Zennstrom decides to disrupt another fat, usurious, oligopolic industry: wireless broadband. “FreedomPop is aimed at making access to the Internet over wireless free.” “The Internet is a right, not a privilege.“
Free calls from Google Talk in the US and Canada through 2012.
Skype for Android 2.6 release added new features.
Skype for iPad 3.6 and Skype for iPhone 3.6 fixed a few bugs, improved stability, minor UI improvements and fixed a problem with chat deletion.
Skype updates its Firefox and Chrome browser toolbars on Windows, speeding Click-to-Call markup and improving compatibility. Which release of IE will come with a Skype plug-in preinstalled? When will Skype offer a click-to-call service for content management systems? And when will Skype add people-search to browsers? With all the browser publishers working to build in realtime IM/voice/video/ communication protocols in 2012 releases, a widely adopted browser plug-in is an important point of future customer contact.
 Skype’s man in Washington, Chris Libertelli, now leads the Netflix government affairs team. While at Skype his deft touch with the FCC helped Skype assure access in US markets and partner with wireless operators. He also led Skype’s government affairs operations for the US states, Canada and Latin America. Paul Bond says usage-based-billing is the hot issue. With Chris on hand, I expect net neutrality to continue to be on Netflix’ agenda but take a backseat to battling for Netflix and its customers’ right to stream. Skype hasn’t announced who will fill Chris’ shoes.
A November 18 Survey: Mobile operators predict they’ll lose SMS traffic to Skype and other messaging apps. Mavenir’s survey says they’ll respond with IMS services. Good luck with that: BGR reports there are almost a million apps for the major mobile platforms.
A Forbes reporter rehashes an October New York Post security story about a few NYU-Polytechnic researchers who use Skype’s peer-to-peer network to see user IP address. Then they layer on hype that this is a security flaw. This is odd: having two computers see each other’s IP addresses is how the Internet works, unless you want your data run through an intermediary. Intermediaries pretty much defeat the point of a p2p network. Here’s the research citation: S. LeBlond, C. Zhang, A. Legout, K.W. Ross, W. Dabbous, I Know Where You are and What You are Sharing:Exploiting P2P Communications to Invade Users’ Privacy (pdf), Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2011, Berlin, 2011.
 Phil Wolff builds realtime collaboration products for effective people. Phil advises the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium and is a director of the DataPortability Project. Email editor@skypejournal.com, Skype evanwolf, tweet @evanwolf, G+ or call +1-510-444-8234 to talk with Phil. Skype Journal is independent of Skype.
UK’s OFCOM drags it’s heels on mobile net neutrality, leaving Skype users banned by many mobile operators. Same in other European markets. Jonathan Browning interviewed Skype’s Jean-Jacques Sahel, head of European regulatory affairs at Skype.
Skype PR supports a mountain climber who brings webcams to schools in developing countries.
 Your kids can Skype Santa (Florida time, Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays through 7 December, 4-5pm) @SandestinResort.
I met a bunch of people at the Enterprise 2.0 conference who don’t use Skype, more who only use it for family video calls, a few who use it for international calls, and several who’ve never been interested enough to try it. It reminds me that, with roughly 180 million active users worldwide and likely only 30 million active in the US and Canada, Skype has a greenfield of more than 200 million North Americans who aren’t using Skype. Building market reach looks like an important strategic goal through 2015. Skype’s net adoption rates (adoption less abandonment) have been large but linear. How will Skype redesign their products and rebalance their portfolio so net adoption rates accelerate?
New rumors iChat may come to iOS. So far it looks like IM, not voice or video. I’d be more interested f iChat came to operating systems outside the Apple universe.
Looks like Microsoft (and therefore Skype) support the horrendous SOPA bill moving through the US Congress. Al ex Wilhelm: “Microsoft is a major player in the Business Software Alliance, along with Apple and 27 other companies. And the BSA supports SOPA.” Learn more and do more to prevent the Internet Blacklist laws.
Pre-flight check in at Sheremetyevo International Airport over Skype. @svo_skype connects you to an operator for an interview, like a video call CAPTCHA. News release: Now for “flights operated by Air Astana, Royal Air Maroc, China Eastern Airlines, Estonian Air, Hainan Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines, Iran Air, Jat Airways, Turkish Airlines, Transaero Airlines, Aerosvit, Ariana Afgan Airlines, Belavia , Dniproavia, Donbasaero, Nord Wind, Oren Air, Air Algerie” although Aeroflot hasn’t committed. Yet.
Skype Bra Fittings from Butterfly Collection Lingerie deliver personal service from the privacy of your home.
Brad Garlinghouse leaves AOL. A real loss.
Citigroup predicts a 2012 Amazon phone. Can’t wait for the “shop” button.
Skype pays musicians to sing Happy Birthday to your friends in their Say It With Skype Facebook app. All the flavors are great but I like The Parlotones’ cover.
New betas:  Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac and Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows, both approaching feature parity, both now with group screen sharing for Premium subscribers. You can IM and video call Facebook friends from within Skype, although this does not include voice calls (unless you unplug your webcam), conference calls or group video calls. Jonathan Rosenberg explains Skype is hosting supernodes on AWS EC2, is operating a gateway for Facebook identity/directory interop, the calls are flowing p2p through the Skype network, and Facebook is keeping some records about users and their activity. Darrell Etherington thinks this could make Skype even more popular, and Skype should integrate Facebook into Skype’s mobile and tablet apps. Skype promotional video for the release (QuickTime).
From my October 2010 Skypebook: 17 More On The Secret Facebook-Skype Roadmap:
- Sync contacts. Not just import, but synchronization. Keep my contacts fresh. TO DO.
- Sync user profile data. My Skype profile is shallow and often stale. Sync my profile data semi-automatically: “Do you approve this update?” TO DO.
- Sync availability. Online, Offline, Busy, In A Call, Do Not Disturb. Facebook has some presence indicators too, from their own chat and from their mobile clients. TO DO.
- Sync currency. What’s the exchange rate between Facebook credits and Skype credits? Let me pay for a long distance SkypeOut call with Facebook credits. TO DO.
- Facebook updates in the Skype contact list. Give me fresher social objects for talking with my contacts. Make it easier to sort contacts by the last time they updated, not just by alpha or the last time they talked with you. DONE.
- Skype history in Facebook’s timeline. Show my friends’ Skype history with me in my Facebook updates. Make it easier to dive back into a Skype conversation from the timeline. TO DO.
- Sync personas. Skype is already asking people to create multiple personas, so they log in with one ID for each job and another for home. Facebook will probably offer something similar so you can choose to keep your professional friends from learning too much about your hobbies and dating habits. Skype and Facebook will negotiate the data models and privacy policies that go with it. TO DO.
- People search. For all the importance of the Global Index to Skype’s operations, the real value is being able to find the right person to talk with. Both parties could do well to blend their search technologies to improve result relevancy and speed. TO DO.
- People recommendations. Skype can’t suggest people you might like or people you might know. Facebook can, so build recommendations into Skype. Skype has very specific data about times of day and places you call from and call to, which Facebook could use to improve recommendations. TO DO.
- Events and scheduling. One of the best social objects is an event. Before the call or chat we often plan and invite and schedule our talk. Skype should integrate with personal calendars and with public and semi-public event listings. Facebook’s have taken off as one of the top event directories along with Eventful and Upcoming. TO DO.
- Chat interop. My facebook friend chatting with me on facebook while I’m in my Skype chat. We each get the medium we choose. Lots of things to work out including persistence, behavior for adding people to a chat, privacy rules, encryption, archiving policy. STARTED.
- Groups sync. Facebook lists and groups should sync up with my Skype contact lists. Define once, update everywhere, always fresh.
- Voice enable facebook chat. TO DO.
- Video enable facebook chat. STARTED (No group video, no screensharing).
- Advertising exchange. Skype has a small but rapidly growing yellow pages business directory, the better for prospects to Skype and SkypeOut your salespeople. Faceskype can cross-sell ads, offer buy-once-and-show-up-everywhere campaigns, improve the sociability and relevance of Skype client ads, offer click-to-call features to Facebook advertisers, etc. TO DO.
- Location check-in sync. Start showing my Facebook Places check-ins in my Skype history and offer to let me check into Facebook Places using mobile Skype. TO DO.
- Workplace editions. Is Facebook’s Yammer-killer just a rumor? Skype is committing to the enterprise too, so both teams should be imagining together. TO DO.
Comcast briefed GigaOm on their new Skype product (720p@30fps webcam, RF remote control, adapter box with HDMI) and an app designed for television, coming early next year. Some integration with your Comcast account for importing contacts. Skype will only partner with Comcast for the next few years, so too bad if you are one of the 81% of customers served by other ISPs. You’ll have to buy a television with Skype inside or dedicate a computer to running Skype on your television.
Licensed family counseling and psychotherapy over Skype. The BC practice says “the new virtual service removes the factor of geographical proximity, and caters to clients who find traditional settings limiting.” Don’t miss your session because you’re in a small town or far from home.
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Skype’s stock changes hands. Sometime soon employees may get new badges. Payroll processing and PR firms may change. But, for the most part, Skype’s employees will stay the course, building more Skype in more places.
Skype division President Tony Bates must make good on his promise of synergy to Ballmer.
The first step is to build up the team that treats the rest of Microsoft as major account customers. Each division and many Microsoft product lines will get their own account manager.
They will be responsible for helping the Entertainment division, for example, bring Skype to Xbox Kinect. This is a “Skype inside” approach, building on Skype’s platform products.
Bundling Skype with Microsoft products is the low-hanging fruit. Preinstalled in Windows. An IE toolbar. A home presence on Windows Phone. One more element in Microsoft Office. Low integration cost, low product risk, massive distribution.
These two strategies will change the Skype Division and the Skype products more than the change in owners. Skype will be learning from users and customers indirectly, through the lens of Microsoft’s divisions. So Skype must hold on to end-customer relationships to keep understanding new users. Microsoft will pull Skype in even more directions, with multiple conflicting world views. Skype will learn to hold its own world view and mission. 
The coolest things will be the small leaks. Microsoft has great depth of process, experience with scale, reach in the workplace, research on the frontiers of computing. Those will spark deeper insights and innovation at Skype and those will be delightful to watch.
For those still working at Skype, congratulations on the new chapter in the Skype story.
A few useful links:
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Microsoft finished buying Skype. Ballmer’s PR, Bates’ PR. Courtney, York, Slashdot opine. Most folks thought this happened last April. I thought the EU should have attached strings to the deal, but they didn’t.
Gotta wonder if Microsoft would still have bought Skype if they had to pay US taxes on the deal.
A Mint.com infographic using Forbes data: AT&T got $1.05 Billion in tax rebates on FY2010 $18.2 Billion sales. So the US government paid AT&T more than Skype sold all year.
Skype filed DMCA take down notices against an engineer who reverse engineered part of Skype’s earlier communication protocols, alleging a blog infringed copyright on Skype source code.
 Skype started updating the Libyan flag emoticon (flag:ly) from the old solid green one of Muammar Gadhafi to the new flag chosen by Libya’s revolutionaries. Facebook petition to make the change. If you don’t see a “horizontal tricolour of red, black and green with a white crescent and star centered on the black stripe” in your IM now, you should see it in one of the next few downloads. Already updated on the Skype.com web site. Skype rates 30.2¢/minute to landlines plus connection fee.
How do investors follow an $8.5 Billion exit? Former Skype owner Andreessen Horowitz is raising $900 million to buy more skypes.
A security hack could reveal your Skype profile and IP address and what bittorrent files you’re downloading. Read the paper from researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, NYU-Poly, and the French research institute INRIA. Your browser gives up your IP address every time you visit a web page so this is most interesting to people avoiding surveillance and actively protecting their privacy. Tip: use a different VPN for Skype and each app you use to avoid the cross-referencing that might lead to blackmail.
The October snowstorms that hit the US Northeast put Skype to work as an alternative when telephony and roads were offline for a few days. A friend in Hartford, Connecticut, wrote “I’m sorta acting as a base for all my relatives and coworkers after this snowstorm. relaying calls and messages and such between people with no power and such. my t-mobile phone has no service. my verizon phone has intermittent failures and dropped calls. skype works beautifully, however if I’m dealing with peoples’ cell phones, they’re the weak end of the call.”
 Jim Courtney: “If Skype wants to have a viable developer program we need to see results soon that can bring revenue to the developers.”
Skype renamed the Public API to Desktop API. More accurate.
Several APIs were rebranded as “SkypeKit for Desktop”, still in a restricted public beta.
SkypeKit for Desktop now supports two-party video calls.
A new beta of Trillian for Windows is using SkypeKit. It won’t allow cross-network IM or calling but it will let you turn off your Skype-branded client.
Dan York: “Meanwhile… is this renaming setting the stage for the release of some new client-less APIs? Let’s hope so… ” Dan worries the new realtime communication features (WebRTC/RTCWEB) being built into nextgen browsers will be hidebound to PSTN telephony instead of new over-the-top networks.
Microsoft announced their commercial-use Kinect for Windows SDK will be available early in 2012. Think we’ll see an official Skype for Kinect edition?
Korea’s Pantech will bring Kinnect-style gestural commands to Android mobile phones. A year from now I expect we’ll see this on core Windows, iOS, and Android mobile OSs.
Data Without Borders launched, a data science NGO bringing statisticians to small private sector big data sets. Personal data was the focus of the October Internet Identity Workshop.
VoIP pioneer Alec Saunders joined RIM, leading its Blackberry developer program. See sessions from this month’s BBcon devcon.
Skype is quietly retiring old thin-client services for UK mobile operator 3. Courtney says “I would imagine 3 would have to be working on a strategy to phase out its initial Skype service and transition their customers to newer platforms.” Still available in the UK, Ireland, and Australia for now, it has been discontinued in Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, and Sweden. Andy Abramson: “like so many sideline projects that ‘proved things’ now Skype is back to being just a IM based calling service online with a few hooks to the PSTN.” 4G and smarter phones are relegating Skype thin-client services to developing markets.
Download Skype for Windows 5.6. This update fixes a few bugs, unbundles Google apps (Google is retiring its Desktop which bundled Skype), and gives credit for third-party components. Or get 5.5 (5.5.0.119) which corrects some issues with the Skype home page popping up when in compact mode, fixes memory leaks in Skype Click-to-Call.
30.5 million people signed in to Skype at the same time on Monday, 10 October 2011, a new high-water-mark for Skype dialtone since the end of March. A seasonal thing, fueled by more than a million people downloading Skype desktop apps in the days before. I’m guessing about 180 million active users this week.
Just for comparison, Rafe Needleman reports “Zynga revealed that there are 232 million active monthly users of the network, and 60 million daily users. The company records 2 billion play minutes each day.”
 RIP Steve Jobs. All sorts of milestones in my career were directly influenced by Steve. My first job out of college: selling Apple IIs. First well paying job after being down and out: Mac desktop publishing for an artist. First dive into design as a discipline: studying about the anthropology research that lead to the Mac. First usability research: books on the difference between the mac/windows/command line.
I had a poster of the NeXT in my bedroom for years, after I saw Jobs demo one at the Berkeley Mac User Group in the old round Physics lecture hall. the idea that you could engineer hardware to support a Unix operating system AND make it even friendlier for newbies than a Mac was gobsmacking. The whole stand-on-a-stage thing and carefully tell your story was part of my toolkit long before he showed his mastery of that, but Steve added a real appreciation of the subject matter, joy for the value he showed, excitement for the geekery.
The iPhone wasn’t my first mobile phone, or even the first I loved (I miss my N90 sometimes). It was the first that made me use it like a computer, made me want to build apps again, dream the entrepreneurial dream. and keep the internet in my pocket. Damn. Damn. I’m typing this on a MacBook in a pizza joint down the street from the Apple store. And they’re playing sonorous sad music.
Europe approves Microsoft buying Skype without strings, follows the US. Microsoft says it is happy. Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Taiwan are weighing in but are unlikely to have a say on the deal. Jim Courtney marks the progress.
Michigan State professors want a law to permit distance weddings. Their proposal. Adam Candeub and Mae Kuykendall support e-marriage and e-ritual in all 50 US states. “States should authorize marriages of those not present within their territorial boundaries. We demonstrate that states have the sovereign power to authorize marriage performed anywhere, and historically have blessed marriages in distant locations.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer takes Skype video call-ins for its live football TV show. Skype clevelanddotcom.
Tango for Windows is out and, from Forbes, Tango To Be Windows Phone/Mango’s First Videocalling Service, Leapfrogging Skype. imho, first doesn’t matter as much as best fit and most used.
IP lobbyists try to hobble the new Hollywood.
Llama stories Skyped.
Skype WiFi coverage of Manhattan may improve thanks to Boingo’s deal with Towerstream.
Florida soldier sees baby daughter before dying in Afghanistan.
Pennsylvania synagogue offers skyped Hebrew school to bar/bat mitzvah students.
I wish I’d seen Janet Vartinen’s talk “Collaboration: Is the Employee in the Driver’s Seat?” at the 7th Annual Real-Time Communications Conference & Expo. “As social and personal collaboration tools are finding their way into the business environment IT departments are being challenged. … It is not just about engineering anymore. This session will discuss successful methods to bridge the collaboration gap…”
 Phil Wolff consults with Hookflash, a software company building realtime communication products for effective people. Skype evanwolf, tweet @evanwolf or call +1-510-444-8234 to talk with Phil. Skype Journal is independent of Skype.
UPDATE: WHOOPS! Financial Times says EU Commission will approve deal, no strings. I guess it still managed to slip through. “Competition reviews are still under way in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Taiwan.”
Less than 100 hours from Europe ruling on the Microsoft-Skype purchase, Skype’s Jean-Jacques Sahel shared a Plum report on the economic value of an “open Internet.” (pdf). It’s an argument for net neutrality, including mobile net neutrality. Sahel’s post is Skype asking regulators to protect Skype’s access to the Internet from companies with the power to harm that access. I believe in net neutrality too. Skype wants government protection from powerful carriers but is struggling to avoid similar obligations of access, openness, and giving back as it finds its own power.
I wrote Monday that Skype is too big to slip under regulatory radar. With Microsoft, Skype will no longer be a David to telecom Goliaths. They will be a Goliath. Powerful, vast, and fiercely competitive.
Decentralization of power was at the heart of the Internet’s design and architecture so the net would survive a nuclear attack. "Network neutrality" is a way of repeating that principle. It is unhealthy for the Internet when companies further down the IP stack exploit their power and play favorites among users from higher up the stack.
With great power comes great responsibility. The MicroSkype deal concentrates power. Skype hasn’t shown willingness to do any more than what is required by law.
- They are willing to disrupt landline and mobile operators, but unwilling to enable public services like e911, fund relay services for the hearing or vision impaired, or contribute to funds for improving Internet access.
- They are eager to distribute Skype by bundling software with Microsoft products, but are unwilling to do so in a way that offers a level playing field to rivals.
- They are open to API integration with friends of Microsoft like Facebook and, presumably, Microsoft’s divisions, but they burden their developer program and APIs with untenable terms of service, prohibiting use of their network by use, location, and device and requiring prior approval of any app using their network.
A measure of oversight, ensuring responsible use of power, is fully within the mandate of those approving the acquisition.
Some, like my friend Jim Courtney, worry the EU has been ineffective, citing their failure to protect Netscape from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in the late 1990s browser wars. Maybe.
Ben Lilienthal suggests switching costs are lower with Skype, so their power may not be as absolute. Sure, but Skype is not a personal data portability champion.
Many want Skype to play fair. Alon Cohen IM’d he’d want Skype to “Support 911, collect and pay taxes like everyone else, or stop offering PSTN phone numbers. (Gov can remove the taxes, which will be just as fine from my perspective). Open up to SIP, provide every Skype with a phone number or URI accessible to other companies..”
So what does Skype’s post, “The open Internet: platform for growth. The open Internet is an essential platform for growth and benefits for all, including telecom operators: it has to be safeguarded” really mean? Regulate Skype and it will cost jobs. Really?
Here’s what the Europe could do:
Have Skype be a fair platform provider, enable third-parties to plug their own software and hardware into the Skype network, preserve consumer choice, support citizen safety like other phone companies, let your users leave with their phone numbers and data, support local and regional consumer rights, tilt the balance toward personal power over state power in this transnational Internet, and collect taxes. Specifically, quoting from my earlier post:
- Microsoft must expose to the developer community all those plumbing features that make the Skype network so effective on the same basis that Skype and the Microsoft app developers receive access.
- Divide Skype departments between the communications infrastructure and the app layer. Make them operate as two separate businesses.
- Compel the Skype Network business to treat all customers at least as well as it treats Microsoft and Skype Apps Division customers.
- Mandate “platform network neutrality” where bits from third-party apps travel through Skype’s network as well as bits from Skype’s own apps.
- Skype must publish protocols so anyone can connect whatever software or service they like to Skype’s network so long as that end point doesn’t harm the network.
- Skype cannot tax, register or otherwise control end users or third-parties connecting to the network.
- Require compliance with emergency service access laws and rules, subject to user opt-out and local law.
- Promote comparable third-party communication products on Microsoft platforms as least as well as you promote Skype.
- Prohibit restrictions on bundling third-party Skype-compatible products with Microsoft products.
- Require compliance with emergency service access laws and rules, subject to user opt-out and local law.
- Skype must accept the transfer of a customer’s existing phone numbers to Skype’s service.
- Skype must enable customers to transfer of a Skype-connected phone number to a competing network.
- Skype should not be allowed to take away company phone numbers once in service.
- Skype must let third-parties extract all customer created and co-created data on behalf of users.
- Forbid Skype from banning “class action” suits by customers in its terms of service.
- Compel Skype to report statistics on government requests by type and country of origin, the way Google does.
- Compel Skype to promptly notify users when they are being surveilled or requests for information about their activities have been demanded by authorities. This should be subject to the laws of the country where the customer claims citizenship. So a US or Chinese government agency could not order Microsoft to spy on the conversations of a French and German national without the consent of the French and German governments.
- Require that Skype APIs and clients disclose to users the jurisdictions of their contacts. You can only make informed choices about whom to talk to or not, what to say or not, if you can assess the consequences.
- Compel Skype to collect fees and taxes from its customers as required of telephone operators. At a minimum, contribute to the fund that pays for relay services for the deaf and blind.
It’s time for Skype to step up.
Corporate citizenship comes with benefits. This is a rare moment to review, renew, revise and modernize the duties that come with that privilege. The United States missed its moment. Will Europe seize theirs?
 Phil Wolff consults with Hookflash, a software company building realtime communication products for effective people. Skype evanwolf, tweet @evanwolf or call +1-510-444-8234 to talk with Phil. Skype Journal is independent of Skype. Phil’s opinions may not represent the views of Hookflash or Skype.
photo: Occupy Wall Street, 26 September 2011, cc-by-sa by Paul Stein.
The European Commission will make a statement on the Microsoft-Skype deal on or before this Friday, 7 October 2011.
Skype is too big to slip under regulatory radar.
Skype was all promise in 2003. Now it is achievement. They are no longer the tiny underdog fighting the phone companies. They are a billion dollar a year business with a thousand employees serving nearly two hundred million people 255 billion of minutes of live conversation every year, rounding slightly. They’ve pulled so much hard currency from national phone companies that Russia’s Chamber of Commerce declared Skype an enemy of the state. They’ve changed consumer behavior and become the default way to talk across borders for anyone with Internet access.
When should regulators consider this a threat?
Now, when an ounce of prevention matters most.
Microsoft wants to multiply Skype’s reach and impact. Microsoft seeks to combine Skype with its other communications properties and bring realtime communication to its non-communication products. Skype, along with Nokia, completes Microsoft’s vision for the Windows Phone operating system. We’ll see Skype inside Microsoft games, Lync business phones, Bing click-and-call adverts, Dynamics call center solutions, Office, Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer.
As huge as Skype is, they could be ten times bigger in a few years with Microsoft’s help. $10B in revenue, 2 billion users, trillions of minutes of live conversation. That comes with market power.
US regulators cleared the deal. A decision by EU authorities is days away.
Who is affected?
At least one Italian VoIP company is reported opposing the deal, per EurActiv. Messagenet asked the authorities to require Microsoft not to bundle Skype with Windows and to compel interop with other Internet presence, IM, telephony, and video chat services.
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Skype for iPhone 3.0.1 security vulnerabilities will be fixed soon, says Skype. Tom Keating, Jim Courtney and Dan York write up the #XSS (cross-site scripting) exploit that could let a javascript copy your Skype contacts. first reported by Superever. The video. This follows another XSS vulnerability in Skype for Windows, now resolved.
Skype for Windows 5.5 update (5.5.0.117) adds support for Microsoft Windows 8. via Raul Liive. Skype for Windows 5.5.0.119 fixed a few bugs and updated the Click-to-Call feature for new browsers. Get it.
Or jump right to Skype for Windows 5.6 (5.6.0.105) to get a few improvements for new users, for screen sharing, and some UI tweaks, and now “in call advertising.” New, improved distractionware inside.
Skype for iPhone update (3.5.84) includes a new anti-shake technology for the back phone. Nice! The update fixes bugs. Safer! Both apps get Bluetooth support. Convenienter!
Skype for iPad and Skype for iPhone users see ads. “Advertising will be shown to users that do not have Skype Credit, a calling subscription or premium subscription.” #SkypeProtectionMoney. Christian Zibreg writes “As most people don’t use Skype Credit, we imagine rubbing their nose into the upgrade offering will be annoying, to say the least. Instead of up-selling us to a paid service, can we please get an elegant interface instead?” Tim Barribeau thinks “while there are some very useful new features in this version, there’s one big, stinking bad one: ads. … Advertising? Oh hell no.” Tom Keating isn’t worried about mobile ads.
Skype for Mac 5.4 Beta (version 5.4.0.1217) includes Facebook features. More feature parity with Skype for Windows means Mac users now see advertising. via Krishna Panicker. Get it.
Does advertising break Skype’s brand promises? SkypeSedator by eitarosan “automatically closes the Skype Home Popup Window and keeps itself in the Skype Process to continually check and close the popup, whenever it appears” in Skype for Windows. via Stadt-Bremerhaven.  Another stab at it is KillSkypeHome by Andrew Worcester. “This script is designed to start with windows, kill the Skype Home window when it finds it, then closes itself so it no longer uses any system resources. For those of you who don’t leave skype running all the time, I’ve added “Persistent mode” which keeps KSH running and watching for Skype Home to pop up.” Instructions for KillSkypeHome. Try at your own risk.
Irish Skypers will get targeted home page take overs (HPTOs), thanks to digital advertising agency AD2ONE.
Skype partner OnStar changed their ToS so they may sell your personal data. Would you still use a (still prototypical) Skype for OnStar if GM was selling your geodata?
Skype published new user activity stats from June 2011. 65 million people sign in to Skype daily. 700 million minutes daily in Skype-to-Skype calls. 30 million minutes of SkypeOut calls daily. 300 million minutes of Skype video calls daily. Ratios (rounded): 42% of Skype-to-Skype calls include video. 4.1% Freemium rate (minutes paid vs. minutes free). This is a snapshot. What are the year-to-year trends?
I celebrated Skype’s 8th birthday with some memories and predictions.
The deal with Canada’s TELUS to preload Skype on mobiles now encourages users to try Skype mobile apps, reports Jim Courtney. Thin clients not included.
Skype’s Qik will come with Japan’s NTT DOCOMO Android tablets. 10.3 million people use Qik.
Europe could have a decision about about Microsoft buying Skype by 7 October 2011. via Jim Courtney.
Microsoft’s instant messaging share could be 70% after buying Skype. Is this is a good reason for EU antitrust regulators to oppose the deal?
Skype’s real value is in the proven identity of its real users says Matt Asay.
DigiNotar hackers also breached Skype SSL certificates. No harm done at Skype, they say.
Skype’s Skype in the Classroom site won a Core77 Design Award. Deserved it! Congrats also to London designers Made By Many.
Skype Support Network (formerly Skype’s forums) added @skypesupport for Twitter users, for problems solved in 140 characters or less. Nicely active and responsive.
Users
Bill McKibben says work from home: Skype is greener than jet fuel. Airlines hope you disagree. 
Control a Skype robot with your brain.
David Gewirtz is building a home studio for Skype audio and video calls. via DIY-IT blog.
Marine watches his son born on Skype.
Man asks young teens for sex over Skype, goes to jail.
Woman steals laptop, accidentally skypes, and goes to jail.
Personal trainers make you do pushups over Skype. No jail.
Microsoft Phone’s “Metro” look is showing up in Windows 8. What would a Skype skinned for Metro look like?
Granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth prefers Skype and phone talks to facebook. via Emil Protalinkski.
Time zone challenges when Skyping for a casting interview between Australia and New York, Abbie Cornish and Madonna.
Fake General Patraeus uses Skype video to scam lonely hearts and patriotic souls. via Daily Mail.
Phil Wolff consults with Hookflash, a software company building realtime communication products for effective people. Skype evanwolf, tweet @evanwolf or call +1-510-444-8234 to talk with Phil. Skype Journal is independent of Skype.
Skype fired talented leaders last week, saying only “as part of a recent internal shift Skype has made some management changes.” Yeah, and water is wet. David Gurlé, Christopher Dean, Russ Shaw, Don Albert, Doug Bewsher, and Anne Gillespie are gone. Joseph Galante added Qik’s Ramu Sunkara (Qik EVP for carrier relations) and Allyson Campa (Qik marketing SVP) to the list. Why these folks and not so many of their direct reports or other general managers and VPs? Let’s brainstorm a little and then narrow down to the likely reasons.
These execs don’t want to work at Microsoft? Not true. Most of those laid off were taken by surprise, and assumed they were at least part of the Microskype transition. Those I’ve checked in with were ready to dive into partnering and integrating with Microsoft, taking Skype to a new level.
These execs wouldn’t fit in at Microsoft? No. Gurlé was a Microsoft alum. And they just need to fit in at Skype.
Performance below expectations? Possible in some cases but this didn’t apply to many. Some, like Americas GM Don Albert, were pulling enormous wins with few resources against strong adversaries. Others, like Skype for Enterprise GM David Gurlé, had only received their first real headcount in 2011Q1. Campa and Sunkara had just joined the company.
Tony wants his own team. These team members were at Skype before Tony Bates took the job last fall, with the exception of the Qik team. The Board and previous CEO Josh Silverman picked the newest; the rest came under earlier Skype leadership. Has Bates been recruiting leaders who fit better with his communication and leadership styles? Is there a long list of candidates from Microsoft’s bench?
Microsoft has better teams/talent in those departments. Imagine an IM backchannel at Microsoft where leaders question why Skype should have its own regional distribution channel, its own business account execs, its own telco relationship team. Imagine a conversation about leveraging large and proven Microsoft resources. Imagine a RIF list. This looks like the first serious reason. Let’s line up the jobs and see.
- Gurlé. SMB and large enterprise products and sales. Microsoft’s enterprise teams sell Windows, Office, networking products, collaboration tools, phone systems, and accounting software. Their customer relationships took years to develop and bring in billions from around the world. Better, faster to add Skype’s products to their portfolio than to maintain a separate sales arm. Gaps to Fill: 1. Skype will need to set up corporate sales support (marketers, analysts, specialists) and large account customer service functions. 2. SMB self-service and channel-partner support. 3. Fearless product innovation to make Skype invaluable in the workplace and the muscle to move it through engineering.
- Dean. Corporate development, partnerships, alliances. I really haven’t followed how Microsoft operates in this area. The overlap theory may not apply to Christopher Dean.
- Shaw, Sunkara. Mobile telecom products and partnerships. Microsoft has its own phone company, selling the Phone operating system to handset makers and carriers. Their partner-relations team has a better history of getting cooperation from wireless operators than Skype, seen as a competitor until recently. Gaps: 1. Skype needs visionary and inspiring product leadership in mobile, Augmented Reality, and gestural interface apps. 2.
- Albert, Bewsher, Campa. Distribution, marketing, and advertising. Whatever they accomplished at Skype or Qik, Microsoft has massive operations in place with one of the largest advertising and promotion budgets in the software industry.
- Gillespie. Human resources. Gillespie completely rejuvenated Skype’s recruiting sites, advertising, promotions and put Skype Palo Alto on the path to add nearly 500 more employees this year. This in an intensely competitive climate for Silicon Valley engineering talent. Yet Microsoft has one of the largest HR organizations in all of IT.
These roles will shift from building and running Skype teams to persuading Microsoft’s other divisions and headquarters services to serve Skype’s mission.
This leaves us with…
Investors want their stock back. Bloomberg interviewed an analyst who speculated preemptive firing was motivated by Skype’s investors wanting to get stock back from employees before the deal goes through.
There’s a kind of employee stock purchase agreement loophole which permits company owners to buy back stock from non-executive employees at a low fixed price before a merger or acquisition. All the appreciation in company value moves back from employees to investors. This kind of buy-back was rumored (reported?) when Steve Jobs sold NeXT, Inc. to Apple in December 1996. It shocked and surprised NeXT’s hard working, sweat-equity employees.
That event is why nearly all Silicon Valley employment agreements comes with a clause protecting from take-backs, even when they fire you.
Did this happen here?
I haven’t checked the few executive agreements on file with the SEC but I recall several of the departing have clauses protecting them from missing out on the payout from fully vested stock and options. Those who don’t have strong contractual protection are negotiating. Pick your jurisdiction. Bring your lawyer.
Is it about to happen to other employees?
I’ve seen no evidence to support this at Skype. Yet. While Silver Lake’s self-interest remains, getting back the small stock and options issued to non-executive staff may be less of an issue to investors than avoiding new litigation, more bad press, the defection of key employees and endangering partner relationships. Again, stay tuned.
Would Skype’s investors really try to screw hardworking Skype employees?
In a heartbeat.
Why now?
The no-engineers-fired mix suggests pre-alignment. Timing favors the “Investors want their stock back” theory.
See also:
- setteB.IT: “Strange coincidence when a new owner begins to take possession of his new conquest, and at the same time, some executives go away.”
- Om Malik: “Skype cuts senior executives. Why?” (originally subtitled “Smart or just crazy?)
- Electronista: “the cuts are unlikely to assuage fears that Microsoft may reshape Skype in a way that hurts non-Windows platforms or Skype itself. Losing Shaw may be one of the deeper hits as Microsoft has historically had difficulty making strong deals with carriers.”
- Quora: Who lost financially when Apple Inc. (company) bought NeXT Inc. (computer company)
- Quora: Is it true NeXT’s owners bought back employee purchased stock cheaply before selling the company to Apple? How?
Art credit: The painting is the 1846 “Moses Viewing the Promised Land” by Frederic Edwin Church. The Torah tells the story of Moses taking his people through the wilderness for 40 years, only to be deprived entry within sight of Israel.
Skype senior staff David Gurlé, Christopher Dean, Russ Shaw, Don Albert, Doug Bewsher, and Anne Gillespie are leaving Skype or have left.
Strategy VP Dean led Skype’s consumer market business development for the last five months, headed up Skype’s global business and corporate development since November 2008 and was Josh Silverman’s Chief Strategy Officer for the year before that.
Gurlé was Skype’s VP and General Manager for Skype for Business for 18 months, bringing similar experience from his time at Thompson Reuters and Microsoft. Gurlé posted to his LinkedIn page about his being founder and CEO of Code name ‘Pilatus’: “More details to follow after I take two months off to get some rest after hectic but fun life at Skype.” David is on Cannes time.
Skype has not announced about replacements. Stay tuned.
UPDATE 5: 1435 Pacific. Skype: “Doug Bewsher, David Gurle and Russ Shaw have left and Neil Stevens has assumed the new role of head of Products and Marketing.” Stevens prior job was Vice President and General Manager for Consumer.
UPDATE 4: Friday, 17 June. 1151 Pacific. Unconfirmed: Doug Bewsher, Chief Marketing and Officer, and Anne Gillespie, HR head, also went this week.
UPDATE 3: Wednesday, 15 June 2011. 1053 Pacific. Russ Shaw, VP and GM for Skype’s relationship with mobile operators is out the door too. Shaw was instrumental in landing and keeping Skype’s partnerships with O2, Verizon, TELUS and Nokia. Skype for smartphones became a staple under Shaw.
UPDATE 2: 1035 Pacific.  VP and GM for Americas and Advertising Don Albert is gone too. Albert is the longest serving member of the executive team by a long shot, going back to early 2006 shortly after eBay purchased Skype. Probably more than anyone else, Don was the driving force behind making Skype a household name in the US and Canada. From LinkedIn:
Built and managed a great team that was responsible for building Skype’s business in the America’s region, and for launching multiple new advertising revenue streams globally. Launched Skype’s first subscription calling plan, which was hugely successful and became the model for future offerings. Created a Skype section in all of Wal-Mart’s US stores, with huge branded signage explaining Skype to the Wal-Mart shopper base. USA Today called it the "mainstreaming of Skype" on the cover of its Business section. Signed global bundling deals with 3 major PC OEM’s. Oversaw Skype’s first social network deal, with MySpace. Formed a partnership with The Oprah Winfrey Show which gave Skype a huge brand boost and accelerated user growth. The culmination of the relationship was a one-hour show entitled "Where the Skype Are You?"Launched a formal "Skype for Broadcast and Film" initiative, which has led to many placements on network news shows, as well as "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," The Miss Universe Pageant, "Californication," and the theatrical release "Going the Distance" among many others. Negotiated deals to monetize Skype’s massive download flow. Launched click-to-call advertising. Launched display advertising with top brands participating from launch.
UPDATE 1: 0956 Pacific. Skype PR: “Skype, like any other pragmatic organization, constantly assesses its team structure to deliver its users the best products. As part of a recent internal shift Skype has made some management changes.”
Tips? Questions? Skype me for a quick chat, call or SMS my iPhone +1-510-316-9773, or book me. I respect embargoes and other confidences.
Beecher Tuttle speculated Skype bought the assets of group text startup 3Jam. Skype’s texting features are… uninspiring? Hiring 3Jam’s Enlai Chu might fix that. Or is it feature creep?
CallByText compromises Skype security, requiring your Skype name and password, setting you up for identity theft. (Thanks, Hudson)
Reuters reports Google and Facebook talked about buying Skype. They didn’t talk to each other, although that would be interesting. Like this is something new? Skype’s corporate affairs folks must talk to potential buyers, if only to understand a non-IPO deal space.
Transit Telecom screws Brazilian Skype users, cancelling Números Online Skype, using the service since January 2006.
Sony firmware update adds Skype to Bravia TVs.
3CX adds Skype Connect to its Windows PBX software.
Azerbaijan minister wants to ban Skype as a security risk. via Tamada Tales.
Ubergizmo unboxes the Logitech TV Cam for Skype. “At CES 2011, Skype on TV was a huge hit, particularly among seniors. I’ve never seen so many seemingly retired people at CES, and they were almost all excited by this.”
Mumbai police analyze Skype calls to find gangsters.
Australian Skype for Vodafone mobile users will pay $3 monthly for Skype-to-Skype calls. Cheaper than previous plans.
California “elder law” attorneys to bill for Skype consultations. “…legal documents professionally produced in a virtual law firm environment.”
MyChelle Dermaceuticals licensed estheticians to bill for Skype consultations. “MyChelle’s expert team is on-hand to provide professional, effective treatment and skin care recommendations with a custom selection of pure, clean MyChelle Dermaceuticals products.”
Skype’s Skytools framework used to “construct a large fault-tolerant cluster of PostgreSQL.” Hundreds in production. Skytools.
Patch to Skype for Mac zero day vulnerability coming next week.
Skype launched “The Living Workplace” to share an opinion survey on remote and flexible workstyles. TNW summarizes the report. I’m in one of a few short videos by analysts on the site. Key points from the half-hour video cut to under three minutes: 
- The unit of work engagement used to be the job for life, then a career with a few jobs. In 2020 much of the economy will work at the task and gig level.
- Gig work brings free agent culture to offices, and they’ll be accommodate flexible and distance work.
- Two-tiered workforce: a few core permanent employees overseeing a large cadre of contractors.
- New organization structures: free agents form tribes, and tribes of tribes, to find and offer services.
- This means we need tools for finding work at the gig level.
- Wishlist: Peopleware for Ridiculously Easy Group Forming (Sébastien Paquet, 2002), something Skype does not do.
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STL’s New Digital Economics event starts today in Palo Alto (down the street from Skype). Attendees wear ties. Today’s track is Telco 2.0 on open innovation. Tomorrow has two tracks: Digital Entertainment 2.0 about multiplatform services and digital lockers and Mobile Apps 2.0 (you too can beat Apple’s App store). Thursday looks promising: Personal Data 2.0, unconference format building on the output from the World Economic Forum’s ‘Rethinking Personal Data’ project.
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Officers swear out search warrants in Palm Bay, Florida. Over Skype.
$35 video calls for prisoners. Visit inmates in Charlotte County Jail, Florida, and pay heavily for the privilege. “The sheriff’s office will split profits with Montgomery Technology, an Alabama-based company.”
Speaking of outrageous price gouging, my local Verizon store rep won’t use the term “data caps.” When I expressed dismay at the monthly limits he tried an upsell to a slightly higher 3G data limit and its extortionate fees. When I was still unconvinced he said “you may be happier elsewhere.” Ars says it could be worse if you live outside the US.
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Kentucky’s First Lady reads to Appalachian school children over Skype.
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My iSkype app takes a minute to load and log in and more than a minute to let me make a phone call until it loads contacts, call history and chats. Does that happen for you? Two minutes from launch to call is a bit much. Perhaps Viber or Truphone are my go-to mobile VoIP apps.
Most folks seem to like the new Skype for Mac 5.0 Gold release, now out of beta and charging for group video calls. Download version 5.0.0.7980.
Users appreciate the slimmer screen real estate by about 20 to 1, according to an early look at Scout Labs. Tip: You can reduce Skype’s footprint more by setting View » Compact Sidebar.
Sabre McCullough tweets “so the block option and view profile option now have a bit more space separating them apparently =D #skype#mac #thanks #betterlatethannever” and Tom Carnohan echoes that “I think me and @sabreMc are in agreement that the new skype for mac is better xD.”
Design Concerns
On the other hand, designer Gary Turner speaks for many longstanding users. “Skype have attempted a tricky move on Mac and flubbed it. Trying to mimic an address book app and have gone way off the IM reservation. Skype Mac’s avatar contact view is of legendary pointlessness, and no way of sorting contact view without having two columns. Total fail.”
Frederic Lardinois writes “Skype says this new version is small enough to be kept at the side of your screen. I guess that depends on your screen, but just know that at a width of 460 pixels in its slimmest mode, it still 50% wider than the [previous] Skype for Mac app.”
IT grad student Amor Jenhani tweeted “The UI of v5 for mac is a nightmare. I had the feeling I’m working on a Windows. I’m going back to v2.8 and iChat.” You can still download Skype 2.8 from this non-Skype site.
Paying for Premium Plan
Sam Biddie says Skype Mac Video Group Chat Now a Ripoff at $5 Per Day. “The best part of the recent Skype beta was its battle royale video chatting. But the beta label is gone—and now the (free) fun is too. Group chat will now cost $4.99 per day, or $8.99 a month. This sucks, and seems like a terrific way to discourage use of what was hitherto one of the program’s coolest features. The new version includes UI updates and other tweaks, but still—boo. Boo, we say.”
$5 for a day pass, $9 for a month pass. You can get 33% off 3 and 12 month subscriptions if you buy before 28 February 2011. To put the price in perspective, WebEx and GoToMeeting are each $49/month, and Angry Birds is $1.
Skype will host a Skype for Mac design contest
Register now to design the new Skype for Mac chat style
We were blown away by our Mac community’s designs and customisations of the chat style within Skype for Mac, and we want to help you share your enthusiasm and creativity with the world.
We are about to launch a competition to personalise the Skype for Mac chat style. There will be several prizes up for grabs, and we’re creating a gallery to showcase your work on skype.com. One of the designs will even be included in a future version of Skype for Mac. Enter your details to be the first to know when the competition begins.
Let me end on someone’s sour note: Dregev posted to the Skype Mac forum “First the outages, then a complete devolving interface, then charging an absurd amount for multiple conferences….. Skype, you might want to reconsider your IPO until you can get your s__t together, because right now, you are sucking!”
 I’m just asking. Skype will be reporting about $1 billion in revenue this year. Profitable every quarter for years. Spritely growth in revenue and usage. Adjacent markets for them to enter, like business conferencing, event search and scheduling, collaboration, cloudwork delivery. Platform plans for consumer electronics, mobile apps and web services.
What’s cooler is that they get nearly all of that revenue from paying users. That’s right: Skype users are also its customers.
I love MG’s, $1 Billion Isn’t Cool. You Know What’s Cool? $50 Billion. Goldman And Facebook Agree headline. Facebook’s customers are the advertisers. Its users are the product sold to advertisers.
Seems to me valuing Skype around $2 billion when its own users pay $1 billion yearly for its services seems… restrained? Mild?
Are you undervalued too? Chat with me on Skype. Call me at +1-510-316-9773 (my mobile), follow on twitter @evanwolf (everything) and @SkypeJournal (just the posts). Visit our Skype Journal private technologist roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats, where we’re talking about this right now.
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7 years and 1 day since Skype Journal launched as a stand-alone blog.
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Skype’s man in Washington, Chris Libertelli, now leads the Netflix government affairs team. While at Skype his deft touch with the FCC helped Skype assure access in US markets and partner with wireless operators. He also led Skype’s government affairs operations for the US states, Canada and Latin America. Paul Bond says usage-based-billing is the hot issue. With Chris on hand, I expect net neutrality to continue to be on Netflix’ agenda but take a backseat to battling for Netflix and its customers’ right to stream. Skype hasn’t announced who will fill Chris’ shoes.
Phil Wolff builds realtime collaboration products for effective people. Phil advises the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium and is a director of the DataPortability Project. Email editor@skypejournal.com, Skype evanwolf, tweet @evanwolf, G+ or call +1-510-444-8234 to talk with Phil. Skype Journal is independent of Skype. 
Chart showing timeline of effect of North American Level 3/TimeWarnerCable Internet outage on 7 November 2011. 
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