype requires each party to a call to use Skype-provided identities. That just doesn’t work for walk-in-off-the-street relationships. Selling starts off anonymous (or at least pseudonymous) for both the customer and sales assistant until you are ready to pay.
Second, today’s Skype doesn’t offer a way to build a video call into a browser-centered retail experience. Even if the developers chose to build the CRM station with SkypeKit, the customer would still have to download a full Skype client or a customized SkypeKit app. That’s serious friction, an unwanted step.
Third, early versions of SkypeKit’s private beta license requires you to share business secrets with Skype about your use of SkypeKit, and give Skype veto power over release of your “Plugged-into-Skype” product or service. That’s a lot of outside control to cede when you can easily, cheaply choose other tools.
Skype partners with Citrix GoToMeeting. Launch GTM sessions from group chats and contact groups. FUD-ware, delivery sometime later this year. No details on pricing, contracts, etc.
Still partnering with Avaya; video customer service on the roadmap.
Skype will host supernodes at topologically useful locations so enterprises don’t have to. p2p improved.
Skype learned it is mission critical from the December 2010 outage and is investing millions improving Skype’s reliability.
Skype is offering customer service to the enterprise in multiple languages and SLAs.
Skype.com automated back office features to streamline business signup, credit approval, provisioning.
Skype is positioning itself as an “overlay” service in the enterprise, building on existing infrastructure, business process and data. Just like Box.net, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Salesforce (see slide at right.)
Gurlé talked of “The Living Workplace.” I didn’t understand the idea behind this. Remote work? Consumerization of technology? Hosted Internet apps?
Observations:
Citrix is great but partnering with Citrix is wrong headed. Skype should be opening up the client so every vendor can build their own extension. That way users and their employers can not only have the best of breed from any vendor, they can build their own to use enterprise-built or custom services.
Glad to learn more about the network architecture improvements. One downside: continued hosting of Skype supernodes means more points for government surveillance and litigation discovery.
Skype is still not addressing the many key issues regarding digital identity, making Skype use awkward in the workplace.
Most speculation about the future of work is straightforward linear projection; we all do it, it’s easy. The harder part, the thing I’m looking for, is insight into the ripple effects those changes will bring. New behavior patterns. Changed values and unmet needs. The conflicts sure to rise. The fragile points where disruption can change everything. Brittle assumptions. Some of the future will be exactly what we expect.
Let’s consider Skype’s products, then Skype’s operations.
Products
Skype didn’t have business products until recently. They now have Skype Connect (Skype trunking that connects to company phone systems the way your long distance provider does), classified advertising for in-client Yellow Pages (formerly Skype Find), Skype for Asterisk (Asterisk is the most popular business phone system software), Skype on Television for conference rooms, and Skype Manager (for creating and funding employee Skype accounts). The standard Skype for Windows client comes in a business edition with easy configurability to enforce security and other company policies.
Skype’s communication suite of instant messaging, voice calling, video calling, conferencing, screen sharing, and file transfer works better than any comparable product.
However Skype clients miss features that would blend it into everyday knowledge work.
This isn’t horrible. Enterprise is supposed to include the corporate, not-for-profit and government sectors. More inclusion is a good thing. Five things I don’t like at first glance:
Second, enterprise means big. Enterprise refers to big organizations in everyday business language. Why make free agents and small and medium sized organizations feel left out? These are more than half your potential users.
Enterprise evokes hierarchy, a corporate structure, a top-down culture, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Skype Enterprise suggests this is a product family inflicted by IT departments on powerless internal customers. The real workplace is more network than hierarchy, spanning organizational boundaries. I’d argue the Skype for Business division would do better to identify themselves around what people do, not where they work or how they organize.
Enterprise breaks technology consumerization. Enterprise frames you as partners with the people who avoid risk in a company (security, human resources, tech support, regulatory compliance) instead of the people who work and the people who lead. Don’t put yourself in bed with the those who make a living controlling people and telling them what they can’t do. Ally with the workers, the champions who smuggled you into the workplace in the first place.
"Enterprise" is an emotional dead zone. Big companies are rarely beloved. Few are trusted. Combining "Skype" and "Enterprise" is like forcing a popular, cool, outgoing, fun loving person to stop being popular, cool, outgoing and fun. It’s harmful to Skype’s core brand.
So, permit me to suggest another name before you buy your new business cards.
Skype for Work.
Work is productive. Enterprise is an institution.
Work happens in every context, from free agency to the boardroom.
Work is independent of organizational structure.
Work is both a verb ("we work") and a noun ("a work of art").
Work has value.
Work is necessary.
Work translates everywhere, accurately and simply, without exposition.
Work is visual, with a rich design vocabulary.
We work in our personal lives. We coordinate teacher meetings and run for elected office. So your work products need not be solely about the workplace. Skype for Work capabilities are important to Skype’s Consumer Division too.
Work can be meaningful.
Work can be satisfying.
Work can be fun.
So: Skype for Work.
Alternates: Skype Works. Skype at Work. Skype @Work. Skype Wirearchy. Skype for Done.
“The Internet gets better with age.”
— David Gurle, GM, Skype Enterprise
A deal in to phases.
1. Starting in October 2010, Avaya will preinstall and promote Skype Connect in the United States. This allows Avaya’s customers to more easily choose Skype for outbound and inbound calls.
2. Starting in the second half of 2010, many of Avaya’s unified communication (UC) systems can work with the Skype network.
Federated directories, contacts, dialing, voice, video, IM and presence.
Using SILK and other HD codecs used by Skype for greater fidelity.
Administrative controls on the Avaya side will treat Skype like any other service.
Avaya will drive customers to buy Skype Connect and set up a Skype for Business account.
Won’t use SkypeKit; new technology roadmap is coming.
Will use SIP stack. SIP, Simple, RTP protocols were mentioned.
Avaya computers and stations won’t be supernodes.
Avaya’s hosted services are out of scope for now.
United States only.
Not an exclusive deal.
Speculating, the deal should bring more workplace traffic to Skype. Access to Skype’s users could give traction to Avaya’s video calling products.
Skype must invent and deploy new technology to make this work since they are not building a full Skype client with SkypeKit. Skype will likely use the “thin client” model Skype mobile; Skype uses this user-experience-on-the-device-and-heavy-networking-in-a-server-farm approach for Verizon Android phones. Skype mobile runs its gateway servers in CALEA-compliant (ready for government eavesdropping) Verizon data centers to minimize latency.
The engineering of a new Skype as a Platform cloud is non-trivial. Neither is integration across the whole Avaya application suite.
What steps do you take to prevent someone else from deleting my account?
What steps do you take to prevent me from deleting my account when I might regret it? (a moment of anger, intoxicated confusion, suffering from dreadful lack of coordination
Do you distinguish between account deletion and deactivation?
How long will it take for my account to be invisible to others?
How long before my account is gone forever?
If I delete my account, can others claim my username?
If I delete my account, will I be able to use my email address to create a new account?
What happens if I don’t have access to the email address I used to start the account?
What can delay account closure? (For example, pending financial transactions?)
Where is the procedure for deleting my account? What happens after I make the request?
Completeness
Where is the list of authorized software/services that might log into my account? (So I can turn them off.)
If you let me log into other sites with your credentials ("Sign in with your X account"), what happens to my accounts on the other sites? Where is the list of sites where I use your credentials to login?
When you delete my profile and account, what happens to shared/community content, like my contributions to a wiki page or to a threaded conversation or gifts to another person?
When I delete my account, do you also cancel subscriptions to any related premium services?
Do you make downloading and saving my assets (photos, contacts, history, etc.) part of the account deletion process?
When I delete my account, do you also delete my contributions (like videos on YouTube) or should I delete those before requesting account deletion?
If I have money or credit balances in my account, what happens to that money when I delete my account?
What do you do to help reduce search engine caching of and links to my deleted profile and resources?
What do you do with my answer to "Why do you want to delete your account?"
When we started BridgePort Networks (acquired by my current employer CounterPath), we knew the fixed-line voice services was starting to undergo a decline and mobile services would grow rapidly (over 4.6B users today). We also knew that pricing pressure would start to decrease margins for mobile operators. What we really did not understand fully at the time was what Skype’s role would be in the dismantling of the Telecommunications value chain and ecosystem. How could we? Skype was just starting and the impact was marginally at first. We did believe Skype would be a catalyst for Operators to take notice-but we were incorrect. In fact many of the executive leadership of Fixed Line and Mobile Operators that I met with back in 2004 saw Skype as a “Gnat” buzzing around the Telecommunications sector. They disregarded the threat at large. Well, we all know that Skype become much more than that. According the the latest figures from TeleGeography Research, Skype now represents approximately 12% of International Long Distance.
The article also points out that Skype-to-Skype calling has grown dramatically: 51% (2008) and 63% (2009). Couple this with the steady growth of the concurrent number of Skype users online and it would seem that Skype is methodically and systematically eroding (Fixed Line) Operator revenues. Check out this chart from Skype Journal on concurrent online users:
So what does this mean from a revenue perspective? The Skype Journal also posted some incredible stats on the arbitrage impact:
The net impact is approximately $13B (yes with a big “B”) of revenue up in smoke in 2009 for Fixed Line Operators worldwide. Given Skype’s momentum, it looks like that number will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.
Given that quantitative data above, let’s consider the qualitative + my speculation of the future impact of Skype:
First, it is clear that Skype had set its crosshairs on the ailing Fixed Line Operators first. The numbers above prove this. Skype will continue this route since the Fixed Line Operators really have no choice given that they are also being attacked by the Mobile Operators via Fixed Mobile Substitution (Source: SD&P Internal Analysis):
In addition note the only saving growth service for fixed operators is Broadband-a key enabler for Skype. So the net-net is Skype will retain the upper hand against the fixed line operators.
Second, we are in the midst of Skype attacking the mobile operators. Leveraging MobileVoIP, Skype is working across multiple mobile OSs and devices. Even more Mobile Operators are opening up their networks to allow MobileVoIP applications to work over mobile data channels. This is a big shift for Mobile Operators. This puts ~80% (Voice) revenue at risk. This week it is expected at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain it is expected that Verizon Wireless and Skype will announce a formal relationship to enable Skype over the Verizon Wireless network as well. Look to FT/Orange, Vodafone and Telefónica to do the same. This is good news for users, but fast forward 4-5 years and I see the Mobile Operators going through similar pains as the Fixed Line Operators: losing voice revenue to data pipe enabled VoIP apps. This is one of the reasons I believe Mobile Operators are ditching the all-you-can-eat mobile data plans.
Third, look for Skype to move into the Enterprise in a big way. There is Skype for Business today (i.e., Skype trunking service), but I envision a Skype PBX Client on the desktop removing the need for a premise based PBX. This will help give Skype its leadership position across consumer and Enterprise.
Fourth, Skype as the total Communications Portal. Skype will knit together their consumer and Enterprise offers to create a single network, single platform experience mashing up different communications users with multimedia and collaboration services. Think about a Skype user context switching their personal and work personas.
Since its inception Skype’s theme has been world domination (i.e., via steps outlined above). Here is the good news for traditional Fixed Line and Mobile Operators: CounterPath sells the products and technology to fight the Skype threat. CounterPath’s FMC and Softphone products are flexible, feature rich and customizable to any Operator environment.
One thing is for sure, 2010 will be an exciting year for the Telecommunications sector! Look forward to the battle.
Question: with IBM pursuing excellence on a service that comprises voice, video, chat and file transfer in a secure, encrypted environment, and with the stated goals of “working with their partners”, would this not result in a situation where IBM would be licensing Skype technology to provide a comprehensive real time multi-media communications infrastructure?
With announcements this week, including some at IBM’s annual Lotusphere 2009 event in Orlando, FL, it seems like that question is starting to get some answers..
…. it will integrate Skype™ functionality with LotusLive (www.lotuslive.com), IBM’s new cloud services which are designed to help individuals build communities to work smarter, more effectively and more efficiently across and beyond their own companies. Skype’s voice and video calling will add rich, real-time communications capabilities to LotusLive, making it even easier for enterprises to collaborate in the cloud.
At Lotusphere 2009, IBM demonstrated the new Skype integration into LotusLive Engage, “an integrated suite of tools that combines your network [of contacts] with Web conferencing and collaboration capabilities like file storing and sharing, instant messaging and chart creation.”
Today we interviewed Peter Kalmstrom, Skype’s Program Manager for Toolbars, who had been attending Lotusphere to assist with the demonstrations. Peter made several points:
This announcement covers only the first step of what will be a series of Skype integrations into the LotusLive offerings.
The integration into LotusLive Engage is targeted at “businesses looking to collaborate inside and outside the organization to easily expand their networks…” In other words for businesses that need to include, say, sub-contractors, third party consultants, suppliers and buyers within their business operation processes.
Within a LotusLive Engage contact profile, “Skype” fields have been added such that when a user clicks on a a name to bring up a profile card, the user can launch a Skype conversation and transfer files with a single click.
The only additional requirement for engaging in a Skype conversation is that the initiating user must have a Skype client open.
In addition to Skype-to-Skype calls, SkypeOut calls can also be made.
Where several contact profile cards have been opened, a user can launch a Skype multi-party call to host a conferencing session.
Due to the nature of LotusLive Engage’s web architecture, the resulting Skype access is cross-platform; it does NOT require that the user have a Skype web (FF or IE) toolbar installed.
A session can then also launch a Lotus Web Meeting (also known as a Lotus SameTime Unyte meeting).
Sounds like the Lotusphere demonstrations got the brainstorming going between Skype and IBM. In a concluding statement Peter said:
“We are enthusiastic about the partnership with IBM and we see a lot of areas where we can collaborate and help each other improve our services. We met with a series of executives at IBM during Lotusphere and the general feeling was highly positive.”
With the IBM offering, we are seeing one more example of “Skype Everywhere”, in this case, being embedded into an offering that is key to IBM’s future success in delivering cloud-based outsourced business services.
Phil will have some comments on the technical aspects of this integration along with where he feels there are “deeper” integration opportunities.
The U.S. House of Representatives (the lower half of the United States Congress) approved the use of Skype and ooVoo today. Thousands of electeds and staff can now use video calling do the people’s business. The Committee on Administration opened its public Wi-Fi networks to these services after a year of debate and discussion and an intense bout of security testing in the last few weeks. The House’s secure local area networks and secure Wi-Fi networks remain off-limits. 
Skype for Asterisk (Asterisk is the most popular business phone system software), Skype on Television for conference rooms, and Skype Manager (for creating and funding employee Skype accounts). The standard Skype for Windows client comes in a business edition with easy configurability to enforce security and other company policies. 
Join the Skype 6.X Text Chat Room