Yesterday Skype released Skype for Windows 5.6 continuing the process of new releases every two to three months. This release incorporates several incremental changes that modify the user experience. And expanding on the recent incorporation of advertising into other Skype clients (Mac/iPhone/iPad/Android), Skype for Windows now has advertising for those who do not have one of Skype credit, a Skype Calling Plan subscription or a Skype Premium subscription.

The changes involve:

• Screen sharing improvements
• New “getting started” experience
• Moved “Call Phones” button into the frame at upper left with Skype Credit
• Call monitor window widget with call controls when in another application
• Compact mode viewing does not launch Skype Home window on startup

Installing this version from the file download (automatic update was not available at time of writing) takes one through the startup process to set up audio and video devices as well as the profile picture:

Of course for a new user, the Skype account creation process precedes this setup wizard.

If you are in a call and move to another application window a “Call Monitor” widget pops up on the desktop, as shown on the right, with call control buttons for mic muting and ending the call. This is one feature that had been on Skype for Mac 5.x for a while.  Returning to the Skype client’s window restores the full call window with the profile picture or video image.

While the call management bar icon for going to full screen has changed slightly, one can still go full screen for video to get a telepresence effect on larger displays.

One major change relates to screen sharing. Whereas previously one could only share a full desktop, it is now possible to select a window to share; this certainly assists with any privacy issues when sharing a desktop.

On selecting the sharing icon from the call management bar, one selects “Share entire screen” which, in turn brings up the Sharing Screen (below, left). (Might the availability of screen sharing options be more obvious if the menu item simply said “Show Screen Sharing”.)

Clicking on the arrow at the lower right brings up the selection of the Full Screen or a Window. The latter will show thumbnails for all the windows open on the desktop; select one for sharing:

The other party’s screen is shown below where the sharer’s avatar remains; recall that screen sharing takes over the video channel’s stream:

While this change certainly is an enhancement of the screen sharing feature, there is still no screen sharing available for Group Video Calling, a feature that was introduced on the recently launched Skype for Mac 5.4.

Finally there were many complaints from those using Compact View about having Skype Home coming up when they logged in. This has been addressed; now when a user logs in and has selected Compact View they will not get a Skype Home display.

Bottom Line: Several “incremental” changes but combined they are significant enough to improve the overall user experience. Lack of screen sharing for Group Video calling is a disappointment; let’s hope it’s in the next upgrade. On the other hand the Call Monitor window is very handy allowing some level of call control while in other windows/applications. And I would still like to see the Call Quality Information feature over in Skype for Mac; it’s the handiest tool for ensuring a caller has the appropriate hardware and Internet connection.

At the time of writing the automatic update to Skype 5.6 had not been triggered; this will occur within a few days. In the meantime download Skype for Windows 5.6 here.

Following the Mood Messages of a Skype employee in my Skype Conversations window I came across this last Friday: “brand new version of Skype To Go available. Dead simple to use, nothing to download, call directly from your contact list !” Curious, I went to my Skype To Go subscription where I found all six of my Skype To Go contacts had suddenly, and spontaneously, sprouted individual 647 numbers (647 being the overlay area code for Toronto’s legacy 416 area code).

Previously I had a single Toronto-based Skype To Go number which I would call to access one of my six contacts by selecting a number between “1” and “6” when I called the number. This process, using a Bluetooth connection between my BlackBerry and car audio system,  meant my “hands free” calling to this number in my car required that I actually use the keypad on my car’s “phone” panel. The new Skype To Go resolves this issue and more.

Here’s what’s new:

• Up to nine Skype To Go contacts can be designated; each with an individual Skype To Go number
• Up to five of your mobile or landline phones can be registered as valid phones to use these numbers
• When calling from a registered phone to one of the nine contacts, there is no need to wait for any voice prompts; the connection is now immediately made.
• Validated with a PIN and entering one of the registered phones’ numbers, one can call these numbers from any other phone.
• You register also the Country and Area Code you are calling from. When you move to another Country you can change the registered Country and get new local phones numbers for each of your Skype To Go contacts. But when you return to your “home” country you will get back your original Skype To Go numbers.
• The listing also shows what your charges are to these numbers below the destination number.
• You can select which of the registered numbers you want to display as your callerID when making these calls.
• What’s not changed? Your old Skype To Go number which you can still use for calling numbers not included in your Skype To Go contact list.

Skype To Go numbers can be obtained in 23 countries (note that Canada was added earlier this year):

So what’s the cost?

• If the number called is on one of your Skype subscription plans, there is no charge to landlines and mobiles in the eight countries with totally unlimited calling; for the 33 countries with unlimited calling to landlines only you pay the going Skype calling rate for calls to mobile phones (for instance, $0.317 per minute to mobile numbers in Spain). Note that Skype’s fair usage policy applies.
  
• If not on a subscription you pay, via Skype credits, the normal SkypeOut charges plus a connection fee.

Bottom line: I can now make totally hands free calls to these nine “most frequent” contacts using Skype To Go from my car via my BlackBerry or iPhone simply by pressing the “Enter” button on my steering wheel and saying “Call [Name] Other”. To simplify this process I have recorded these Skype To Go numbers under “Other” in my smartphone and Outlook address books. Back to total compliance with Ontario law regarding use of mobile phones while driving.

The bonus: I added my wife’s BlackBerry as a registered phone and she gets to call three relatives in another Canadian city at no cost when calling from Toronto’s rather large local calling area, encompassing four area codes. (With 90% of  its population spread out across a belt 100 miles wide and 4,000 miles long, Canada still has long distance charges, although they are gradually evaporating into carrier calling plans at low or no cost.)

When I interviewed Skype CEO Josh Silverman at CES 2010 in January, I had asked about the timing for a Skype IPO. Josh’s response:

“We’ll see. We don’t have a timeline for it. Our focus is to build a really great company. When we’re ready and the markets are ready, we’ll consider an IPO. At some point investors will want an exit, of course, but they’ re really taking  a long term point-of-view. This is not a quick flip; this is about building one of the great companies of technology.”

Today “long term” was defined as something between nine and fourteen months. Nine months after being taken private by an investment group lead by Silver Lake, Skype announced, through a blog post by Josh Silverman, they had filed a preliminary prospectus for an IPO. With a road show and other pre-IPO activities we’re probably three to five months from seeing the final transaction happen.

The prospectus makes for interesting read about both Skype’s business model and the communications infrastructure transition wrought by new technologies. Key Skype performance data includes:

• 2010 Jan-Jun revenues of $406.2MM vs same period 2009 of $324.8MM, an increase of 25.1%
• “Adjusted” EBITDA increase by 59.3% from $75.2MM to 115.8MM over the same periods
• $37MM in capital expenditures budgeted for 2010 vs $13.5MM spent in 2009

and some interesting user data:

One should really think of “Registered Users” as “Registered Accounts”. Especially with Skype for Business becoming more active, there will be a rise in accounts but lots of reasons for stagnant or dead accounts. (Personally I manage, via Skype Manager, over 25 accounts with about 15 users but really only use two of them for my own ongoing activities. The other users were created for one or more business activities and )

Most interesting are the “connected users” numbers, defined as “average monthly number for the three months ended [on] the date [shown on the x-axis]”. While Skype is showing a current number of 124 million“connected users” for the quarter ended Jun30, 2010  Hudson Barton’s “real users” number – which is more an indication of daily users on line is currently running at about 60 million.

The increase in paying users is the most significant number of interest. The prospectus confirms that SkypeOut represents Skype’s number one source of revenue and this number is the best indicator of how quickly these revenues can grow.

One other interesting metric relates to calling minutes, broken down as”

• Communications services billing minutes (SkypeOut minutes): from 5.0B in H1 2009 to 6.4B in H1 2010, a 28% increase somewhat consistent with the revenue increase, and
• Skype-to-Skype minutes: from 49.1 billion in H1 2009 to 88.4 billion in H1 2010, a 80% increase confirming that “free” really is the key marketing strategy for increasing Skype users and Skype usage.

Bottom line: Skype continues to grow at double digit rates but they are about to enter a phase where marketing activities and business communications services will become vital to sustaining its growth. Yet, regulatory and competitive issues will also become a significant factor and a real test of how willing governments are able to adapt to technological change as opposed to sustaining cost-inefficient legacy telecommunications operations whose fundamental business models are threatened. For the first time, we’ll be able to view quarterly the business success of Skype as an independent business operation.

There’s lots of other interesting marketing information and financial data in the prospectus but that leaves room for additional posts. And the statements re regulatory issues have the makings of several discussions.

Note that while $100MM has been put out as the amount to be raised, it was apparently only used as a metric to assist with determining SEC filing fees. The actual amount to be raised has yet to be announced.

Other posts:

• Dan York, Disruptive Communications: Skype, less than a year after eBay sale, files for $100 million IPO
• Business Insider SAI: Skype Spent $343.8 Million To Acquire Its P2P Software From Founders
• Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch: Skype To Go Public makes a couple of interesing points:

Now, going public brings with it a whole new set of responsibilities, not only SEC quarterly reporting.

For Skype’s lead investors, Silver Lake Partners, this is their opportunity to cash out. For many of the employees at Skype this is their chance for a nice reward for all the hard work they’ve put in over the past year.

• GigaOm: Skype Files for IPO

Related articles by Zemanta

• Skype Going Public With $100 Million IPO (thenextweb.com)
• Skype files for IPO (theglobeandmail.com)
• Skype Files For $100 Million IPO (techcrunch.com) (This one includes a block diagram of the various companies involved)
• Internet calling service Skype files for IPO (sfgate.com)
• GIPS, Google and All That Co-opetition Jazz! (voiceontheweb.biz)
• SkypeKit: “Naked” Skype Support Arrives for Hardware-Embedded Skype and PC Applications (voiceontheweb.biz)

Three weeks after announcing SkypeKit for Linux, Skype has lived up to its commitment to provide support for Windows and Mac OS X.

What does this mean for future deployment of Skype access?

Basically the ability to embed Skype within a third party Windows and/or Mac OS X application without the need for the Skype client to be open. Whereas the target developer audience for SkypeKit for Linux is probably hardware developers, there is now an offering available for software developers. From Jonathan’s post linked above:

Today, Skype is taking the next step by announcing a new version of the SkypeKit Beta SDK that works on Windows (x86) and Mac OS X. Now multiple desktop applications can offer Skype conversations — including video, voice, and text — without the need for users to separately download Skype software.

Look forward to seeing the innovation, especially with respect to video, in deploying Skype Everywhere within these future third party offerings.

Related articles by Zemanta

• SkypeKit SDK beta gains Windows and Mac support (slashgear.com)
• Skype’s SDK arrives in beta for Windows, Mac (download.cnet.com)
• Skype Announces Mac, Windows Support for SkypeKit (pcworld.com)
• SkypeKit to allow integration of Skype into all web-based devices (boygeniusreport.com)
• SkypeKit: Easily Building VoIP Into Any Application (fastcompany.com)
• It’s Been a Week for New Skype Video Experiences (voiceontheweb.biz)

This is another in my catch-up series (first post here) – and I’m slow in getting a second one out. About three weeks ago Phil and I wrote three posts about SightSpeed’s new partnership with Dell where SightSpeed is providing the infrastructure for Dell Video Chat. In my second post I discussed the role CxO’s play in bringing business to technology. This triggered SightSpeed CEO Peter Csathy to write a post: Speculation about SightSpeed’s Partnership Success – "How Do They Do It?" Peter talks about other partnerships SightSpeed has built over the past five years:

It may surprise many folks that we also have long established partnerships with Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Ask.com, Creative, VTEL, Ezonics and others, as well as long-standing relationships with major media companies like Viacom (MTV and Nickelodeon) and Disney (ABC News).

and goes on to talk about how SightSpeed powered, for MTV, the first Internet video and webcam infrastructure that allowed home viewers to participate live on-the-air. More recently we have seen Skype’s High Quality Video being used by Oprah to do live interviews from homes and other remote locations.

But more importantly Peter goes on to discuss four key factors in successful partnering:

• You must be best in class period
• You must be flexible, open and standards-based
• You must be built to partner, partnership friendly and partnership proven
• You must have the right team and passion

No argument with the first and last. With respect to the second, while the past decade has opened up new worlds, through technology development, for partnering, the technology business world is still learning the balancing act where it can be open and where it can effectively use proprietary technology. Bottom line to me with any communications service is "can I easily make the connection and have a conversation that is transparent to the technology?"

With respect to the third, I can now talk in retrospect from experience in my Quarterdeck days. QEMM was architected as one interlinked software "blob" such that we missed many OEM opportunities for potential partners who wanted what amounted to an API to only a few individual features. Architecting software for partnership has become a fundamental business development criteria. But partnership is also about building business partnerships where the "rules of the game" are adequately defined and agreed upon, where business standards, in addition to technology standards, are established and met and where successful execution happens almost spontaneously.

Read Peter’s post in its entirety; lots of experience and lessons that can help everyone in today’s highly interwoven technology businesses.

(Photo taken during a meeting with Peter at CES 2008)

Tags: SightSpeed, Peter Csathy, Skype High Quality Video, QEMM, MTV, Oprah, partnerships, business development

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Send faxes via PamFax for €0.14 (a 17% reduction) or, if on a PamFax Professional or PrePaid Pack plan, as low as €0.09.

Since last summer Skype Journal has been reporting on the evolution of PamFax, which allows Skype users to send faxes anywhere worldwide from your laptop in as few as five mouse clicks. Source documents can be locally scanned hard copy or electronic documents in any of 100 file formats, including Office and PDF documents. PamFax can also act as a Windows printer. This weekend last summer’s Skype Mashup Contest winner has added several new features:

• An interface for both Facebook and Salesforce.com. The Facebook interface provides your PamFax history and has a link to launch PamFax to send another fax. If you have activated a “still-in-beta” version of the Skype Toolbar for Firefox, the PamFax “Click-to-Fax” icon becomes activated. If you’re a Facebook member, you can add the Facebook interface here.

In Salesforce.com, the integration goes much further: You not only have the fax history embedded in Salesforce, but you also have the ability to start a fax from any Contact, Account, User or Lead! So no more copy&paste to send a fax to one of your contacts, as PamFax starts with name and fax number prefilled and you only have to select what you want to fax and then send the fax.

• Improved startup and performance speeds. PamConsult has invested heavily in infrastructure that accelerates the startup time (probably the major feedback complaint) and also makes the entire faxing process much more responsive. To take advantage of this feature you will need to upgrade to PamFax 1.0.0.34 client, either manually from the PamFax Home page or, after next weekend once Skype has released a new version of the Skype Extras Gallery, an automatic upgrade when you launch PamFax.
• The most significant announcement this weekend is a price reduction for Pay-As-You-Go users and Premium Packs for frequent or high volume users. Highlights:
  • Pay-As-You-Go: has been reduced from €0.17 to €0.14 (~US$0.22¹) for Zone 1 faxes with reductions to other destination zones as well.
  • PamFax Professional Plan: €2.95 (~US$4.70) per month provides a 35% discount of standard page pricing, starting at €0.09 for Zone 1.
  • Prepaid Packs: buy a pack and get a “per fax” discount. Starts at 10% for a €30 Pack to 40% for a €1000 Pack.

Having grown from 25,000 registered users back in April to over 52,000 users today, primarily in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Italy, Germany, Russia and France, PamFax is definitely filling a user need, especially for both the road warrior who needs to send a fax from any Internet connection and situations where hard copy needs to be exchanged instantly in a trackable manner. About 40% of users are paying via Skype credits while others are paying via PayPal or Amazon Payments.

Previous PamFax Posts:

• PamFax Receives Skype Certification, Grows Usage
• PamFax to the Rescue
• Mashup Champion PamFax Becomes a Full Fax Sending Solution
• PamFax: Sending Faxes via Skype

¹US$ conversions based on current rates (€1.00 = US$1.585) and are subject to currency market changes.

Tags: PamFax, PamConsult, Skype, PayPal, Amazon Payment, Fax Service, Fax

On Wednesday eBay released their quarterly financial results, including an update on Skype usage. This chart presents the trend lines over the past year.

The only other information that came out in the call:

• Over 25% of all Skype-to-Skype calls involve video
• Skype is "double-digit" profitable (along with PayPal)

Comments:

• It is apparent that the MySpace agreement contributed to the accelerated growth in Q4-07.
• For the first time, during this quarter, the daily growth volume itself has dropped off.
• While Skype-to-Skype minutes tracked along with increased accounts in the previous two quarters, why have the growth of these minutes dropped significantly to 4% in a quarter where new account registrations rose by 8%? (And the Skype-to-Skype minutes growth rate itself dropped off significantly.)
• This usage level is consistent with the fact that concurrent online users still has not passed 13 million at its daily peak, yet grew significantly from 10 to 12 million in the previous quarter.
• U.S. revenue growth has definitely stalled; yet international continues to move forward.

But here is the big question:

• Account registrations grew by 28..9 million accounts in the past quarter
• According to Hudson Barton’s "Real User" estimates (which are somewhat consistent with the "concurrent users online" numbers in terms of growth) Skype usage has only grown by 2 to 3 million "real users".

What has happened such that the other 26 million to 27 million "new accounts" are effectively inactive?

• I recall that, when WinFax Lite used to be offered in almost every software package in the mid-90′s, the upgrade rate used to be about 1% go 2% and was consistent with most "free introductions" of popular PC software
• Here we do see here a take-up rate of about 10% to 15%, so certainly this growth is consistent with Skype having a "free" offering for Skype-to-Skype calls.
• New account registrations is not necessarily reflective of new users as a single user can have multiple accounts for various reasons. And, as with all user data bases, the longer term information incorporated into this number goes stale over time.

The Skype 4.0 beta program has been designed to build into the user experience feedback from both legacy and new users. But there has to be more than the user interface as a factor involved that leads to this relatively low take-up rate. Candidates for consideration could include:

• End point user configurations that lead to bad experiences?
• Attempts to install on too many sub-1GHz PC’s?
• Bad end user network connections?
• Poor quality "home" routers that cannot handle voice packets in real time appropriately?
• Insufficient or incomplete technical support resources?

Let’s hope Skype’s market research moves beyond simply drilling down on the user interface experience. This is definitely a statistic that needs further investigation. Definitely I have had good to excellent experience with Skype, including video calling, over time but does that have to do with my own configuration which I tend to upgrade from time-to-time? Am I too "technically competent"?

And this discrepancy is one more reason why eBay should be reporting the number of users who actually made a Skype call during the "reported" quarter. This would be much closer to the real picture of Skype usage. As with MacDonald’s "over X billion sold" where it represents real hamburgers, it is only fair to provide both shareholders and analysts with a much meatier picture. (All the publicly listed telcos have no problem providing this information.) The number of active SkypeOut accounts would also supply a better handle.

This is both a challenge and the "missed opportunity" for Skype’s new management team to address. And maybe an issue for not only eBay’s investor relations activities but also at some point it may draw the attention of the SEC.

Sorry folks, but I can provide some practical case situations involving companies reporting "vague" or inconsistent numbers; the final outcomes were not pretty. In this case the reported data is not fraudulent nor would this data, at the current Skype revenue level as a % of eBay revenues, severely impact eBay’s financial results but it is misrepresentation of the true Skype picture.

Tags: Skype, eBay, Hudson Barton, Borderless Communicator, eBay Q2-08 financial results, MySpace

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Since 1996 I have been involved in buying Dell laptops and desktop PC’s, not only for my own use but also helping friends and non-profits acquire PC’s for their personal and business needs. A constant throughout most of that period was that each of these PC’s came with a digital media offering called Musicmatch. Not only an audio player, Musicmatch’s client could also “rip” CD’s and assist in managing your media library. In fact, I even bought a couple of upgrades to their premium service over the years. MusicMatch, Inc. was led by current SightSpeed CEO Peter Csathy. From his SightSpeed bio:

Csathy previously served as president and COO of Musicmatch, Inc., where he was responsible for driving the company’s distribution and content strategies, managing strategic partnerships, and overseeing the company’s business development, sales, legal and finance activities. Yahoo! acquired Musicmatch in 2004.

Aside from selling Musicmatch into what has become the Yahoo black hole of services at an opportune time when Apple’s iPod and iTunes offerings were resetting the business model for music acquisition and playing, Peter developed a network of contacts, business relationship experience and trust at Dell such that coming back to Dell for a SightSpeed partnership with Dell Video Chat was probably “a natural” on both Dell’s and SightSpeed’s part. Getting technology to market is not simply about the technology; it’s about developing trusted business partnerships and executing across the network. Terms and Conditions of this new agreement probably reflect on their previous business experience as much as on the boiler plate lawyers wanted to include. CxO’s are hired not only for their management experience but also for the network of contacts they can bring to the table.

While Phil makes some excellent points about why SightSpeed was able to complete a deal with Dell, I think the overriding factor in SightSpeed’s new Dell partnership is more a result of previous network contacts accompanied by business relationship experience in building a service as opposed to Skype simply “losing” a deal. The challenge for SightSpeed is now to build additional partnerships with other vendors and social networking offerings beyond these legacy relationships. The good news for end users is that there are two different conversation infrastructure offerings out there that can only build consumer awareness of what can be done to bring new real time conversation user experiences when incorporated into consumer businesses with extensive user bases.

Over at Skype we’re starting to see the evolution of Skype as a true business built on the foundation of Skype’s conversation infrastructure software. It’s not a case of just starting with Josh Silverman’s appointment as CEO but his building an experienced CxO management team that can make the operation run smoothly and avoid fiasco’s such as the loss of “0207″ numbers in London last fall. Expect to see a seasoned CMO, as effectively called for in my Primer series posts last fall, and, with the complex mix of technology now embedded in Skype as its most critical asset, a CTO at some point in the near future. This is not based on any information from within Skype; it’s the natural evolution of a maturing company now being led by a business savvy Stanford MBA CEO and a Harvard MBA COO who has taken on a much wider range of challenges and experiences in his life than your average CxO.

Ironically, as a prior relationship revealed in Howard Wolinsky’s interview with recently appointed Skype COO Scott Durchslag posted yesterday, it will be interesting to see whether Scott’s previous business relationship at Motorola with Ron Garriques — now President of Dell’s Global Consumer Group — will result in any innovative new initiatives between Skype and Dell in the future. More importantly for Skype, however, would be the wireless carrier relationships Scott had to build in helping to make the Motoroal RAZR the success that it was.

It’s the mix of leadership, management experience, marketing programs, business networks and technology assets, combined with passionate employee teams, that will make both Skype and SightSpeed winners in their respective business and market spheres.

Last week Dell launched its new Studio line of laptops. According to Mobile Review (17") and PC Mag (15") — both of which gave them an "Editor’s Choice" designation, this line is a cross of the Inspiron consumer line’s pricing and the XPS laptops’ reputation for having "desktop" horsepower. Apparently the ability to make a fashion statement in selection of the color scheme is also a key feature. And it includes a 2 megapixel built-in webcam.

We are also at a stage where the consumer community is starting to grow awareness of real time video communications. The Mac’s iChat feature has been instrumental in introducing a new generation to video calling. But video requires more PC horsepower (processor speeds, better audio and video device management), improved webcam technology (such as the Logitech Carl-Zeiss optics webcams), more effective user interfaces and high quality broadband (at a minimum) Internet connections. We have witnessed the expansion of Skype’s video calling to the point where apparently 28% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes now include video as a component of the conversation. Certainly Skype’s High Quality Video has changed me from a lethargic occasional user of video calling to one who uses it for most of my Skype calls.

As noted in the Dell press release, the launch of Dell’s Studio line is accompanied by the introduction of Dell Video Chat, powered by SightSpeed, a pioneer, since the "last" Comdex in 2002, in providing the infrastructure for real time video conversations. I have been a follower of their evolution since that launch and watched as they established a market niche for video messaging and SightSpeed for Business (initially allowing 4-way multi-party video conversations but recently enhanced to support 9-way multi-party video conversations). Dell Video Chat for Dell Studio laptop owners includes not only the basic free features associated with SightSpeed but also the 4-way multi-party video chat, unlimited video storage and other features of SightSpeed’s Plus service. SightSpeed’s press release lists all the features.

While Dell Video Chat presents to the user a redesigned, more user-friendly user interface, incorporating feedback from SightSpeed users, the underlying infrastructure is basically that available with SightSpeed; however, a few key features of note:

• The new user interface has separate tabs readily leading to video, voice and text chat conversations.
• 4-way multi-party video chat sessions is Dell Video Chat’s and SightSpeed’s most significant differentiating feature. Multi-party conversations can be launched and expanded from within a video chat session without the need to restart a call.
• It incorporates the ability to send video mail messages when a contact is not available, a long time unique feature of SightSpeed’s service.
• SightSpeed recently upgraded its service to provide improved handling of, and adjustment to, users’ Internet network connection conditions.
• It incorporates free VoIP-based calling to other Dell Video Chat contacts; calls can be made to the PSTN at the usual low rates of most VoIP services with this offering (with the exception of calls to mobile numbers outside North America).
• There is a "Video Privacy" button that allows you to turn on/off transmission of your video images.

In order that friends and colleagues who do not have a Dell Studio laptop can communicate with Dell Studio owners using Dell Video Chat, a Dell Video Chat client is also available for download and installation on both Windows and Mac platforms. It works with most webcams; however, for the best video experience I have to recommend the Logitech QuickCam Pro webcams with Carl-Zeiss optics; this was confirmed in a couple of SightSpeed test calls with Andy Abramson at VoIP Watch.. These users obtain the free basic SightSpeed features but must upgrade to the Plus service to obtain services such as hosting 4-way video calls¹, extended video mail recording and unlimited storage.

Some observations, incorporating comments from an interview with SightSpeed CEO Peter Csathy:

• Dell Video Chat is most obviously Dell’s response to the popularity of the Mac’s iChat service.
• Dell Video Chat will primarily build a user based as new Dell Studio PC’s are acquired; currently my contact list is very limited (to SightSpeed personnel and affiliates). Apparently we can expect to see Dell Video Chat coming with other Dell laptops and Dell desktops in the future. Building a user base will be SightSpeed’s and Dell’s major challenge in a world with users already subscribed to any of iChat, MSN Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and, of course, Skype.
• The new Dell Video Chat interface is not only a more pleasing skin; it provides an improved user experience relative to the SightSpeed client.
• Through Dell as a partner channel SightSpeed will certainly build awareness of real time video conversations as a low cost communications tool.
• The Dell Video Chat relationship is an initial partner in SightSpeed’s goal to provide real time video calling infrastructure services to other platforms and possibly social media networks.
• Anne at Dell’s Your Blog says, So Easy Your Mom Can Do It.

And a few comments:

• With Firefox approaching a 20% market share it would be nice if the web links from SightSpeed’s clients would recognize the user’s default browser settings instead of forcing Internet Explorer to open.
• Currently SightSpeed’s technology requires 1.5 MHz Internet upload connections speed to transmit 640 x 480 VGA video at 30 frames per second, well above the <1Mbps speed available with widely deployed consumer (cable and DSL) broadband services. As result broadband users can only expect to see 320 x 240 resolution. While providing a more than acceptable video call quality for video conversations, this resolution does not have the psychological impact of 640 x 480 @ 30 fps found with Skype’s High Quality Video over consumer broadband connections.
• Audio quality: While the Dell Studio laptops are equipped with array microphone and speaker hardware that take care of echo cancellation, using SightSpeed from other platforms appears to require headsets to take care of potential echo cancellation issues. Most of my Skype conversations, incorporating Skype’s inherent echo cancellation feature, are with users on both Mac and Windows PC’s who find they can converse quite satisfactorily using their PC’s inherent mic and speakers. My only use of a headset is when there are privacy issues or I don’t want to disturb nearby colleagues. And, to date, I have not experienced on SightSpeed-to-SightSpeed conversations the quality of Skype’s HD Voice with its wide audio bandwidth on Skype-to-Skype conversations .

The IP communications space thrives on both innovation and competition. SightSpeed has, since my initial experience several years ago, been a leader in real time video communications. There is still a huge learning curve out there for the consumer public to become familiar with the concept of low cost IP-based communications, especially real time video calling. The SightSpeed team is passionately committed to providing high quality services; when encountering some initial problems with running the latest SightSpeed upgrade and Dell Video Chat, they immediately addressed the issues (and have probably made some unannounced service modifications). Dell Video Chat will provide a much broader public with an IP-based video communications experience, much as the Mac has introduced video, text and voice communications through its iChat service. Finding market niches such as video messaging, SightSpeed for Business and infrastructure services such as Dell Video Chat are building for SightSpeed a business that has both the potential for profitability as well as a being a more than competent player in the IP-based communications space.

As for selecting a service it’s up to you as an end user to determine which services both meet your needs and are most easily implemented and operated. Dell Video Chat and SightSpeed are definitely worth a try for the user experience.

For more information about SightSpeed listen to Squawk Box’s recent interview with SightSpeed COO Scott Lomond.

Previous Posts:

• The "No Hardwadre" Movement Continues: SIghtSpeed Offers Video Communications Services for Business
• Video Here, Video There, Video Everywhere
• To Each Its Own; There’s Personal Video and Then There’s Personal Video
• SightSpeed: Focusing on Personal Video Services

¹Only the host of a multi-party video chat session needs to be a subscriber to the SightSpeed Plus service or its Dell Video Chat equivalent; other participants in the call simply need the Dell Video Chat client.

Tags: SightSpeed, Dell Video Chat, Dell Studio, SightSpeed for Business, video messaging, iChat, Skype High Quality Video, Skype, Peter Csathy

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Ever since it was launched at what turned out to be the last Comdex a few years ago, SightSpeed has always impressed with its video technology leadership. They have established a position as a leader in video messaging and, more recently, took feedback from small business users to build a business video conferencing service complete with an administration panel. Its key feature is the ability to host four-participant video conferences. SightSpeed also includes voice calling services with the usual free VoIP calls to other SightSpeed users and low cost tolled calls to the PSTN.

Recently, although they failed to identify it via the traditional ".x" version numbering as an upgrade, SightSpeed recently announced they were offering improved service quality through engineering improvements related to the underlying packet handling infrastructure. This upgrade comes automatically when you initially launch a previously installed SightSpeed. However SightSpeed still requires 1.5 Mbps Internet upload connections to operate at the 640 x 480 VGA resolution achieved by Skype’s High Quality Video at a minimum 384 kbps upload speed. And whereas download speeds on most consumer (cable and DSL) broadband services can range from 3 Mbps upwards, upload speeds on these services tend to cap out around 1 Mbps. SightSpeed still has barriers to cross to achieve the psychologically impressive video performance of Skype’s High Quality Video on consumer grade Internet connections. Frankly it is the quality of Skype’s High Quality Video which has driven me to want to use video on most of my Skype calls. Crisp, sharp, no graininess and even at full screen little, if any, pixelation.

One readily observable difference related to this announcement is the availability of 9-participant video conferencing as a feature of the SightSpeed for Business service. My major question even about 4-party video conferencing is how many talking heads do you want to see on a laptop screen? Desktop sharing and full web conferencing in a conference call has priority for me over the ability to see the other call participants.

On the purely commercial side of SightSpeed, a few days ago Dell launched a new Studio series of prosumer laptops that incorporate a new Dell Video Chat service powered by SightSpeed. Having observed the popularity and acceptance of the Mac’s iChat service, this has to be Dell’s response to that service. While pre-installed on Dell’s new Studio laptops, others can install access the service via a download. I took the time to check it out. It turns out to be the previous SightSpeed version 6 service’s client with a new skin and offers to upgrade to other SightSpeed premium video and voice services. This will certainly broaden and propel the consumer introduction to video calling as Dell expands its Video Chat service onto other platforms.

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With the emergence of iPhone 3G and Blackberry Bold, certainly from a North American perspective, one has to wonder where Nokia is heading in the smartphone space. Certainly a clue evolved Tuesday when Nokia announced they were acquiring the remainder of Symbian they did not already own for $410 million along with a plan to put the key intellectual property assets into an open source “Symbian Foundation” under an Eclipse Public License. And they convinced other partners with a Symbian interest to also join the Foundation and contribute assets. Read Ed Burnette’s full post for his analysis of winners and losers.

Om then wrote one of his epic posts, “Symbian, iPhone and the New Reality” where he talked the realities of today’s mobile business:

1. Handset makers need to accelerate the release of their phones much faster than the current 12-to-18 month production cycles or run the risk of getting RAZR-d into oblivion, like Motorola.
2. Phones are now a fashion business in that you’re only as good as your last model. Phone makers need to release new models as quickly (if not faster) as Parisian couture makers if they want to remain hot and gain sizable share of the handset market.
3. They subsequently can’t afford to muck around with proprietary software platforms that can take months to be approved by the mobile carriers.
4. Carriers want standardization because they want to deploy applications quickly, without having to test them on different handsets — a slow and laborious process.
5. Users want high-end, smartphone-like features on low-end phones.

Om goes on to discuss how the industry is changing such that not only are software platforms the only way to withstand this commoditization but also how Apple is changing the game with their overall distribution control and management of third party applications. Fundamentally third party developers can focus on development and marketing while they let Apple take care of the business development overhead by Apple’s facilitating the carrier availability, the distribution and the transactions.

Yesterday I was asked to be guest host of Squawk Box where we got into an interesting discussion around this subject, involving at least one developer participant in this scenario, William Volk at My Numo, and industry participants PhoneBoy and Dan York. You can go to the SaundersLog post to hear the entire discussion.

P.S. — Want to see a prime example of Om’s “smartphone realities” – check out the Skypephone: low cost, media-savvy, carrier friendly (and no recruitment subsidy required), third party software platform and “cool” (read fashion statement), in the countries where it is available.

Tags: Nokia, Symbian, iPhone, Squawk Box, SaundersLog, Om Malik, GigaOm, Ed Brunette

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iotum’s Squawk Box conference call has become a daily staple for many participants and observers in the X 2.0 world. Subjects can ranges from new Voice 2.0 services, the wireless communications world, intellectual property and copyright law through to social networking issues. It’s a unique chance to catch up on current developments and discuss them with peers who bring their own special experience and knowledge to the conversation Access was originally for Facebook members via iotum’s Free Conference Call service but is now accessible by anyone who registers,.

Tomorrow (Friday, June 20) at 10:55 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) Squawk Box’s guest will be Mike Bartlett, Skype’s Product Manager for Skype for Windows. Mike’s topic will be the Skype 4.0 for Windows Beta program launched yesterday. Bring your questions and initial feedback; pre-register now (Facebook members, public access) and join the call tomorrow. As background you may also want to view the Skype 4.0 videos Phil put up Tuesday evening.

Tags: Skype, Skype 4.0, Skype 4.0 for Windows Beta, Mike Bartlett

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Over the past three months I have attended two events where PC and Internet security issues were the theme along with a Google presentation on cloud computing where security issues certainly were an underlying theme. While we’re not talking here about the security surrounding Skype conversations, these presentations each provided some key information about keeping your PC ready such that they don’t impact your ability to handle Skype calls.

Mathew Glotzback, a Product Manager in Google’s Enterprise group talked about the vulnerability of end points — and it’s not the technology that makes them vulnerable: laptop theft (10% within the first 12 months of purchase), handling of USB thumb drives and other removable memory devices; according to their research, 60% of corporate data resides unprotected on PC desktops and laptops. Of course, Google’s answer is cloud computing where all the data resides securely on the "cloud’s" servers and not on the remote devices.

A few weeks later I attended a breakfast presentation by David DeWalt, CEO of McAfee; of course this was all about PC and Internet security. His themes:

• biggest issue today: over 750 new threats are being seen daily on average
• the sophistication of cybercrime has reached the point where the US Air Force is seeing cyber defense as its second key mission after air space defense — the Pentagon itself has become a key target of cybercriminals.
• data protection: expanding on Mathew’s theme, David talked about security standards (in reality, the lack thereof), variability of intellectual property law and the need for not only modernization of law around cybercrime but also the international co-operation required as the Internet liquidates political borders, as well as the development of security as a service models.

McAfee has recently acquired Safeboot (enterprise data protection and encryption) and ScanAlert (commerce and website security) to expand its enterprise security services. In the latter case they are continuously scanning websites to ensure they are "HackerSafe".

But from a Skype user’s point-of-view, Dave’s most striking comment about consumer vulnerability: the failure to renew anti-virus and Internet security software subscriptions. There is a need to educate consumers that, with over 750 new threats per day, the moment that initial subscription expires, you’ve become vulnerable. He also spoke about the vulnerability of SIP as an insecure protocol creating new vulnerabilities and how VMWare’s partitioning architecture can also provide the ability to share malware.

Finally, I recently attended a presentation by CheckPoint’s Canadian manager where the discussion came back to the issues of enterprise data vulnerability. Here we have a company that is developing enterprise security services that deal with the issues of ensuring security while not impacting employee productivity and flexibility. USB drives, cache memories, iPods and employee education are all issues taken into account in their enterprise offerings. Most important is the need to have CxO’s recognize the need for an active policy approach through identification of the costs of data loss and random, inappropriate exposure.

For the consumer CheckPoint is launching its Zone Alarm ForceField to protect against phishing, spyware, keylogging, and "dangerous" downloads as well as to erase your "surfing tracks" and to provide additional security related to banking and e-commerce activities. The primary consumer packages: McAfee’s Internet Security Suite and CheckPoint’s Zone Alarm.

Most important, make sure you’re using an Internet security offering, not just for Skype activities but for optimizing your overall Internet experiences. In fact, Rogers Internet service sees this issue as so important to their customer service and support operations that all Rogers Internet subscribers have Symantec security software included as a free component of their subscription.

And, if you still need convincing about new threats: I provide volunteer PC support for a local non-profit where I am "webmaster" and manage the mail accounts, some of which are forwarded to my personal email account (info@, webmaster@, etc.). We have a Postini subscription for our mail servers as I do also for my personal account. There has recently evolved a threat, called "spoofing", where someone tries to take over your domain name for sending out spam email; I was receiving all the "Delivery Failure" notices as a result. But they were infrequent enough not to worry. But about three weeks ago I came down to find over 50,000 of these notices had been rejected over an eight hour period by my Postini, yet 3,000 still got through. The hosting service provider for the non-profit told me this was a new threat they were seeing; they had just developed the experience required to mitigate this threat. They made their changes to our account management; I made some changes and now my spam is very infrequent. Sometimes innovation comes at a cost to the rest of us.

Tags: Google, cloud computing, McAfee, CheckPoint, Zone Alarm, Force Field, Postini

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Investors in Skype partner Mobivox hired Peter Diedrich as CEO to fill the vacancy left by Stéphane Marceaux. Diedrich joins board of directors. I’m glad; they need leadership to exploit the Mobivox opportunity and to answer the question: Whither Mobivox?

Company news release below the fold.

A little sanity moving into the blogosphere? Local blogging colleague Mark Evans¹, in a post earlier today, “The Wonderful World of Web 2.0 Whining”, comments on the demands for seven nines reliability and unlimited support from “free” services:

It’s bad enough no one wants to pay for anything, but the expectations placed on free services to deliver 99.99999% reliability are astounding. Come on, what do you expect for nothing?

Still, kvetching about popular services such as Twitter, Skype or Facebook when they have technical hiccups has become a popular game. When it happens, everyone wants to get into the action by complaining, criticizing, attacking and pontificating. The best one recently was Webware’s Rafe Needleman suggesting Twitter should close until its technical issues are resolved.

Ha!

For some more rational thought on the warped sense of free these days, check out broadstuff, who succinctly pointed out that:

“There is this weird idea in the air that if something is free to a user it is free to produce, and thus must still reach all those other norms we take for granted in paid-for services, like reliability, privacy etc.”

“Free” can be a great inducement to try out a service. Skype-to-Skype calling can remain free because there is little capital or operating cost associated with providing the underlying peer-to-peer service with several million positive user experiences. (You and I pay the capital cost when we buy the “peering” hardware between which Skype makes calls.) Skype is a marketer’s dream for sustainably building a user base while keeping the recruitment cost per user close to zero. Having built up this base, it becomes a target market for premium services such as SkypeIn, SkypeOut and partner offerings such as Pamela and Skylook.

Yes, we know Skype support is often via user forums and slow to respond; but then what can one expect for a “free” service. Skype can use their forums as feedback for determining which features are required to reduce support requirements while building more positive user experiences. New features such as providing CallerID for US/Canada users can drive adoption and usage.Of course they are missing a revenue opportunity by not providing a support service such as Red Hat does for Linux and Digium does for Asterisk.

Truphone, a great mobile VoIP service on Nokia N- and E-series mobile phones when in an accessible WiFi zone, finally started charging last week for calls to/from the PSTN while Truphone-to-Truphone calls remain free². Mobivox is finding they need to cover their costs, even for Mobivox-to-Mobivox calls; this tells me the infrastructure behind Mobivox Girl is an ongoing operating expense due to a different underlying architecture.

The Voice 2.0 Manifesto predicted that “voice will be free; the meter is off”. But we are now starting to see some of the lower bounds of what voice will truly cost, even if minimal, in a Voice 2.0 world.

¹Mark is known to be a heavy Skype user in his business activities.
²Truphone also launched Truphone Anywhere a couple of weeks ago allowing users to call Truphone users for the cost of accessing a “local” GSM wireless PoP.

Tags: Skype, Mark Evans, Twitter, Facebook, Truphone, Mobivox, Voice 2.0 Manifesto

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At eComm 2008 and Spring VON I had the opportunity both to listen to presentations by, and to have personal discussions with, Brough Turner of NMS Communications. If there is one authority on telecommunications infrastructure, back office and the business side of routing calls around the world, Brough is the person. He understands the backhaul issues; he understands the business environment that can both encourage and inhibit the launch and evolution of new telecommunications services.

Last week he was asked to provide a guest post for SIPCenter, SIP, in time, where he talked about the issues around deploying SIP and its failure to live up to the promise for it when it launched in the late 1990′s. A few days later, in a reprise on his own blog, SIP Revolution, massively delayed — but there’s hope, Brough pointed out where he could see more promise for SIP, through a new PSPSIP initiative. He talks about how SIP was initially perceived as facilitating direct end-to-end connections supposedly bypassing costly infrastructure but, in practice, has become embedded into centralized PBX’s and servers, thereby removing the cost advantages. "SIP has been adopted for use in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), but this completely warps the original SIP vision." Yet through P2PSIP, there may be a route to realize some of the original vision.

Some of Brough’s comments:

The biggest change in telecommunications in the past 12 years has been the global deployment of three billion mobile phones, all based on conventional circuit-switching and Intelligent Network technology — nothing to do with SIP. And arguably, the most interesting telephony service enhancement, after mobility, came from Skype with its seamless integration of presence, instant messaging, wideband audio and video. But Skype is based on proprietary protocols, not SIP. Finally, VoIP technology has helped drive down the cost of international calling, but using MGCP, H.248 &/or H.323 protocols much more than SIP, at least so far. ……

SIP assumes it’s possible to make end-to-end connections over the Internet and therefore a SIP session can know about and use globally valid IP addresses. That was a naive assumption, even in 1996-1999 when SIP was being defined. The real Internet contains firewalls, network address translators (NATs) and other "middle boxes." They are not going away, it’s only getting worse over time. Today, applications must be aware of and able to work around middle boxes and other network problems. ……

Actually, there is some reason for optimism. The advent and widespread adoption of Skype showed what was possible and suggested how one might distribute central services among peers, potentially avoiding the need for an explicit service provider. The past few years have seen rising interest in peer-to-peer SIP which has resulted in an IETF working group under the name p2psip. Their goal is "to leverage the distributed nature of P2P to allow for distributed resource discovery in a SIP network, eliminating (or at least reducing) the need for centralized servers."

Hat tip to Jon Arnold’s Is SIP Living up to its Potential? for directing me to these posts. One of Jon’s points:

Skype chose to use a proprietary protocol instead of SIP, and has proven by far to be the most popular web-based voice/IM application we’ve ever seen. It’s conventional wisdom to knock Skype for being a walled garden that won’t integrate with the other IM platforms, but when it comes to VoIP, Skype has proven its ability scale better than anyone. I guess this begs the question – could Skype have been as successful (let’s leave profitability aside here) if they had used SIP instead? Would love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Interesting to note that Skype is one of the heavier users of SIP — for its SkypeIn and SkypeOut connections. And, as Jonathan Christensen (who was heavily involved with SIP during his five years at Microsoft) pointed out during a panel at eComm 2008, instead of supporting its initial promise for the transmission of rich multimedia, SIP today remains largely a voice services interconnection protocol.

Tags: Brough Turner, SIP, Skype, Jon Arnold, Jonathan Christensen, SkypeIn, SkypeOut, IMS, eComm 2008, SIPCenter

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Received an email this evening from Mobivox with the same text as the initial post in this linked forum thread. It probably explains why all the top Mobivox CxO executives have been leaving recently. (Check out the current management team; only one CxO in sight.)

Starting in July, because we’re going to be using more expensive networks to connect you to your contacts around the world, calls between Mobivox members will be charged at our regular low cost rates. You will still benefit from better service and big savings on your phone bill, while calls to your Skype buddies will remain totally free and unlimited.

In an age when the main driver of subscriber attraction and growth for a voice communications service is a minimum offering of free calling amongst users within a service, withdrawal of this feature can hardly be good news for Mobivox. Even my new Rogers Home Phone service has taken a cue from Skype and provides free calling to other Rogers Home Phone (and Rogers Wireless) customers across Canada. And the only free calls via Mobivox after July 1 will be those to Skype contacts.

I think Mobivox’s statement says a couple of things about Skype:

• There are no termination charges for calls to Skype contacts from any service. We learned this from the iSkoot Skypephone presentation at eComm 2008. And it’s reinforced by the text of the Mobivox announcement. A key benefit and advantage of Skype’s peer-to-peer architecture and its impact on a service provider’s operating costs.
• It reinforces the iSkoot architecture for making calls from mobile phones, whether to Skype contacts or via SkypeOut calls. (Also check out this post.)
• Skype’s "HD Voice" call quality is obviously a challenge for other services to meet and sets a performance standard for voice services going forward. (And, as for SkypeOut calls where one cannot have the full HD Voice quality due to audio bandwidth limitations of the PSTN, the percentage of my SkypeOut calls with unacceptable voice quality has declined significantly over the past several months.)

If Skype could get Skypephone (working with iSkoot in this case) and their Skype hardware partner offerings into enough carrier and distribution channels, Skype has some significant business potential. (I am one of the few, if not the only, Skype users in Canada using dual mode Skype-enabled cordless phone, namely, the Philips 841VOIP, accessing both my Rogers Home Phone service and a separate Skype account. Works quite well, thank you.)

Perhaps Mobivox’s main attraction at this point will be its ability to make low cost calls worldwide from any of the over 5 billion landline and mobile phones worldwide. But with the legacy PSTN carriers, such as Rogers and Bell Canada in Canada, offering lower long distance rates – close to Mobivox rates with more reliability and user familiarity, Mobivox is going to lose its viral marketing energy and become a much tougher sell.

Tags: Mobivox, Skype, Skypephone, iSkoot, HD Voice, Philips 841VOIP

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Over the past few months I have had reason to host, or participate in, voice calls involving more than two parties. Product demonstrations, daily Squawk Box sessions and weekly “broadcast” calls involving 200 or more participants have become part of my routine. But each is a different type of multi-party call.

Yesterday, along with several of my Contacts, I was involved in a test, initiated by Borderless Communicator’s Hudson Barton, of several of these services:

• Skype’s “Conference Call”: hosted through the Skype Windows/Mac/Linux client where a Skype user can host a Multi-Party call but use of the term “Conference” call is a misnomer. Free for Skype participants; SkypeOut charges apply to participants on the PSTN. Up to 25 participants
• HiDef Conferencing: hosting business grade conference calls with a user management interface operated by the call’s “moderator” or “host”. Monthly subscription required to host; unlimited free access for Skype participants; toll charges may apply for participants calling in via the PSTN. Up to 500 participants
• iotum Calliflower: again hosting a multi-party calls that can be managed by a “moderator” or “host” party. “Free” participation; however, participant responsible for any toll charges to reach Free Conference Call server, and
• Skypecast: a Skype service for hosting public “voice chat” rooms where participants can discuss a topic of interest. Public access; free but only accessed as a Skype user; no PSTN participation. Up to 100 participants. Popular use: learning English at Kantalk.

I can see four types of multi-party.calls:

• Ad hoc multi-party calls, such as what is misnamed Skype Conference Call. Informal, host can easily add/remove participants, but no other participant management features. All participants are active; no agenda (think the “UNconference” call)
• Conference calls which are often scheduled, usually have an agenda and where participants are all active but can be managed by the host (and/or other designated participants).
• Broadcast calls, such as training presentations, news and analyst conferences, large audience sales presentations, etc. where there is a call administrator and usually one or two active participants who will make a presentation to an audience of several hundred or even a thousand passive participants.
• Public voice chats, such as Skypecasts where any Skype user can join provided they find the link (either by email or text chat invitation or from a directory of Skypecasts).

While all these types of calls use technology that merges the various voice streams to be heard by all participants, the user interface and degree of active participation are the key differentiators:

• Ad hoc multi-party calls: you can host a multi-party call simply by selecting multiple Skype and/or SkypeOut contacts and starting what is labeled as a Skype Conference call. If you see a need to add another participant, either add a Skype/SkypeOut Contact or call up an additional SkypeOut number. The host can also remove participants from the call at will. In yesterday’s call we had excellent HD Voice quality, we could see who was speaking (see halos around Dan and Hudson, only is Skype for Windows) but individual participants manage features such as muting their own microphone. You can definitely detect who is on a SkypeOut connection due to the more limited audio bandwidth of a SkypeOut connection. Since the host is operating the call through his/her local PC, these quality of these calls can also be subject to variables such as the host’s CPU power and Internet connection (especially the upload speed). Good enough for consumers and internal business calls but definitely not business grade. In a different graphic format, .Skype for Mac lets you see who is talking, including individual volume levels. Requires third party product, such as Pamela or Skylook, to record a call.

Free Conference Call Participant View (pre-Calliflower)

• A true Conference Call is one where an administrator or host effectively “chairs” the call, has the option to schedule the call and provide an agenda, can manage each user’s level of active participation (mute/unmute, hand raising) and provide a hosted recording capability. Also these business grade calls are server-hosted to provide a consistent and manageable level of robustness and reliability as well as overall voice quality. Both HiDef Conferencing and iotum’s Free Conference Call have these capabilities.
  • While HiDef Conferencing provides excellent HD Voice quality for all participants connected via Skype and has a Host user interface to manage the call, it could use a web-based interface for participants to see who is on a call, who is speaking and provide a common chat “wall”. At one point during the test call, one participant went over to a PSTN connection and there was a very noticeable deterioration in his voice quality while on that connection.
  • iotum’s Free Conference call has the above-noted participant user interface features but is difficult to enter (while not a requirement, having a Facebook account makes it easier to access). Limited by its architecture to the legacy PSTN audio bandwidth, call quality is acceptable but not HD Voice. It had a significant call quality issue for one participant and needs a “Leave Call” button on the participant user interface. On the other hand iotum’s Free Conference Call has been shown to be robust and reliable enough to handle their daily Squawk Box conference call with relative ease; the ability to see who is participating and a chat “wall” are major benefits.
• In a Broadcast Call there are usually one or a few presenters while an audience passively listens unless they “raise a hand” to ask questions or make a point. When HiDef Conferencing calls get to the 100 participant level, it has usually become a Broadcast call. (In fact, VAPPS hosts the voice component of several other conferencing and meeting services, such as InstantTeleseminar)
• Our experience with the Skypecast trial today was one where there were significant difficulties joining the Skypecast (only four of our seven participants successfully got in) but where there was excellent voice quality. Limited participant management by host who can mute/unmite and eject a participant. Requires third party product, such as Pamela or Skylook, to record a call.

Some conclusions:

• Skype should rename their basic “Conference Call” to “Multi-Party Call”. Its service is effectively a multi-party scaling of my former Bell Canada “3-party call” service. The initiator of the call hosts the call on his/her PC and does not always have complete control over call quality and robustness of the call.
• Conference calls are hosted calls with “moderated” participant management. The key differentiator here is the user interface for both the host and the participants as well as the ease of call access by the participants. While the ability to link the voice streams of all the participants is common to all these services, overall call quality itself can be another differentiator.
• Hudson measured some call parameters during each call. Basically all services were in the same ball park for jitter and packet loss (none to <1%) – most participants connected to the calls via either Skype or SkypeOut; on the Skype Conference Multi-Party Call latencies were definitely related to the distance of the participant from my hosting connection.

Tags: Skype, Conference Call, Skype Conference Call, HiDef Conferencing, iotum, Free Conference Call, Skypecast, Borderless Communicator, Hudson Barton, VAPPS Inc., Instant Teleseminar

Feedback from my recent post on the Unlimited Calling Plans: turns out that somewhere -unannounced – in a recent version upgrade release, Skype for Windows will now support up to 25 participants on a Skype Conference Call. While the host must be on Skype for Windows, participants can be on any version of Skype or be on a PSTN connection via SkypeOut.

What is the impact for VAPPS’ HiDef Conferencing? HiDef Conferencing continues to have the following features:

• Complete business grade conferencing hosted on a VAPPS server rather than being reliant on the configuration and connection of the host’s PC.
• HiDef Conference calls may be scheduled.
• Calls can be recorded and archived
• Lecture Mode provides host with more control over participants’ level of participation (muting/unmuting, hand raising, etc.)
• Telephone dial pad commands (for SkypeOut participants and/or use via Skype’s dialpad tab)

Skype’s Conference Call feature is more appropriate for ad hoc or spontaneous, informal multi-party calls such as family calls. It’s still a long way advanced from the "three party call" feature I previously had on my Bell Canada PSTN line. But when it’s mission critical for business, HiDef Conferencing is much more robust, feature rich and transparent to the meeting agenda.

Skype for Mac and Skype for Linux continue to support hosting of ten participant conference calls.

Tags: Skype, Skype Conference Call, HiDef Conferencing, VAPPS

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Back in April we talked about Skype’s new Unlimited Calling Plans. Just a heads-up that Skype’s introductory offer expires this weekend (June 1). They offer 3 months for the price of two or twelve months for the price of eight. For a review here are the basics:

What’s Free (world wide):

• Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls
• Instant Messaging
• File Transfer
• Skype Conference calls (up to 10 participants, all on Skype)

Skype Calling Plans are full service plans, based on the originating geographical location of calls. They may be purchased as a monthly, quarterly or annual subscription; no contracts are required. They combine:

• free calls to any designated phone within the designated territory for the plan
  • no connection fee
  • landline and mobile for Canada, U.S., China, Hong Kong, Singapore
  • landline only for other 29 countries
  • subject to a fair use policy of 10,000 minutes/month
• free call transfer from/to SkypeIn/SkypeOut numbers
• Skype voice mail
• up to ten party conference calling to a combination of Skype contacts worldwide and SkypeOut contacts within the geographical region of the respective plans

Important: All rates shown below are as of May1 , 2008 and subject to change at Skype’s discretion. Click on the various “signup” links below for details at Skype website.

North American Plans:

• Unlimited US and Canada: $2.95 per month
  • 50% discount off one SkypeIn (online) number
• Unlimited Mexico: $5.95 per month
  • Unlimited US and Canada plus:
  • unlimited to landlines in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey
  • discounted rates to other locations and mobile phones in Mexico
• Unlimited Worldwide: $9.95 per month
  • Unlimited Mexico plus:
  • unlimited to 32 worldwide countries
  • 50% discount off three SkypeIn (online) numbers
• Sign up here

European Plans

• Unlimited Country: €2.95 or £1.95 per month
  • landline calls within “local” country
  • one free SkypeIn (online) number
• Unlimited Europe: €3.95 or £2.95 per month
  • landline calls within 20 European countries
  • one free SkypeIn (online) number
• Unlimited Worldwide: €8.95 or £6.95 per month
  • landline calls to 34 countries plus to cell phones in US, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore
  • three free SkypeIn (online) numbers
• Sign up here (Euros, GBP)

Asia: click here for details and signup (US$, Euros, GBP)

• Unlimited Country: Chose a single destination country independent of originating country

Brazil: click here for details and signup (US$, Euros, GBP)

• Brazil 400 limited to 400 minutes within Brazil

Rest of World: click here for details and signup (US$, Euros, GBP)

• Unlimited Country: Chose a single destination country independent of originating country

Tags: Skype, Skype Calling Plans, SkypeOut