His departure is bad for Skype, bad for Microsoft, and bad for Skype’s users. This is good for rivals who understand github culture, developer programs, cloud operations, and API business strategy. Here’s why:
Skype’s third-party development products are failures.
The Skype Extras program collapsed from tens of thousands of desktop apps to a few dozen before Skype shut the program down.
Skype tried for a UI-free Skype engine but SkypeKit is unattractive. It’s feature-incomplete. It’s a time sync requiring orders of magnitude more effort (about twelve thousand hours for the first Skype-on-TV apps) than alternatives (1 hour for a TokBox or Twilio integration). It’s burdened with outrageous defensive business terms: Skype can withdraw your license at any time for any reason and you may not run SkypeKit on servers, sell your service to business, or serve Chinese markets.
Skype is very late to the cloud communication market. Voxeo, Twilio, Jajah, TokBox, and Vidyo (powering Google Hangouts) have been offering hosted telephony and video conferencing APIs for mobile and web developers for years.
Skype’s few developer successes rely on cultivating personal influence, on sycophantic access to Skype insiders. Unless you know someone, you don’t get the resources to build or the waivers to release your product. This doesn’t scale and comes off arrogant and sleazy.
This post-Christensen senior management team understands finished goods. They even understand freemium models. But their hearts don’t beat faster at the thought of Skype powering a million web sites and apps. Their eyes don’t light up when talking platform economics. Their guts don’t tell them to bet on APIs, to open up and let a million designers and programmers plug-in to the Skype network.
So management lacks ambition for platforming. This shows in underfunded cloud projects, a closed (vs. public) developer program, staff defections, and belittling expectations. From management’s behavior you’d think outrageous success by Skype developer partners should trigger a publisher’s acquisition or sudden death. Ouch. Real platformers consider customer successes proof your network is attractive.
Skype’s platform-avoidance strategy will fail, probably this year. Skype cannot hope to deliver meaningful integration at Microsoft without the Skype versions of OpenTok and Phono; they will hit a technology wall. And new users from Skype’s Microsoft products won’t hide the overall slowing of Skype user adoption and revenue, or high defection to services that meet specific needs in specific contexts. As Microsoft’s Bing, Xbox, Kinect, Windows, and Windows Phone know, APIs bring you new revenue and new markets.
Circumstance will drive Skype’s managers to an open cloud platform architecture.
They’ll need entrepreneurial leaders like JC to take them there.
Late last year, IMS Research reported that we’d passed the 5 billion mark – 5 billion internet connected devices – and predicted we’d connect 22 billion devices by 2020. That said, internet connectivity is no longer enough to differentiate your product. So, what will be different about the next 17 billion devices? Video.
We’re finally at a place where we’re moving from the PC to non-PC devices being rich communication endpoints – from your mobile phone and TV to your in-car navigation system. Internet + voice + video is emerging as the ultimate trifecta for cutting-edge devices, and increasingly what consumers will expect from their electronics. However, as demand for video-enabled electronics continues to increase, development bottlenecks caused by closed API standards will continue to plague the industry and hinder the growth process. During his presentation, Skype’s Jonathan Christensen will discuss:
The historical context and early communications pioneers that took VoIP mainstream
The inefficiencies and hurdles that spurred industry-wide change in the early 2000s
How broadband penetration, multimedia PCs and P2P file sharing set the stage for rich mainstream IP communications and the proliferation of video calling
The future of communications in which devices are no longer isolated, and open standards will shorten development cycles Christensen will also give an update on how Skype is working to enable developers to leverage the power of voice and video to create a new generation of communications experiences, gaining access to a huge market potential by bringing video to a wide-range of consumer devices. With this next wave of connected devices, ‘video anywhere’ becomes a real possibility.
The line “Skype is working to enable developers to leverage the power of voice and video to create a new generation of communications experiences, gaining access to a huge market potential by bringing video to a wide-range of consumer devices.” is what brings SkypeKit to mind.
Skype Journal called for a “naked Skype” or a “headless Skype” in 2005, before eBay bought Skype. We wanted a Skype engine without a user interface, fully scriptable, that would let us build gateways that talk to the Skype network, include Skype inside desktop applications, and embed Skype in hardware. How hard is it to leave out the user interface the next time you build a desktop client?
Skype previewed SkypeKit at the January 2010 Consumer Electronics Show and announced a closed beta program six months’ later. One year ago today I applied to that closed developer program.
It is still closed. Out of the thousands of publishers and developers who applied to the program, nobody has been releasing apps, sharing code frameworks, revealing design prototypes (with the exception of a CES 2011 in-car OnStar with a Skype app) or otherwise showing signs of life. Skype PR is not commenting on this anniversary. Is SkypeKit dead? Or are thousands of developers exceptionally good at keeping secrets?
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.
Microsoft sees itself as offering empowerment and technology. And other buzzwords.
Communication tomorrow will be cooler than today. Reminds me of “I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Or “the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” And we’re selling the future if you can afford it.
Skype’s core assets: technology and users, and ways to make money from technology and users.
Skype rides three trends:
Mobile is growing fast now (42%), mobile video is growing faster (104%), and mobile traffic is expected to grow 26 times in the next five years.
Video is not just about calling, although more than 40% of all Skype minutes involve video. Video is also about advertising.
Social sites are growing (44%), account for 13% of time online (at least in some countries), and communication is kinda the point of social experience.
Skype is doing well. 170 million “connected users.” 40% growth in users per year. 600K signups daily, a Redmond, Washington every two hours. People use Skype a lot. 207 billion minutes of talk in 2010, 30 million concurrent users.
Skype will be its own division with its own customers, staff and support for non-Microsoft devices and platforms.
Skype for Microsoft’s communication networks and services (like Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live).
Skype in the workplace.
Skype keeps its brand.
Bring Windows Phone to Skype’s mobile operator friends.
Ballmer making synergy shadow puppets.
The deal came naturally during advertising partnership discussions in March and April. Executive “Welcome to Microsoft” road trips start today in California and continuing through Europe this weekend.
Odd thoughts…
Since Skype CEO Tony Bates now reports directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, does that add him to the dozens of executives being groomed to succeed Balmer?
The investors are paid, early employees were paid when eBay bought Skype, and the recent slate of “pre-IPO” executives should be selling off decent stock and options. How about the hundreds of other employees at Skype? Are they getting, oh, a year’s salary bonus for staying on at Microsoft? Or are they getting boring, high-downside Microsoft stock options? Money is just one motivator but getting it right as Skype goes from startup to division could take some artistry.
Microsoft is buying Skype with non-US funds. Does this mean the division will continue to be headquartered in Luxembourg? Or can Skype HQ move to London, Palo Alto or Redmond?
We really don’t know the regulatory obstacles in Microsoft’s United States or Skype’s Europe. Are there privacy or antitrust considerations? Does Microsoft have limits on what it can own or operate in various jurisdictions? I hope to learn more.
Microsoft sees itself as offering empowerment and technology. And other buzzwords.
Communication tomorrow will be cooler than today. Reminds me of “I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Or “the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” And we’re selling the future if you can afford it.
Skype’s core assets: technology and users, and ways to make money from technology and users.
Skype rides three trends:
Mobile is growing fast now (42%), mobile video is growing faster (104%), and mobile traffic is expected to grow 26 times in the next five years.
Video is not just about calling, although more than 40% of all Skype minutes involve video. Video is also about advertising.
Social sites are growing (44%), account for 13% of time online (at least in some countries), and communication is kinda the point of social experience.
Skype is doing well. 170 million “connected users.” 40% growth in users per year. 600K signups daily, a Redmond, Washington every two hours. People use Skype a lot. 207 billion minutes of talk in 2010, 30 million concurrent users.
Skype will be its own division with its own customers, staff and support for non-Microsoft devices and platforms.
Skype for Microsoft’s communication networks and services (like Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live).
Skype in the workplace.
Skype keeps its brand.
Bring Windows Phone to Skype’s mobile operator friends.
Balmer making synergy shadow puppets.
The deal came naturally during advertising partnership discussions in April. Executive “Welcome to Microsoft” road trips start today in California and continuing through Europe this weekend.
Odd thoughts…
Since Tony now reports directly to Steve Ballmer, does that put him in line to succeed Ballmer?
The investors are paid, early employees were paid when eBay bought Skype, and the recent slate of “pre-IPO” executives should have decent stock. How about the nearly thousand other employees at Skype? Are they getting, oh, a year’s salary bonus for staying on at Microsoft? Or are they getting boring, high-downside Microsoft stock options?
We really don’t know the regulatory obstacles in the Microsoft’s United States or Skype’s Europe. Are there privacy or antitrust considerations? Does Microsoft have limits on what it can own or operate in various jurisdictions? I hope to learn more.
A new entry level LogitechLifeSize video conferencing system now comes with two points of Skype integration. First, there’s a SkypeKit-based Skype client inside the LifeSize Passport. So you can log in with your Skype account and call or answer people in the Skype network or SkypeOut to phone numbers. Second, your Skype contacts now show up in the Logitech Passport’s directory. Passports will sell for under $2500. Sadly, there are no demos or screenshots. Here are LifeSize’s celebratory news release, the Skype partner page, blog post and Skype’s blog post. I’ll share more info if I get it.
Three observations.
First, SkypeKit must be maturing for this to come out; LifeSize is small enough that they can’t afford product risks with iffy components.
Next, someone at Skype did a yeoman’s job of reviving what must have been a strained relationship after being unable to deliver needed software since 2009. Job well done, team.
Last, having Skype inside your video conferencing system could well become a must-have. The ultimate market reach for 720p interop with a partner that won’t muscle into your market (cough-cisco-cough).
Flipboard shows user experience innovation brings joy and utility to content.Frédéric Filloux explains the strategic import of Flipboard’s disintermediation of publishers and other aggregators. But their power starts with a simple before and after:
Google Reader on the left becomes Flipboard(Google Reader) on the right. It uses visual mass to show the relative weights of stories. It uses white space, typography, and page layout to offer simple choices. Flipboarders fluidly swing between stories and the stream. We can dive deep; we easily shift from “lean back” news snacks to “lean forward” news curation and sharing.
Skypelandia is holding our collective breath, waiting for hundreds of UI experiments based on SkypeKit. Some of us whine over Skype for Mac, but that’s just a symptom. We’re desperate.
We’ve seen Skype wrestle one IM app (with voice and video bolted on) onto many devices (mobile, desktop, television), modes (text, audio, video), and platforms (Mac, Linux, Windows, iOS, Android). Now we need something qualitatively different.
Hundreds of millions of Skype users need a reinvigorated experience. An experience that brings to the fore the tasks we perform, the relationships we cultivate, our contexts and plans for conversation, and conversations themselves. An experience that adjusts as we shift from “lean back” social surveillance to “lean forward” discourse, group forming, decision making, and leadership. Skype can free itself to innovate its core concepts, and set user interfaces free to follow new functions.
So much has been learned from mobility, multitouch surfaces, artificial reality (and virtual worlds, AR’s inverse), and the social sciences. Now, while Skype’s blood is hot, now is the time to experiment. Now is a time to imagine a new soul for Skype. New paths to give users mastery and accomplishment. New reasons for Skype to be loved for the joys brought to daily life.
Skype’s 8th birthday is this summer. Eight years is forever in web years. You make Skype’s plumbing work seamlessly at scale. Upon that foundation, pursue art. Give our global chorus, our humanity, full flight.
Want to show Facebook you’re partner material? Get your app into Facebook’s top-ten.
Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger app for Facebook has been growing steadily in use and adoption. 14.5 million daily average users, 17.3 million monthly uniques. Frankly, that’s about one tenth of Skype’s activity. What’s meaningful is that this is just the share of WLM activity within Facebook.
If I’m Facebook, I want users to spend more time on my site (world domination) so I can sell their attention to advertisers (ARPU).
If this works for WLM users, why not GTalk, Yahoo!, Tencent, and Skype users? As a hub, Facebook can offer other networks more IM activity with Facebook social objects (those things we chat about). As a hub, Facebook can offer two great advantages to users: access to more of their contacts and network independence.
Where does Skype fit in?
Skype will get its private gateways beefed up so Skype IM can flow across the Facebook message hub.
The industry is begging for a Rich Presence Roadmap summit, so presence becomes more useful, not less, with proliferation of devices and partners. Skype me, I’d be glad to host.
Skype’s user experience folks should start prototyping how to present people search, presence, profiles, and descriptions of access points for “alien” users. This is a hunt for metaphors; I’d start with twitter’s “via” attribute.
These networks are not the same, so not all features are available everywhere. For example, Skype lets you edit an IM message and send IM even when the person is offline. A list of services provided by each partner would let the clients constrain user behavior to what is possible, and to provide appropriate informational messages.
Skype Live for the browser. Voice, video, desktop sharing, conferencing, etc. Skype’s best opportunity to differentiate among the other IM networks.
SkypeKit mobile. I know that’s asking a lot, but the app world would love to easily build Skype features into their mobile apps. And Facebook mobile will want to be a full client in Facebook’s hub.
I interviewed Tony Bates, Skype’s CEO, the night before CES January 2011. Skype said they would not be making forward looking statements. Lightly edited YouTube video and transcript below; my own comments will come separately.
Skype Journal: How did you come by your geek cred?
I was part of the team, the very small team that ran the ARPANET gateways in the UK, I call it the right place at the right time. And my story about how I’m self-taught is that I’m from London and I lived at the end of the Tube line and it took roughly an hour and twenty minutes to come in every day and an hour and twenty minutes to go home. That’s a long time where you’re kinda sitting there and so I immersed myself in manuals and texts. Strange story about that, back in those days, manuals were a lot better then they are today. I self-taught UNIX through basically DEC manuals.
And I really got involved in the infrastructure side of the Internet and so when people say a bit about being a geek, you’re seeing a bunch of RFCs around things like route reflection. Route reflection is an esoteric thing but it’s one of the things along the way that kept the Internet going.
There were some other jobs after that. I helped start RIPE which is the main name registry similar to the Internic and so on. I wasn’t the first guy there but I was like number four and I worked on a thing called a route server. But I always knew I wanted to build product. And so after that I did Internet MCI which is how we transitioned the NSFnet which was a lot of fun and it was all different then. It was when in those days the nexus of the Internet was actually in Virginia, So PSI was there, UUNET was there, Sprint was there, MCI was there. And we actually used to meet, a bunch of kids, geeks and we would actually trade SLA agreements. We would go to the Tortilla Factory once a month and I would buy a circuit, you’d buy a circuit and that was how it worked. And in those days there was no settlement and all the discussions we have today.
But I always kinda felt that the missing thing was how were these things going to evolve and scale.
When I joined Cisco I worked in the CTOs group and we had these guys called “consulting engineers,” very smart people mainly more pragmatists who had been building. And I kinda ended up being the de facto product manager for the high end router space and we were redefining it and there were a lot of people involved. But my first big project was working with a thing called 12000. The twelve-thousand was the real first carrier class box.
And then to cut a long story short so this doesn’t go on forever, the real big thing I got involved in was this thing called the CRS1 and what was brilliant about that was all aspects about building a system: which was hardware; we created this new operating system called IOS XR, which I drove and led and this you know; put it this way, pretty much any time that someone connects to your website you get sent one of these packets, it comes across one of these devices so it’s part of the infrastructure.
May You And Your Skype Contacts Have a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!
For 2011:
Platform
Televisions from Philips, Sanyo Electric, TCL, Toshiba, and Vizio come with Skype apps preinstalled.
Only two of Samsung, Panasonic and LG will continue to offer SkypeKit-based TVs.
In Store Solutions, Skype consumer electronics partner and retail middleman, launches new FreeTalk HD webcams with microphones for the desk and improved HD webcams for televisions.
A Skype app ships on 3D televisions, without 3D.
SkypeKit goes from announced-but-closed Beta into public Beta.
Long time Skype partner IPEVO finishes selling its inventory of Skype-certified phones, webcams, and speakerphones and abandons the Skype market, burned from years of neglect.
SkypeKit comes out of beta.
Pie is the new cupcake.
Skype hires a guy named Soups.
Skype hosts four devcons in Europe, America and Asia. Seven thousand developers attend.
Skype cloud services go into announced-but-closed Beta.
Yahoo! Messenger APIs find fast uptake, accounting for 25% of all of Y!M message traffic by year end as mobile clients find it easy to and reliable to build in.
Skype extends its presence web services to include social updates and mood messages.
Skype expands its partnership with Nuance to include transcription of conference calls.
The first Skype apps will ship on Avaya phone stations.
Skype publishes anonymized data sets about its network and customers for use by academic researchers.
One million people work full time using Skype.
200 thousand customer service operators will use Skype at work.
Real-time social media profiling (rich caller ID) will be the hot thing in call center software.
Skype Connect will include the IETF ViPR protocolsdeveloped by Skype’s Jonathan Rosenberg and Cisco’s Cullen Jennings. The protocols teach the PBX which SkypeOut destinations can bypass PSTN on future calls. Customers will save tens of millions in the first year.
Skype televisions become hot in conference rooms as new ones support Skype HD video for just a little more than a dumb TV.
Apple ships FaceTime for Mac and Windows with iTunes.
Apple ships FaceTime for Android and Blackberry.
The number of active FaceTime users approaches half of Skype’s by YE2011.
Skype for iPad launches with iPad 2. So good it sells iPads.
Skype for iPad touch interface flows over into Skype 6 desktop client.
Skype mobile video calling on iOS, Android, Blackberry.
Skype mobile apps show users live data consumption rates vs. monthly/daily bandwidth quotas.
Skype Me! Returns with the launch of Skype-by-Barcode and Skype-by-QRcode for mobile phones.
Skype for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.
The first car dashboard with Skype for Drivers.
Mobile operators worldwide adopt a two-tier pricing structure, only allowing Skype on a higher quota, higher cost data plan. #deathofnetneutrality
Verizon Wireless and Skype renew their US relationship, but no longer exclusive.
AT&T and Skype announce Skype preloads for iOS, Blackberry and Android mobiles and netbooks. Deal not extended to set top boxes.
28 billion mobile app downloads. (Not just Skype apps, obviously).
Mobile operators stall on instant messaging for another year, afraid to cannibalize their SMS cash cow.
Skype adds speech-to-text conversion for mobile instant messaging.
Skype preinstalled on thirty Chinese 3G Android smartphones from ZTE, Huawei, Zoom Technologies, G’Five International, TCL/Alcatel, and Beijing Tianyu for domestic use.
Corporate
TOM-Skype partners with two of the top four Chinese telcos.
Skype IPOs in 2011Q2.
Skype IPO market cap beats US$3 billion.
Skype raises $100 million from its customers for emergency relief efforts.Disaster to be named later.
Skype has more than 1300 employees by year end 2011.
Two patent suits against Skype fail on their merits. One settles out of court before Skype’s next liquidity event.
Seven electricity utilities will offer telephony products and fail.
Mobile operators subsidize their own video calling with free data if you use their app instead of Skype’s.
Skype reaches 30 million concurrent users, up from a 2010 peak of 25. They credit growth in the workplace and mobile devices with video-chat-ready cameras.
Skype accounts for 16% of all international minutes spoken.
The telecom ministry of a country in the Pacific will approve Skype for economic development zones.
The US Army preinstalls Skype apps when they distribute smartphones to all soldiers.
Belize still blocks Skype. VPN companies promise Skype access.
A third-party publishes a live map of Skype supernodes.
North Korea still blocks Skype.
Despite the block, 10,000 people show North Korea as their country in their Skype profile.
Antarctica: highest percent of Skype accounts per actual resident.
Green resistance uses Skype in the aftermath of the death of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A hot stranger will IM something inappropriate to you. (NO. Skype’s new filtering technology has been surprisingly good in 2010.)
Skype‘s SilverLakeification will be complete, with a very short leash on strategy and operations at first. (YES)
Skype will serve 125 billion minutes of calls. (DON’T KNOW)
Second Life will serve 20 billion minutes of calls. (DON’T KNOW)
Oprah’s television show will end as scheduled in 2011; lots of Skype calls in 2010 leading to the finale as former guests make cameo appearances, holding out for a spot on Oprah’s last (highest-rated-ever) episode. (NO. Oprah switches to Cisco.)
"The Tyra Banks Show" will end as scheduled in 2010. Nobody will Skype in. (YES)
UK police will allege terrorists use Skype (like everyone else). Parliament will demand the PM bring Skype under control. (NO. Surprisingly quiet on that front after previous lobbying.)
Skype 5.x will offer multiparty video. (YES)
Skype 5.x will offer team features. (NO)
Someone will attend a family funeral via Skype video. And forget they are on camera. (DON’T KNOW)
Skype will release a "naked Skype" public beta. This Skype engine, no user interface, will be free/cheap. Hardware developers will like it; web developers won’t. (NO/YES. SkypeKit released as a publicly-announced invitation-only limited private Beta program. Who’d have thought?)
Skypecasts will still be offline. (YES)
Facebook will add voice to chat. (NO. Despite partnering with Skype on directory services for “finding Skype friends in Facebook.)
Skype for Business will account for ten percent of Skype sales. (DON’T KNOW)
Nortel changes its name to Avaya. Or avice aversa. (NO. Assets sold to Avaya, Ericsson, Genband, Ciena, Kapsch; none keep the Nortel brand.)
The world economy will continue to suck. An American commercial real estate crisis will reinvigorate the Great Recession. Good news for Skype as more people work from home. (YES)
24‘s eighth season will feature Cisco’s new midrange video conferencing. (NO. Still just the highest end Telepresence products.)
Skype won’t offer a "Login with Skype" service. (YES)
Google Talk will add multiparty video with On2 inside, and become a standard part of the Google office suite. (NO)
Skypers post thousands of videos of Skype calls on YouTube, thanks to recording software. Jeremy Hague’s Vodburner outpaces Pamela as the bestselling Skype add in. (DON’T KNOW)
The US student loan crisis ($700 billion outstanding) strains consumer lending. (YES)
Skype starts a post-SIP standards discussion about communications protocols for the 21st century. (NO. No public discussion or progress on the ViPR protocols.)
Avaya will make Skype for SIP the default setting for new switches they sell. (NO. At least not yet.)
Skype manages to get a television commercial on the air. (NO. Waiting for new members of the UK Advertising Standards Authority?)
China’s troubled economy will boost Skype usage when families can’t afford to travel home for the Lunar New Year. (DON’T KNOW)
A team will talk for 200 hours in an uninterrupted Skype-to-Skype call. (NO)
Wi-Fi phones will ship with Skype SILK inside. (YES. See Grandstream.)
Six former Skype employees will become CxOs. (YES)
Someone dies, unable to Skype for emergency help. (DON’T KNOW)
You’ll be able to make iSkype voice calls on Verizon 3G before AT&T 3G. (NO)
100 handsets will run on Google’s Android. (YES)
Skype will release their homemade COTTON video codec, so they don’t have to use the ones from Google‘s On2. Higher quality. Easy, free license. Independence. (NO)
Skype.com still won’t let you log in with OpenID. (YES)
Windows Live Messenger gets a huge boost in new user signups from Bing, Office2010, Office Live, and Windows 7. Microsoft will rock in 2010. (YES)
LG ships a television with Skype inside. (NO)
Mobiletelco 3 ships its third generation Skypephone. (YES)
An angry entertainer tweets to a million followers her PC crashed and lost all her Skype history. So she’s switching to… (NO)
Skype opens a mobile research lab in India. (NO)
Gizmo5 features migrate to Google’s plumbing and Google Voice. (YES)
A Harvard Business Review case will feature a Skype-related issue. (NO)
A Fortune 500 company (not eBay) will provide Skype for Windows for their employees. (NO)
Volunteers phonebank using Skype on behalf of a national EU political candidate’s campaign’s. (NO)
A lobbyist slips a Skype-hostile measure into a US law on behalf of incumbent telcos before Skype can muster opposition. (NO. Weak net neutrality rules didn’t require laws).
The Skype store will sell a netbook with Skype preinstalled (NO).
A court will find Skype guilty in a class action suit related to collecting small sums of money from customers but not offering service or prompt refunds. (NO)
Skype will offer to buy Tokbox for its browser-based video. (DON’T KNOW)
Skype revenue per minute called will continue rising from $0.06 as Skype trunking starts to contribute. (DON’T KNOW)
Skype will top $900 million in revenue. (DON’T KNOW)
Skype will sell small businesses pricing plans making it easy to budget and buy. (NO)
An IETF working group publishes avatar portability protocols. (NO)
23 million people will log in to Skype at the same time. (YES. 25.)
180 million new Skype accounts, about 500k daily. (DON’T KNOW)
Skype loses juicy US government contracts over the TOM-Skype security compromises.You don’t know when someone you’re talking with is using a TOM-Skype client with monitoring software from Chinese security agencies. An audit will show Skype on 500K federal employee computers anyway. (NO)
Skype-like features become generic, included in every communications and collaboration product shown at Demo, TechCrunch50, Telephony Startup Camp and similar product launchpads. (YES)
BT/Ribbit adds video support to its platform for programmers. (NO)
Voicemail to email transcription becomes a standard feature in most markets for mobile and home phone service. (NO. I can’t honestly describe what I get in the email as transcription.)
United Nations rescue and recovery teams standardize on Skype. (NO. But almost!)
Skype sponsors a Festivus site for the public "airing of grievances" and videos of your "Feats of Strength." (NO. Dagnabit.)
Hudson Barton predicts a 2010 peak of 27,695,335 Skype users online, Total "real users" will be 67,596,505. (NO. A touch high on the peak: 25,706,903 actual. Same for Real Users: 61,507,824.)
Do you have 100 employees using Skype at one location?
Worried you won’t have enough Skype supernodes to go around?
Worry no more! Now you can buy the Reef9 Node Master for only $495. Just plug it in outside your firewall and watch it go. It will spin up dozens of Skype supernodes. Near your users and always on, so you always have the best access to the Skype network money can buy for just pennies a day. For an extra $45 per year, Reef9 will update your Skype clients with the latest in Skype P2P technology.
1. Don’t log out.Skype’s authentication server, the one that lets you log in, had some problems earlier today. Mostly fixed but still some problems with Skype.com. via Skype’s Heartbeat blog.
2. SMS sending problem. “Some of you may have problems sending text messages (SMS) with Skype at the moment. If a message fails, you’ll see a notification in Skype, and you won’t be charged for the message. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.” via Heartbeat. Wishlist: Online numbers receiving SMS. Wishlist: competitive prices for SMS.
3. Seven years and still no Skype.com phone number. Dan York, who blogs about telephony and frequently blogs about Skype, is the lucky recipient of customer service calls referred by two credit card companies. I suppose Skype is not ready to staff a call center for 600 million customers in every language on earth.
6. Tom Keating reviews the In Store Solutions FREETALK Connect Skype PBX. “Overall, I was pretty impressed with the FREETALK Connect and would not hesitate to recommend it to SMBs looking for a feature-rich IP-PBX that is easy to maintain and doesn’t break the bank.”
Skype’s mobile bizdev execs trumped Skype’s platform technology execs. Skype could have waived their ToS, permitted a one-off license, and brought Nimbuzz (or Fring, for that matter) into the Skype family with early access to SkypeKit for their gateways. Skype was not interested. Skype never offered and their insistence was the same: Stop using Skype in your service. Nimbuzz plans a graceful shutdown of Skype service, starting Sunday, 31 October 2010. I concur with Om that this was Skype choosing to put their mobile handset and mobile operator relationships ahead of their present and future developer ecosystem.
I spoke with Nimbuzz’s Tobias Kemper in August, right after Skype had Fring shut down its mobile Skype client and Skype gateway. He was hoping to formalize his relationship with Skype and to include SkypeKit in his product. He wanted better tools from Skype. He wanted help delivering Skype services to Nimbuzz customers on devices and markets Skype was not able to serve. This is the very center of the idea of platforming. Skype let its lawyers and dealmakers hammer another nail in Skype’s future as a communications cloud provider.
"We’re offering you a 15% bonus credit to use on NimbuzzOut. That’s 15% extra on top of the credits you want to purchase. To access the 15% bonus credit, go to http://www.nimbuzzout.com and once logged-in, use this code NIMBUZZ15 (valid until end of November 2010)."
From Skype’s PR firm:
What did Nimbuzz violate?
We believed and were concerned that Nimbuzz’s application was in violation of Skype’s API Terms of Use and End User License Agreement (EULA). Skype offered to meet with Nimbuzz and discuss the issue; however, we have not heard back from them since our last correspondence with them in early August. Like any company that has APIs or an SDK, Skype has certain rules that guide the development of apps using those tools. Such rules help protect the Skype brand and our end user experience.
Does Skype block mobile developers?
Currently, our APIs and SDK are designed for third-party hardware and desktop software application development. Distribution of a third-party Skype developer application through a mobile phone network operator or mobile handset manufacturer is only permitted with the prior written consent of Skype. Because of the way our software works and the differences between the mobile and PC ecosystems, we have these rules in place to protect the Skype brand and Skype user experience. To ensure this, we only work with mobile operators and handset manufacturers committed to delivering the best Skype user experience, as we’ve shown with 3, Nokia, Verizon and, most recently, KDDI.
What is Skype’s platform strategy?
We envision a future where every connected device will be a communications device. We believe that Skype is the Internet communications platform of choice and we want to make Skype available through an abundance of Internet connected devices and software platforms. Our strategy for achieving this vision is to provide developers with the tools they need to innovate and enhance our connected future with voice and video communications.
What is the difference between Skype’s public API and the new SkypeKit?
Skype’s Public API, which has been available for a number of years already, is a great solution for hardware accessories such as headsets and webcams that connect to Skype’s standard desktop clients. However, ever since we released the API developers have been asking for a solution that works WITHOUT the Skype desktop application. Enter SkypeKit. Think of SkypeKit as a "headless" version of Skype — that is, a Skype client with no user interface that runs invisibly, not only on PCs, but also TVs, notebooks, and other Internet connected devices. Developers communicate with SkypeKit through the SkypeKit API, surfacing Skype features (i.e., IM, voice or video calls) through their own applications.
His departure is bad for Skype, bad for Microsoft, and bad for Skype’s users. This is good for rivals who understand github culture, developer programs, cloud operations, and API business strategy. Here’s why:
Phil Wolff designs and positions 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 Journalis independent of Skype.
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