Citrix Audio Services Group (formerly VAPPS, Inc.) has repackaged its “stand alone” HiDef Conferencing offerings to provide clearer, more predictable charges while relaunching its website to be more consistent with the Citrix Online brand. ASG is also about to become the preferred supplier of voice services for Citrix Online collaboration services such as GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar.

While Skype has always featured the ability to support multi-party voice calls, now with up to 25 participants provided one has a recent generation PC, it has never been a managed conferencing service, complete with moderator support and web-based call participant portals other than the Skype client itself. Hosting a Skype multi-party call also relies on the host’s PC resources (processor speed, audio hardware, Internet upload speed amongst others). However, two players have emerged to offer hosted and managed conferencing services over the past few years: VAPPS with its HiDef Conferencing service and iotum’s CalliFlower service.

Having developed over the past few years a unique conferencing server that could handle HD Voice where supported at any user’s endpoint, last fall VAPPS was acquired by Citrix, a veteran of remote computer services, and is emerging now as the Audio Services Group of its Citrix Online business unit. The two primary services for ASG are:

• HiDef Conferencing – moderator managed audio conferencing with flat rate packages for up to 150 participants
• HiDef Corporate – an enterprise grade, moderator managed audio conferencing service supporting meetings with up to 1000 participants

HiDef Conferencing can complement any collaboration service that incorporates desktop sharing. However, it is also becoming the preferred voice service that complements Citrix Online’s GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar online meeting services.

HiDef Conferencing is offered via four bundling plans that support 10, 25, 50 and 150 call participants. As in the past, HiDef Conferencing features include:

• Unlimited “local” or “Tolled” access via numbers in 14 countries
• Free unlimited access via Skype
• Toll –free calling minutes (500, 1000, 2000 and 3750 monthly minutes respectively)
  • Minutes shown are for all callers, both organizers and participants.
• High Definition Voice where end points support HD Voice; for instance Skype call participants will more clearly hear other Skype call participants due to Skype’s support of high bandwidth (8 KHz) audio
• Call recording
• Hand raising
• A Moderator call management portal, shown above, encompasses caller invitations, call recording activation, participant muting, call locking/unlocking (to allow or not allow additional participants) and caller disconnect.

Summarizing the relaunch:

• HiDef Conferencing’s value-add comes with it caller management services (including moderator panels), HD Voice support and packages that bundle a mélange of fixed cost call access options.
• By year end, HiDef Conferencing will be the sole recommended supplier of voice services for Citrix Online’s GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar meeting services that incorporate desktop sharing and some chat features. Bringing the higher voice quality of HD Voice to these meetings could actually shorten the meetings.
• HiDef Conferencing has brought its website into line with Citrix Online branding.

Bottom Line: Joining Citrix has brought to HiDef Conferencing the infrastructure and market reach it could never have hoped to have achieved so rapidly on its own. As a hosted service with HD Voice support, it sets a standard for enterprise grade voice conference calling. And with free calling for Skype participants, it will be interesting to see if this feature helps drive Skype adoption as one other high profile service within the Skype for Business ecosystem.

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• Ben Lilienthal on HiDef Audio, Skype, and conferencing (skypejournal.com)
• Skype’s Stefan Öberg @ Interop: Stealthing Skype Into Business, But Cover the Entire Skype Ecosystem (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Yuuguu Offers Skype Users Cross Network Instant Messaging, Screen Sharing And Real Time Collaboration (sociableblog.com)
• Skype for Asterisk Release Marries Skype Calling into Popular Asterisk PBX Platform (voiceontheweb.biz)

A Skype Developer blog post today, The future of Skype Extras, has created confusion and havoc amongst the blogging community that follows Skype (see, for example, the Zemanta links below). Having followed the Skype Developer Program over the past three years (and currently being a commercial user of some of the developers’ offerings) let me put this in some perspective:

1. Over the past four years Skype has developed a set of API’s that allow third party developers to create their own offerings that make use of, or incorporate as a conversation tool, Skype.
2. One of the first utilities was Pamela, which provides call recording (now audio and video), call archiving, call management and other features that enhance the Skype user experience. Others that came along include Skylook, OnState Call Center, HiDef Conferencing and Evoca.
3. Late in 2006 Skype developed a marketing engine for these partner offerings and called the resulting marketing program “Skype Extras”. It was an attempt at an App Store that became part of the standard Skype for Windows client download. In the Skype for Windows 4.1, a user can go to “Tools | Skype Extras” and see a menu of these software partners’ programs.
4. The Skype Extras backend, called Skype Publishing Studio, included an engine where developers could establish licensing terms (including allowing trials and periodic subscription renewals) and incorporate a transaction engine for payments via Skype Credits. Only one partner ever used the transaction engine: Scendix, for their PamFax offering. In fact, it was their use of all the features of the Skype Extras engine that contributed to their award as the winner of Skype’s Mashup competition held in the summer of 2007.
5. In the fall of 2007, Niklas Zenstromm resigned as CEO of Skype and the Skype Extras program effectively languished. A long promised road map never materialized. During the interregnum I put my thoughts down in A Primer for Skype’s Direction – Skype’s Extras Gallery and Developer Partner Program.
6. Two popular Skype Software Partners, Unyte and VAPPS (HiDef Conferencing) have been acquired by IBM Lotus Sametime Division and Citrix respectively.
7. Software Partners, such as Scendix (Pamela, PamFax), OnState (Call Center and Virtual PBX), Skylook, InnerPass and Evoca have continued to develop and mature their offerings. However, there was one noticeable trend – they also reduced their dependence on Skype, either by adding other voice and IM services to into their offerings or, in the case of PamFax 2.0, adding new payment mechanisms such as PayPal, Moneybookers and WorldPay.
8. Most of these vendors have effectively found other ways to promote their offerings through other channels. Certainly OnState and Scendix are seeing record levels of activity and revenues.

So to clarify today’s announcement:

• Skype Extras as a marketing program is coming to an end over the next year. No new software or upgrades will be certified for, or included in, the Skype Extras offering.
• Current Skype Extras will continue to be available via the Skype for Windows client “until they expire” (expiration may take up to a year). And those software programs that include a “check for update” feature will be able to provide a path to their latest offering.
• Skype will continue to support their software partners via the Public API’s; documentation will be maintained. (Developers had often lauded Skype’s level of support in this regard.) In other words, developers can count on having the technology resources required to continue development and support of their offerings.
• The Skype Shop will continue to feature currently listed Skype Extras.
• In an email to developers Skype also mentioned that they’ll have three months (until December 11) to continue using Skype Credits. As noted above, Scendix, whose PamFax was the only program using Skype Credits, has already built in alternative payment mechanisms.

In summary it’s approaching the end of a marketing program, but definitely not developer support. As an app store, the Skype Extras program was not exactly a success story; however, the underlying API’s and support for them are not going away. The smart developer partners have evolved their offerings in a way that certainly reduces or eliminates their dependence on the Skype Extras marketing program while experiencing new levels of market success.

Speaking this afternoon with InnerPass CEO Steve Parsloe, whose Skype-enabled document sharing program has certainly become successful via its marketing on Skype Extras, he stated, “I’m confident that Skype is looking at new marketing solutions that will continue to benefit not only its developer partners but also its end users, especially the business users.”

It does leave questions about where Skype is going in terms of supporting their partners’ through some form of a new or revamped Software Developer Program. Skype is taking significant steps to approach the Skype for Business market. In a post later this weekend, I’ll point to some signals as to what could be coming in the future.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Skype Eats More Young: RIP Skype’s software developers relations program. (skypejournal.com)
• Skype Kills Extras (and Its Developer Ecosystem) (gigaom.com)

Screen sharing is a feature, not a collaboration service. Skype has left the door open for all its developer partners to continue to build their businesses with Skype embedded into their offering, especially when it comes to fully featured collaboration services.

When you come from a technical background it’s easy to confuse features with a complete business offering. For instance, “screen sharing” or “desktop sharing” is a feature appearing in many Web 2.0 offerings. But a full collaboration offering for a business environment involves bringing together several features that bring a significant ROI to the customers.

Just to recall my own career history, working with Quarterdeck we did have some “utility” products that initially generated revenues of  up to $50MM per year. But eventually they became features within a larger business offering – in this case the operating system itself. Memory management and multi-tasking were not always easy sells but had a market at the time. Today these features are hidden within Windows. It took Microsoft about six versions of Windows to get multi-tasking and memory management right. We also had the same experience developing a web browser; Microsoft eventually incorporate web browsing into the operating system as a feature.

I have also been close to the collaboration market for many years. In fact Webex is an outgrowth of a whiteboarding service that Quarterdeck had acquired. When Quarterdeck evaporated (was sold to Symantec for remnants of software intellectual property), the team with whiteboarding experience went on to found Webex. Recently acquired by Cisco, Webex is now a major player in large enterprise collaboration activities, including desktop or screen sharing. It requires an entirely different underlying robust and scalable infrastructure to meet large and medium enterprise collaboration needs

Yesterday Skype added a screen sharing feature to Skype for Mac. We can expect it to show up in Skype for Windows in the near future. But, as I mentioned in my post about Skype for Mac, it is a feature, not a full collaboration environment. There are several Skype Partners who offer a full business collaboration environment; they are not threatened by Skype’s screen sharing feature. In fact, they may make Skype users more aware of desktop sharing and start looking for a more complete collaboration environment.

What is in a fully featured collaboration environment?

• A common feature for all is that they support real time collaboration sessions for as many as 500 participants. That’s not going to happen in any basic Skype client.
• Secondly Skype for Mac’s screen sharing involves turning the user’s desktop into a virtual webcam that goes through the Skype video channel. In other words you can do screen sharing or Skype video calling but not both concurrently. With the offerings mentioned below, the desktop sharing and other collaboration activity is via TCP/IP channels that are independent of the Skype video channel.
• Take the recently launched InnerPass Skype Extra “Share and Collaborate, Communicate“. Here is an enterprise document management company that has found a way to add Skype features that ride on top of their document management infrastructure. That infrastructure supports engineering drawings, FDA records, and business contracts amongst other document-intensive, mission critical documentation. As a result they have developed a Skype Extra that creates persistent “document rooms” which business teams may access for real time conferencing sessions. But the documents rooms can be accessed by individual team members between these team conferencing sessions. Version tracking is an important feature here. (A more detailed post on InnerPass’s offering is coming soon.)
• Yugma provides the ability to collaborate across Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. There are session moderator features to switch presenter, start and stop recording, manage participants’ role as active or passive, etc. It’s a complete collaboration environment where the voice channel could be Skype’s multi-party calling or, for more robust voice conferencing, use HiDef Conferencing.
• Lotus Sametime Unyte has been the poster child for an entrepreneurial Skype partner. Now within the IBM fold, it is being targeted to IBM’s enterprise customers within a larger role of collaboration that was pioneered by Lotus Notes.

No, Skype is not going after Webex or Yugma’s or InnerPass’s or the Lotus Sametime markets. Skype’s screen sharing is another feature that’s a peer with file sharing, video calling, IM/chat or SMS messaging. It’s a person-to-person calling complement; it’s not for highly robust, readily scalable business grade collaboration services.

Phil, I’m sorry but Skype for Mac’s screen sharing, to which I had access about a week before yesterday’s announcement, is a feature not a collaboration service. Let my repeat my statement in my initial post on Skype for Mac:

Skype for Mac’s screen sharing feature is sufficient to support discussion issues as a complement to a voice and/or chat conversation; it is NOT by any means a replacement for fully featured desktop or application sharing offerings such as Yugma, Inner Pass or IBM’s Lotus Sametime Unyte. It’s “just” screen sharing. In fact, it is one of two options on the Skype for Mac’s “Share” button, the other being file sharing/transfer.

Bottom line: There are lots of opportunities for independent developers who want to develop a complete offering that makes an independent business.

Update: Alec Saunders, who as Microsoft’s original Internet Explorer product manager, led the effort to make MSIE a feature within the operating system – and effectively killed Quarterdeck’s web browser, has his comments on this situation. Bottom line here is that Inner Pass and IBM are embedding Skype into other services they already offer.

Perhaps the most informative event I have attended during my two-and-a-half years of writing for Skype Journal was last spring’s eComm 2008. Out of a sense of frustration organizer Lee Dryburgh took it upon himself to risk organizing this event when the former eTel Conference announced it would be no more. The 300 attendees were treated to a buffet of information about various initiatives being undertaken to deploy IP-based communications in innovative ways. From communications enhanced business processes to a garage-based operation to monitor security of abandoned farm houses, we all learned a lot. And the networking opportunity was excellent.

eComm 2009 has been announced; in fact, a call for speakers flooded Lee’s email over the past few weeks. He has put together a tentative schedule and been recruiting sponsors. Last year’s sponsors included many vendors we have written about since the event including iSkoot (Skypephone), Voxbone (iNum), VAPPS (HiDef Conferencing) and Brough Turner’s NMS Communications. Sponsors recruited to date for eComm 2009 include, once again Voxbone, and newcomers Global IP Solutions and Voxeo.

Today we learned that Skype has added its name to the list of sponsors. This is a new initiative for Skype in that they have previously tended to maybe provide speakers but not sponsorship at this type of event. In a statement to Lee Dryburgh this evening, Skype’s GM Audio and Video (and a keynote speaker last year) Jonathan Christensen said:

… thinking about why we did it.. We believe that communications is going through a major shift from hardware devices on dedicated networks to software applications. A new paradigm is emerging. As a clear leader in this new age of communications, it makes sense for Skype to sponsor the eComm event as it is all about celebrating this innovation and sharing our vision for the future of communications with those individuals and companies who are most interested in changing the way people around the world communicate.

It’s been pretty quiet recently on the Skype scene. But then President Josh Silverman did tell us in our September interview that Skype was undergoing a major restructuring. And we have not heard of any layoffs. So it would only be natural to assume that development efforts (beyond the Skype for Windows 4.0 beta program) are under way and we can assume we’ll see new product and service announcements in 2009.

Would any be made at eComm 2009? Speakers from Skype include Jonathan Christensen and Director of Strategy Julien Decot.

Registration for attendees opens December 2, 2008.

Note: Skype Journal editor Phil Wolff, Skype’s Jonathan Christensen, Voxeo’s Dan York, Brough Turner and Jon Arnold are on the eComm 2009 Advisory Board.

Tags: eComm2009, Skype, Jonathan Christensen, Lee Dryburgh, Julien Decot, Voxbone, GIPS, Voxeo

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We have often reported on HiDef Conferencing as a leader in high quality voice conferencing. It’s a service built around servers that specialize in connecting up to 500 conferencing participants from either the PSTN or Skype, and managing the call participants’ level of participation. Should a participant be connected by Skype, they will hear all other Skype participants across their HD Audio service with all its benefits for providing better voice clarity (thus, the name HiDef Conferencing).

But HiDef Conferencing’s owner, VAPPS Inc. has not let their success depend solely on Skype activity; they have been wholesaling their conferencing service to other conferencing and collaboration service providers. As one example, I often participate in (but do not host) conference call and desktop sharing sessions involving Citrix’s GoToMeeting service and recently noticed that these calls were using the VAPPS service for provisioning the audio component of the calls.

Friday evening New York Times blogger Claire Miller reported that VAPPS venture capital partner, Azure Capital Partners, had concluded a deal to sell VAPPS to Citrix for $26.6 million plus $4.4 million in bonuses, provided founders Ben Lilienthal and Jerry Norton and their team meet certain goals. For Azure Capital Partners this provides a 3.6 times return on an 18-month investment. From Claire’s post:

Azure first looked at Vapps in 2006, but did not invest until the spring of 2007. First, they asked the company to change their business model. It used to focus on selling equipment. Instead, Azure wanted it to charge by the number of minutes people used the equipment to talk because they knew that number would grow exponentially, Mr. Weinstein said. At the time, people talked using Vapps’ technology only a few million minutes a year and now pay for half a billion minutes a year.

Acquisition is becoming the primary exit route for today’s start-ups. Build a business and service that can readily complement another service that has capital for acquisitions and you may find yourself being acquired. At least this is one service that is not going to Google or Microsoft. On the other hand Citrix has been a leader in developing virtualization and collaboration technologies along with related services for over 15 years.

Congratulations to Ben, Jerry and the entire VAPPS team on this achievement. It has been a pleasure to watch, and to report on, the evolution of their service over the past couple of years.

For Andy Abramson’s Comunicano Internet marketing agency this represents a third client acquisition over the past fifteen months; previous ones being IBM Lotus Software Group’s acquisition of Unyte and Logitech’s recent acquisition of SightSpeed.

Related posts:

• Fierce VoIP’s Doug Mohney also comments.
• HiDef Conferencing Aids Business During Credit Crunch

Full disclosure; in 2004 the author provided business development and general management services for Citrix partner Runaware, whose Test Drive service, built on a Citrix virtualization platform, powers many online software evaluation programs, including Microsoft Office.

According to Tech Crunch and GigaOm posts late last night Logitech is about to spend $30 million to acquire SightSpeed, the video messaging and video conferencing service that recently was selected ot provide the infrastructure for Dell’s Video Chat. Congratulations to Peter Csathy and his team.

Seems like the video calling and video conferencing market is about to heat up. There will be another post later this morning involving an announcement that can bring video conferencing to a much broader user audience than Skype’s (though it’s not exactly insignificant) and SightSpeed’s.

Questions that arise from this acquisition:

• How is Logitech able to continue to partner with services such as Skype when they are now entering the desktop video services market? Logitech’s co-operation was vital to Skype’s ability to provide High Quality Video.
• Or is it a produce marketing acquisition? Is Logitech acquiring SightSpeed simply to have additional collateral software to provide with their webcam offerings? Will we start to see Logitech’s Carl-Zeiss optics in embedded webcams on Dell PC’s?

The economy may be in recession; it’s driving less travel and more audio and video conferencing. They’re seeing a rise in customers and use of audio conferencing at both HiDef Conferencing and Calliflower. It will be an interesting winter for expanding user experiences involving desktop video.

Tags: Logitech, SightSpeed, Skype, Peter Csathy, Tech Crunc, GigaOm, HiDef Conferencing, Calliflower

HiDef Conferencing, a leading audio conferencing service that incorporates HD Voice when accessed via Skype, but can also be accessed via designated country-specific numbers and toll-free 800 numbers, wants to assist those businesses and professionals who can save travel and meeting costs in today’s economic environment through teleconferencing services. As its key differentiator HiDef Conferencing is a server-supported business grade conferencing service with full host/moderator support as opposed to Skype’s multi-party conversation service (mistakenly called “Conference Calling”).

For their current customers they have waived their monthly subscription fees for the balance of 2008; new subscribers can now have a free trial that lasts until December 31, 2008.

What do you get?

• Up to 25 participants in a conference.
• Free Web Controls, Recording and Hand-raising
• No reservations required
• Unlimited Skype access duration
• Participants responsible for long distance charges to the country’s HiDef Conferencing access number

Recall that not only do Skype-enabled participants have unlimited access to calls, they also have the benefit of Skype’s inherent high quality HD Voice wideband audio when both speaker and listener are participating via Skype. To quote Tom Evslin’s experience earlier this year:

I used to think the reason I have a hard time understanding people on the phone is because I can’t see their lips and their expressions. Now I realize much of the problem is the terrible audio quality – which we’re so accustomed to – of a traditional phone call.

Landline and wireless participants remain limited to the audio bandwidth inherent to the underlying landline or wireless service.

With an Outlook plug-in it’s easy to set up a call from Outlook; calls can also be set up via the HiDef Conferencing website.

• Pat Phelan: HiDef Conferencing gives an amazing recession offer
• PhoneBoy Finds Conference Calling Solution: Score 1 for HD Voice
• VAPPS leaves Freemium for HiDef Conferencing
• VAPPS Rebrands Its Service: High Definition Conferencing

While there has been lots of dismay about the discontinuation of Skypecasts (Skype’s blog posts: here and here), it had appeared for the past several months that the service just did not have the robustness to provide the reliability and quality of service that users would expect. Being a free service, it was obviously placing resource demands with zero revenue potential on Skype developer and support personnel that hopefully can be diverted to bringing feature equality to Skype’s basic service, whether on Windows, Mac or Linux.

There are alternatives; in fact, this decision provides a unique opportunity for two third party conference calling services:

1. Skype Multi-Party Calling:

For up to 25 participants on a call, Skype has recently expanded its multi-party calling capacity. The caveat here is that the host must use a multi-core Windows PC and a reliable broadband internet connection (preferably cable). Participants can be on any version of Skype or be accessed via SkypeOut. In this case the host must set up the call and call out to all the participants. More details here. A unique feature of Skype’s multi-party calling is its ability to show which participant is actually speaking at any given time. But keep in mind Skype really offers multi-party calling, not a full conferencing service.

2. iotum CalliFlower

iotum’s CalliFlower has the benefit of no charge other than whatever it costs to make the connection to one of their access points. I often participate in their daily SquawkBox call via my SkypeOut account; the recent availability of SkypeOut CallerID, displaying my mobile phone number when I make a SkypeOut call, has allowed me to participate in these calls within my SkypeOut subscription without even using the provided password for each call. In fact, there are four options for accessing these calls:

As an example of building communities, iotum has worked with Alan Hunkin to provide a weekly interview session, CalliFlower Communiques, with notable personalities such as William Shatner. Immediate future guests include Ken Blanchard, author of “Being a One Minute Entrepreneur” and actor Alan Alda discussions his recent memoir “Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself.” Recordings of previous sessions are available at the page linked above.

3. HiDef Conferencing

Vapps’ HiDef Conferencing (formerly HiSpeedConferencing) provides high definition (HD) voice quality calls for participants accessing via Skype. Their business grade service involves fixed rate monthly hosting subscriptions involving unlimited Skype access, dial-in to specific numbers in several countries and toll-free numbers. Obviously this involves some ongoing expense to the host but their infrastructure supports providing the best possible voice quality, depending on access mode. The host uses their web controls to set up calls, manage call participants as well as record and archive calls.

Looking at the options it appears the best conference experience comes when:

• hosts are able to setup and fully manage the calls, including an open access invitation;
• users can participate through a web-based experience not only via voice but also via chat.

The good news is that Skype provides either free or low cost unlimited access to any of these services. What will be most interesting is to see if iotum and/or Vapps rise to the opportunity here and and is able to provide encouragement to the many communities that were supported by Skypecasts.

Tags: Skype, Skypecast, iotum, CalliFlower, Hi Def Conferencing, CalliFlower Communique, Vapps, multi-party calling, Alan Hunkin

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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

New service provides format- and platform-agnostic meeting scheduling and co-ordination across the web.

To date groupware’s ability to perform meeting scheduling and coordination was limited to within an enterprise’s groupware community of users — i.e. – the employees and perhaps closely connected business associates. And everyone had to be using a common calendaring system running under a common operating system. Yet, studies show that over 60% of meetings will involve invitees who are not within this “enterprise cloud”. Half of those “non-cloud” invitees do have a “good” relationship with the enterprise; the other half are those with whom employees would have “sporadic” meetings.

Tungle is an Internet-based service that provides the ability to share availability and manage meeting scheduling across the web. Currently the designated organizer of the meeting (who does not have to be an attendee) must be using Microsoft Outlook; however, the invitees can be running on any platform, whether Windows, Mac or even Blackberry; they simply need a web browser. And they can be using any calendaring application whether Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, Mac’s iCal, or within groupware such as Lotus Notes.

Tungle Contact Management

The Tungle client for meeting organizers has a single-click install as an Outlook plug-in. Upon installation it then searches your Outlook for both Contacts and your availability according to your Outlook Calendar. If it finds other Contacts who also have installed Tungle it marks them with an identifier “T” logo. You may then invite individual contacts to “share” their availability; those are the ones identified with the “T” logo on a solid purple background. Select one of those contacts and you will see in the Calendar screen that contact’s availability.

The other section of the Tungle client comprises a Calendar which initially shows your own availability for the current (5-day or 7-day) week. This Calendar section is where you initiate the coordination of a meeting – selecting contacts, entering a subject and designating the time slots you (or the primary “chair” of the meeting) would have available for potential meeting times. You can also designate whether or not you will be attending the meeting – a feature that is ideal for executive administrators.

Tungle Calendar Mashup

The example on the left shows the sharing of availability across an organizer and three other contacts, shown by the different colors, who are also on Tungle. (Were the organizer not attending the purple slots would go away.) The organizer would then “paint” in blank potential time slots for the proposed meeting. Upon completion of this information, click on the “Create Space” button and another window pops up where you can see a summary of the invitees and proposed time slots and as well as enter more detailed information about the potential meeting such as an agenda. Click on the “Send” button and an email, from the meeting organizer, about the prospective meeting goes out to each invitee, incorporating a link.

Tungle Invite on BlackBerry

The link is to a “Tungle Space” which is a dynamic web page, viewable in any web browser, that shows all the meeting information and allows invitees to select which of the proposed time slots s/he prefers. If the invitee reads the email on a Blackberry, the Tungle Space is reformatted for appropriate display on the Blackberry. Note that, until a final meeting time is set, the Tungle Space is updated with any changes in availability of those who have a Tungle client installed.

There are two ways a final meeting time can be set:

• The organizer can visit the Tungle Space at any time and designate a meeting time regardless whether or not all invitees have responded, or
• Once the last invitee has visited the Tungle Space to select her/his available meeting times, Tungle will then automatically select a meeting time.

Once a meeting time is selected an email goes out to all invitees announcing the meeting time. Those invitees who are also on Tungle will have their Outlook Calendars appropriately populated. But here is one of the key features: the other invitees can click on a link that inserts the meeting time into their respective calendaring program regardless of whether whether they use Google Calendar, iCal, Lotus Notes or any other popular Calendaring program.

In an interview with Tungle CEO Marc Gingras he pointed out:

• ease-of- user was a key design criteria; this is an offering that has been over a year in the development.
• recognizing which Calendar format an invitee had was another major technical challenge
• Tungle will be adding clients for users of Google Calendar and iCal (you can sign up on the website for notification)
• the team is still working on additional features incorporating feedback from the current beta phase.

The entire structure is set up to ensure adequate privacy; only information you agree to share is shared. In fact, as with Skype, while users’ email addresses are registered by Tungle and used to determine who amongst your Contacts is on Tungle, this information is never give out at any point. There is even a double opt-in process for ensuring that you are, in fact, the owner of any email address that you register with Tungle.

Personally I have used Tungle over the past week with great success. It’s simple to install and eliminates lots of non-productive time exchanging emails with various meeting time slot proposals (or even making voice calls to finalize details). . In fact, Tungle appears to be one of those rare productivity applications whose value is quickly appreciated the first time you use it.

Going forward I have suggested API’s that could link Tungle as a front end for hosts organizing VAPPS HiDef Conferencing sessions (or even Skype Conference call sessions); I can also foresee where deeper direct integration into Blackberry Calendar or CRM applications, such as Salesforce.com, would be useful. And it’s ideal for Skylook users who already are archiving their Skype conversations into Outlook. Tungle does have plans for making this an integral web-based “social networking” tool that is “just there” when you have to organize a meeting.

So, if you are an Outlook user, download Tungle here and get organizing!

Tags: Tungle, Marc Gingras, Outlook, Google Calendars, Lotus Notes, iCal

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Recently I reported on plans for VAPPS to rebrand its business grade conference calling service as HiDefConferencing. Well last week it happened. And the plans have been renamed to Pay-As-You-Go, HiDef 10/25/50/100 and HiDef Ultra for 500 participant calls. Each plan has Unlimited minutes for those accessing the call via Skype. A new plan, High Def Toll Free can support a call of up to 500 participants @$0.07 per minute per user but with no Skype access.

So why would you use HiDef/10 when you can have ten participant conference calls within Skype. It’s about who is hosting the conference. With Skype Conference Calling, the host’s PC is hosting the call and subject to interference arising from a range of issues from connection speed and quality to PC configuration (especially processor and RAM) to giving way to Outlook downloads. With HiDef Conferencing, VAPPS is hosting the call on one of its servers which is solely dedicated to managing the call. For $25 per month you can ensure VAPPS’ business grade conferencing for up to ten participant calls.

A ten day free trial for a HiDef/25 account is available.

And recall that the reason for the HiDef rebranding is due to the service’s support of HD Voice (wideband audio) for all participants who access a call via Skype. Fewer misunderstood words, inflections and accents as well as a high quality listening experience.

Related post: HD Voice: Priceless

Tags: HiDef Conferencing, High Speed Conferencing, VAPPS Inc., Skype, Conference Calling

Recently I reported on plans for VAPPS to rebrand its business grade conference calling service as HiDefConferencing. Well last week it happened. And the plans have been renamed to Pay-As-You-Go, HiDef 10/25/50/100 and HiDef Ultra for 500 participant calls. Each plan has Unlimited minutes for those accessing the call via Skype. A new plan, High Def Toll Free can support a call of up to 500 participants @$0.07 per minute per user but with no Skype access.

So why would you use HiDef/10 when you can have ten participant conference calls within Skype. It’s about who is hosting the conference. With Skype Conference Calling, the host’s PC is hosting the call and subject to interference arising from a range of issues from connection speed and quality to PC configuration (especially processor and RAM) to giving way to Outlook downloads. With HiDef Conferencing, VAPPS is hosting the call on one of its servers which is solely dedicated to managing the call. For $25 per month you can ensure VAPPS’ business grade conferencing for up to ten participant calls.

A ten day free trial for a HiDef/25 account is available.

And recall that the reason for the HiDef rebranding is due to the service’s support of HD Voice (wideband audio) for all participants who access a call via Skype. Fewer misunderstood words, inflections and accents as well as a high quality listening experience.

Tags: HiDef Conferencing, VAPPS Inc., Skype, Conference Calling

Becomes an Extra Premium; implements major server upgrade.

While email and VoIP technology have changed our communications patterns, it seems that faxing still has its place as a communications mode. The growth of PamFax as a worldwide fax service using Skype’s underlying Skype Extras infrastructure is demonstrable proof.

A key advantage of PamFax is that it works from a Windows-based PC on any Internet connection worldwide and can readily send a fax to any fax terminal worldwide in about five or six simple steps. Amongst its features PamFax can serve as a Windows printer. It can accept input directly from an Office document or scanner. It’s available to use any time that you may need it; there are no upfront payments, subscriptions or registration required.

Since its launch last summer (with a major feature upgrade in late December) this winner of last summer’s Skype Mashup competition has steadily increased its usage to a point that proves that sending faxes is still a robust, widely acceptable, widely used communications tool. In January I had occasion to use it to recover tickets forgotten for an event. Dick Schiferli, CEO at PamFax publisher PamConsult, has provided some interesting numbers that demonstrate the ongoing viability of fax services:

• almost 25,000 users have installed PamFax with over 1,000 new installations per week
• average fax is 1.57 pages
• 58% of users who take advantage of the initial free page offer come back to send at least one more revenue generating fax
• paid faxes are averaging 6.5 pages
• for progress notification, 88% of all faxes use Skype chat while 25% use email (both options can be selected)

Christoph Buenger, CTO at PamConsult and lead developer of PamFax, reports recently in their blog that PamFax has received the “Skype Certified” designation. “:

Now you can be sure that this add-on for Skype does what we promise and is of high quality. The certification-team at Skype did some very intense tests of PamFax and also helped us improving the add-on.

And over the past few days, PamConsult has upgraded the PamFax infrastructure and architecture such that:

• A much larger number of formats (>100) are supported
• Independent clusters are running in both Europe and North America
• Fax processing speed and server availability are improved (the 2-page PamFax referenced in the chat session above was sent out at about 8:35 a.m.)

In a PamNews.com blog post Dick states:

We are coming up to 25.000 PamFax users now and have made some decisions how to further improve the platform. In the past 9 months we have seen some issues we don’t like and which impact performance and/or system flexibility. Users have also been providing excellent and valuable feedback.

In sending the fax referenced in the chat session above to ensure the new setup is working I noticed that PamFax needs to add a time stamp to the date information associated with the fax. This would be necessary for any use by the legal profession or anyone involved in time sensitive transactions.

Much like Skype provides real time communications worldwide agnostic to service providers, HiDef Conferencing from VAPPS provides high quality audio conferencing capabilities worldwide agnostic to service providers, PamFax is growing in its provision of fax services worldwide agnostic to service providers.

In previous posts I have reviewed VAPPS, Inc.’s audio conferencing service and its recent relaunch to incorporate high definition (HD) voice. To the user it means that all participants calling into the VAPPS conference bridge from Skype will hear the other participants accessing the call via Skype at the full HD Voice bandwidth.

Recently I reported on PhoneBoy’s experience; today Pat Phelan, CEO of Cubic Telecom reports on a six hour conference call where, only after the call, he found from his administrator that the call had been booked on VAPPS High Speed Conferencing.

Pricing is very competitive and with full recording of the conferences for free I have just opened an account for Cubic. One extra positive point is the fact that I now find a use for the 3 Skypephone that’s been sitting on my desk for months. I can Skype dial into conference calls whilst out and about at zero cost.

Congrats to VAPPS on an excellent product.

Yesterday VAPPS announced two new directions:

• a rebranding of the service, now to be called High Definition Conferencing (HD-C)
• publishing of an upgraded Skype Extra supporting nine languages depending on your Skype profile language selection.

In fact I interviewed Ben using HD Conferencing where he used its recording feature to capture our conversation:

Inteview with Ben Lilienthal – High Definition Conferencing

Right-click here to save the podcast for this audio

Ben provided a description of HD Voice, as well as why PSTN and cell phone access has a lower level of quality, and talked about why HD voice is important to a conference call.

Tags: Skype, VAPPS, High Speed Conferencing, Ben Lilienthal, HD Voice, Pat Phelan, PhoneBoy

Last November I reviewed Yugma Skype Edition, the only complete cross platform Skype Extra that adds desktop (and now application) sharing as a complement to Skype voice, text and video conversation sessions. Recently Yugma participated in the Skype booth at MacWorld sponsored by Skype’s Developer Program to recruit Mac developers into the program.

Last week Yugma SE Team Collaboration received Skype certification. Today Skype and Yugma announced YugmaSE’s inclusion as a certified Skype Extra resulting from Yugma’s participation in the Skype Developer Program. For Windows users, YugmaSE can be obtained and installed via Skype’s Extras Manager (Tools | Do More | Get Extras | Sharing) or at the Skype Extras website. Mac users can obtain the client via the Yugma for Skype website links here; a plug-in for Linux desktops is “coming soon”.

In addition to its previously reviewed ability to share across Windows and Mac platforms, the final release also:

• allows you to share either a single designated application or your entire desktop
• provides the option of inviting remote participants¹ to either a fully interactive session or to view (a) shared desktop(s) via a remote viewer.

The “Free Forever” Skype Extra allows the sharing of a designated desktop (as selected by the session host) with ten additional participants at no cost to the host². During the 15-day trial period you can also share mouse and keyboard control, schedule sessions, record and playback sessions and host a “shared file space”. Monthly and annual options for a Premium subscription that provides ongoing access to these features, along with email, phone and web-based technical support, are available for hosting an unlimited number of 10, 30, 100 and 500 participant sessions. Audio support can be provided via Skype conferencing (up to ten participants) or a “free” teleconferencing server for which normal long distance access charges will apply. Independent of Yugma support, HiDefCoferencing could also be used.

As many of my contacts have been acquiring Macs and MacBooks over the past eighteen months, Yugma’s Skype Edition has become a very useful tool for presentations and training sessions during the past few months.

¹ Invitations may be sent to both Skype contacts via Skype chat and participants who are not Skype contacts via email

² Note that free sessions will request all participants to register an email address and password; premium subscriptions simply request an identifier name (for the session) and an email address but no registration.

Tags: Skype, Yugma, Yugma Skype Edition, Skype Extras, Skype Developer Program

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HiDefConferencing provides business grade conference call services that can merge participants connecting via both Skype and PSTN connections into one common conference. To manage and archive calls, HiDefConferencing includes web-based controls, hand raising and call recording. While there is a Pay-As-You-Go plan, HiDef Conferencing features monthly subscriptions for 10, 25, 50, 100 and 500 participant conferences. Within the monthly subscriptions, all Skype connections with unlimited minutes and limited monthly minutes of PSTN connections are free; additional PSTN minutes are either based on long distance charges to the conference server phone number or “toll free” minute rates.

A unique feature of HiDef Conferencing: HDC incorporates HD Voice such that the wide audio bandwidth (~12 KHz) of all Skype participants is maintained amongst all Skype participants on the call. Unfortunately external conditions related to the audio bandwidth supported by PSTN networks limit the audio bandwidth of PSTN participants to <4 Khz.

Summary from Supplier : Not available

Ideal for: Enterprises, including Small to Medium Business Operations, who:

• require business grade conferencing that renders the call transparent to the technology
• sponsor periodic networking and/or team meetings
• hold periodic internal business review meetings
• host conference call-based services such as employee/agent training or topical conference calls.
• offer collaboration services such as web conferencing and desktop sharing

Publisher’s Expertise and Background: not available

Contact Information:

• Website : http://www.hidefconferencing.com
• Phone: +1 (877) 778-7486
• Email: sales@vapps.com
• Live Chat

Products and Services :

• Pay-As-You-Go
• Monthly subscriptions: 10, 25, 50, 100 and 500 participant

Requirements:

• Skype: Version 3.x or later
• Platforms: Windows, Mac

Product Acccess :

• Skype Extras [Tools | Do More | Get Extras];
• www.hidefconferencing.com and register/login

Installation Comments: Hosts need to install a conference management client that issues invitations via Skype IM chat or email, controls participant access (mute/unmute) and session recording and manages hand raising requests amongst other features.

Product Description

Offerings and Pricing:

VoIP Pioneer Tom Evslin articulates the Skype HD Voice experience.

One of the last sessions I attended at Fall VON was on the topic of HD Voice where several presenters talked about various means to achieve much higher quality voice conversations. Several examples were given about how HD Voice, with its much higher bandwidth, actually provides productivity improvements for call centers and other operations where one can encounter a wide range of accents, personal voice impediments, etc. resulting in lots of “could you repeat that again”, etc. It is the one quality improvement that even conventional PSTN networks could change to differentiate their service as is, according to one speaker, being implemented by Franc. But Skype was a low profile pioneer when it comes to HD Voice.

Fundamentally, the PSTN phone network for years has worked in an audio bandwidth of about 4KHz – sufficient to communicate the basic voice message but still with a squawky tone that we knew was not good enough for any good quality music. HD Voice provides at least double the bandwidth by (i) communicating harmonics in your voice whose absence distorts the conversation and (ii) eliminating those artifacts that can lead to the “could you repeat that again” questions. Nothing artificially done here other than wider bandwidth codecs; it’s a simple case of capturing a much wider range of your own natural voice. At this Fall VON session, a couple of the speakers mentioned how Skype had been a pioneering leader in providing HD Voice.

With some recent testing of High Quality Video I commented on how, when switching between Skype and SightSpeed, not only did we observe a much higher quality video picture via Skype but I could immediately sense a significant difference in voice quality on audio part of the call where the voice on Skype was much crisper, more natural and easier to listen to. The FREETALK Wireless Stereo headset I recently reviewed has a >20 KHz bandwidth on the speakers, making my Skype calls somewhat noticeably richer. I now prefer to use this headset if possible when making Skype-originated calls. When testing the Sony Mylo a year ago, I had a mylo-to-mylo conversation with Andy Abramson where we noticed the much better voice quality. In the mylo case it was the embedded voice engine software from Trinity Convergence that contributed to the quality. Polycom has implemented HD Voice in its Communicator C100S Skype Speakerphone; on the floor user experiences at Fall VON once again demonstrated, through personal experience, the advantages of HD Voice. In fact, in stereo setups, I call it “in your head” because the other party sounds like they are speaking in your head.

Recently Tom Evslin, probably one of the most experienced with not only the use, but also implementation, of VoIP services, put up a post about calling a colleague in Israel, When Vonage could not make the connection he was looking for, he found his party also had a SkypeID. Of the resulting call he says:

Fortunately the person I was calling is an active Skype user and he was on his computer and saw and answered my Skype call. He apparently had a decent quality headset as well. Skype devotes extra bandwidth – you’re paying for it, not them – to making call quality good when the call is between two Skype users. The quality was not only good – it was superb. Usually when I speak to someone for whom English is not his native language, there is a lot of “what” and “please say that again” and “I didn’t quite understand you” in both directions. None of that. We were on Skype an hour and sound quality made the conversation much better than a phone conversation has ever been.

I used to think the reason I have a hard time understanding people on the phone is because I can’t see their lips and their expressions. Now I realize much of the problem is the terrible audio quality – which we’re so accustomed to – of a traditional phone call.

As more and more of our communication goes over abundant Internet bandwidth and bypasses the telephony last mile and as the handset and headset manufacturers have an incentive to spend a little extra on speakers and microphones to support HD voice, we’re going to start insisting on getting what we’ve been missing.

And on (telecomm) innovation, where Tom has more experience than most of us, comments: “Is any more example needed of lack of innovation on the traditional phone network?” Definitely worth reading the post in its entirety.

Bu there’s one more service where you can take advantage of HD Voice. Recently HiDef Conferencing launched a new version of their multi-party (up to 500 participants) conferencing service that supports Skype as one means to access their conference calls. As mentioned in my previous post on this launch, all Skype participants on the call will hear each other at the high quality HD Voice bandwidth. And the best part is that Skype participants on the HiDef Conference calls have unlimited usage provided the host has subscribed to the service.

As Tom concludes his post: “Skype-to-Skype calls are free anywhere in the world. That’s just money, though; HD voice is priceless.“

Tags: Skype, HD Voice, Tom Evslin, Fractals of Change, FREETALK Wireless Stereo Headset

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While this blog tends to focus on new developments and the role they can play in our future real time conversations, it sometimes pays to look back to see what has been accomplished. For 2007, these are, from my perspective, top ten accomplishments for the Skype ecosystem:

1. eBay CEO Meg Whitman states at an eBay quarterly analyst conference call, “Not enough focus on ‘Delight The User’”. Hopefully this is a high priority guiding principal in the search for a new Skype CEO. Great technology but needs the business development, marketing and leadership skills of a seasoned high technology executive to truly make Skype happen on a world market leader scale. End users need a delightful “total” experience, including user support, adequate and well timed announcement of changes to calling plans, more participation in the blogosphere, higher awareness and broader availability of Skype hardware … and the list goes on.

2. Skype High Quality Video: because it brings a whole new dimension and level of realism to real time conversations. Yes, to take full advantage requires a new webcam with enhanced optics, but my final selection came because of the very positive reaction and response of those whom I converse with and who receive my High Quality Video (Recipients don’t need all the requirements of senders — the past two weeks two parties have observed “my” High Quality Video on their Macs.) A success story involving not only Skype software but also hardware specifications and co-operative device driver development.

3. HD Voice –nobody has called it that specifically but here I pick up a term used to name a Fall VON session. I refer to wideband voice transmission covering a minimum 8Khz audio bandwidth (twice that of conventional telephony). Over the year Skype has been making gradual improvements to the Skype voice engine, including the codecs, such that today most Skype voice conversations can be held with a basic laptop, and no additional headset or microphone (provided one is available in the laptop) is required. Over Christmas I helped my son with a Skype for Mac installation; he made a call yesterday from his home that was very clear using his basic Mac speakers and mic. Each new version of Skype since Skype 3.2 has had some improvements but with Skype 3.6 I am getting many unsolicited comments about how it better handles lower Internet connection bandwidth configurations. And, should you use a headset, such as the FreeTalk Wireless Stereo headset, for, say, personal privacy or office etiquette reasons, you will find your other parties on the call “in your head”. HD Voice received additional support this fall when HiDef Conferencing became equipped with the ability to ensure all Skype participants on a conference call would experience HD Voice quality when conversing with other Skype users on the same call.

4. Mobile Access to Skype. We still don’t have a Skype client for three of the most popular mobile devices (Nokia, Blackberry, iPhone); true mobile VoIP requires not only either WiFi or 3G connectivity but also appropriate wireless network infrastructure to handle the capacity demands VoIP would place on a wireless network. However, we have seen the release of several offerings that provide a combination of an IM client for these platforms along with a protocol that allows easy access to the wireless network to complete a call from a mobile device at reduced costs. These include the 3 Skypephone, IM+ for Skype (even works on not only the iPhone but also iPod Touch), iSkoot and Fring.

5. Skype Developer Partner acquired: Pioneering Skype Developer Partner Webdialogs was acquired by IBM’s Lotus Sametime division in September. Certainly says that with the right technology and offerings there is potential for other Skype developer partners to lead the way to expanding the Voice 2.0 world where applications are the value generator. Question: will IBM’s Lotus Sametime license Skype technology for their own real time conversations capability?

6. Skype Developer Platform. While still requiring web services support to be offering a complete mashup development platform, the Skype Mashup contest and announcement of the Skype Public Platform Roadmap have brought enhanced awareness to this program. Partner PamConsult has led the way in demonstrating, with PamFax, how Skype technology, digital rights management and transaction engine can be combined to offer a carrier independent, worldwide service that requires only a Skype user account, an Internet connection but no additional hardware beyond a basic PC.

7. Disruption Rules: While PamFax can reduce the cost of those $1.00+ per page faxes from hotels, two Skype Partners have introduced products that portend for significant business model disruption:

• OnState’s Call Center brings a “no hardware” solution to the call center space. Whereas a full call center previously required a low six figure investment in a PBX, as well as IT support and other infrastructure, OnState’s Call Center has the cost of a PC for each agent along with a $30 per month per agent ongoing subscription fee with no long term commitments.. Suddenly call centers become viable both for even the smallest business and for remotely located, geographically distributed employees.
• Vapps, Inc.s’ HiDef Conferencing provides hosted business grade conference calling (with HD Voice support as mentioned above) that is robust, reliable, scalable and supports up to 500 participants on a call. For as little as $25 per month to as much as $200 per month you can have 10 to 500 Skype participants with unlimited minutes as well as 300 to 5,000 toll-free minutes for callers from the legacy phone network. Six years ago $200 got me one hour of a five-party conference call. (Jan 2009 Update: HiDef Conferencing has been acquired by Citrix and is offering free trial calling until February 15, 2009.)

8. Innovation Rules. Whereas disruption requires the displacement of legacy business processes, innovation brings new services that allow new, previously unavailable (business) processes to happen:

• For instance, there is a Vosky distributor in Texas who has worked with a local social service agency to provide much more effective counselling services by bringing into the monthly review of “challenged” children’s education the child’s teachers located at the school during a social worker’s monthly visit to parents at home.via Skype conference calling.
• But we also are seeing innovative new services such as Evoca’s Media Service. This involves a hosted “Get a Phone for your Website” audio service that provides for asynchronous voice conversations being used, for instance, by Discovery Channel, with user access from either Skype or a legacy telephone.
• Collaboration: there are three different collaboration services, each addressing its own market niche. I label these services as innovative as they bring entirely new processes to business for both internal and external conversations, especially businesses that are geographically disbursed.

9. Skype Toolbars: For some time Skype has offered toolbars which make Skype calling more readily accessible in common applications such as Outlook, Internet Explorer and Firefox. In fact, the Skype Outlook Toolbar and Firefox extension have both become routine elements of my everyday communications operations. (Remember, I don’t dial phone numbers, I call people with real names.) Two weeks ago, Skype released a new version of the Skype Outlook Toolbar which has optimized Skype-enabled operations within Outlook while eliminating a couple of “nuisance” bugs in the previous version. However, the browser toolbars became embedded into the standard Skype installation but should you elect not to install them, you now have to re-install Skype itself. This is one example where Skype needs to “Delight the User” by restoring the ability to install these Toolbars individually when they were not installed at the time of Skype installation.

10. Skype Public Chats: Since first introduced in May, I have been a participant on several group chats, the most enduring being the Skype 3.x Discussion chat where several Skype enthusiasts share their thoughts and ideas. One interesting aspect of this particular chat is that a few members of the Skype Developer team and Skype PR people monitor the session and, when appropriate and not in conflict with “company policy”, participate in the conversation as well as provide notification about new releases, etc. It was a rather heated discussion on this public chat that lead to this Skype Journal post about restoring a “geek” feature buried in Skype related to Skype video. Another Public Chat was open during the beta testing of the Skype Outlook Toolbar; no doubt its input, and ability to bring out common issues, contributed to the robustness of the newly released Skype Outlook Toolbar.

11. (I can’t stop at 10): And for the 11th accomplishment: Skype Technology Licensing: In my recent interview with Sten Tamkivi, GM of Skype Estonia (a detailed post to follow), he mentioned that Skype is migrating its development focus to becoming a platform developer from simply a client and services developer. In addition to a platform for Partners (discussed above), the recent licensing to MySpace is the first in the series of what they hope becomes Skype infrastructure technology licensing deals with other services as their route into, say, providing social networking infrastructure.

From my perspective these have been the top accomplishment within the Skype ecosystem in 2007. It has resulted in a cost effective conversation ecosystem that has no equal amongst VoIP service providers. However, this ecosystem is not near demonstrating its full potential; hopefully eBay will announce a new CEO soon who captain the ship into providing a “delightful user experience” at full sail.

Next: My projections for 2008. Related “Skype Primer” posts:

• A Backgrounder
• Enabling Real Time Communications
• Skype Hardware – If and When Available
• Skype’s Extras Gallery and Developer Partner Program
• Mobile Conversations

Tags: Skype, eBay, Meg Whitman, High Quality Video, HD Voice, Skype Developer Program, OnState, Evoca, PamFax, Convenos, Yugma, Unyte, PamConsult, Skype Public Chat, MySpace, HighSpeedConferencing.com, FreeTalk Wireless Stereo Headset, Vosky, Skype Outlook Toolbar, IBM Lotus Sametime

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This is the fourth post in a series summarizing the current state of Skype’s ecosystem and providing a perspective on the assets in place for a new CEO to run with.

Getting to the Present

Alec Saunders’ Voice 2.0 Manifesto talks about Applications as the value creators in a Voice 2.0 world. Once again Skype differentiates itself through a two-year-old Skype Developer Partner program as evidenced by Skype’s Extras Gallery. But getting to this point was not easy; in fact:

• Developer Partners had to be true entrepreneurs who kept their vision of a value-generating application above all the obstacles encountered in not only developing their offering but also in initially marketing it. Close communication with many players at Skype was a key to resolving many issues.
• Skype needed to develop experience with all the subtleties of a developer program from building a roadmap and a viable API set to communicating where Skype would play and where they would let their Partners play in the overall market space.
• Skype’s API set has evolved over time to the point where only over the past summer, as evidenced through the Skype Mashup competition, it provides a more complete set of developer tools, including many, such as Call Transfer, that have been clamored for by developers. (But Skype is by no means finished yet with delivering API’s.)
• Skype has also developed a publishing platform, Publishing Studio, that lets developers focus on their application while providing the infrastructure to bring the application to market and generate transactions associated with the application
• To provide standards for quality assurance, Skype is in the process of certifying its partners’ software applications.

The Voice 2.0 Challenge

The Voice 2.0 Manifesto talks about three flavors of applications:

• Voice applications such as conferencing, enhanced voice mail, audio hosting.
• Voice enabled IT applications: collaboration tools, Salesforce.com, Outlook integration, call centers — all designed to assist the knowledge worker
• The voice web: mashup of voice and the Internet. Here the combination of voice and web services offers the greatest opportunities. From the Voice 2.0 Manifesto: “Examples include: spoken word real estate descriptions from the MLS coupled with mapping, voice enabled matchmaker services, customer service coupled with inventory / ordering / availability. The mix of text, web, voice, and programmatic access to data is a heady brew.”

To date we have seen several offerings in the first two categories with initial steps taken, such as with PamFax, into the last category. However, this category’s true potential will only be realized when web services API’s are incorporated into the Skype API set. (The first one is on their recently released roadmap.) One other challenge for the SDP is to extend this program from Windows to the Mac platform.

Skype Publisher Studio

In the course of judging for the Skype Mashup Competition and checking out some newer Skype Extras, it became apparent why the Skype Publishing Studio is a valuable asset and differentiator, not only for Skype but also for, especially, the Skype Developer Partners:

• provides complete install/uninstall infrastructure
• includes Digital Rights Management that allows the publisher to determine the licensing terms for the software including free trials and offerings; tolled, monthly or annual subscriptions, etc.
• connects to a transaction processor that provides mechanisms for payments via Skype Credtis, which, in turn, can be purchased via PayPal or a credit card.

Basically the Publisher Studio relieves Extras publishers of the need to worry about overhead that would be common to them all and allowing them to focus all their resources on the actual value-creating application. Along with the Publishing Stuido, the Skype Developer program is requiring adherence to standards for usability, robustness and overall quality assurance through the Skype Software Certification program.

PamFax, worldwide winner of the recent Skype Mashup competition, demonstrates the full power of the Publishing Studio through its use of all features, including transaction handling. My quote to the Share Skype blog post about PamFax’s award:

“As I judge I found many excellent entries that demonstrate the value of various aspects of the Skype ecosystem. However, the winners have gone beyond the normal “just add Skype” and taken a broader advantage of the entire Skype ecosystem to turn their Skype Extra into a full business opportunity. For instance, PamFax demonstrates that the Skype Extra program not only provides API’s into Skype but also provides a flexible set of licensing terms and a unique means to quickly collect revenues via the Skype Extras transaction engine.”

Essential Reading: Phil’s post yesterday (Russell Shaw also thought so): Why Skype and Vonage Must Live:

Skype is still evolving how to work in the hundreds of network and compute environments in hundreds of millions of situations. Those situations are challenging and evolving on their own. How you cross firewalls, scale p2p, and adapt streams for mobile conditions aren’t ready to be locked down.

Bottom line: Along with Skype’s provision of a complete suite of real time conversation tools, the Skype Developer Partner program is the other big differentiator from other “VoIP” services. This program:

• positions Skype outside the traditional “legacy telephony replacement” space
• opens up significant sustainable revenue generation opportunities for both Skype and its Developer Partners
• brings reduced communications costs and increased productivity to its business users

And somebody must like these Extras: over 21 million downloads. Another success story: WebDialogs (publisher of Unyte) recently became a division of IBM’s Lotus SameTime Group.

Reference posts:

• Unyte’s Tale: Pioneering and Persevering as a Skype SDP
• On Being a Skype Software Business Solution Partner
• A Banner Day for Skype Development Program
• Desktop Collaboration: The Skype Ecosystem Expands
• Skype Partners Answer Jeff’s Challenge for Innovation in Voice Services
• The Dawn of the Mashup World: – Part I: Challenges, Why and Expectations

Business Solutions Extras:

• Voice Recording and Archiving Applications: Pamela, Skylook
• Voice Services: Evoca, HighSpeed Conferencing.com.
• Call Center: OnState ACD for Skype
• Collaboration: Convenos, Unyte Yugma Skype
• Animation: Crazy Talk
• Miscellaneous Utilities: MyToGo, PamFax

For Skype Journal posts on these Partners, enter the Partner’s name into Skype Journal’s Search box and you will get a list of all posts related to that Partner. The complete set of Skype Extras, including games, entertainment and personalization Extras, can be found here or by going to Tools | Do More | Get Extras on the Skype for Windows client.

Other posts in this Skype Primer Series

• A Backgrounder
• Enabling Real Time Communications
• Skype Hardware – If and When Available

Tags: Skype, Voice 2.0 Manifesto, Skype API, Skype Extras, Skype Developer Partner Program, Skype Publishing Studio, Pamela, Skylook, Evoca, HighSpeedConferencing.com, OnState ACD for Skype, Convenos, Unyte, Yugma, Crazy Talk, MyToGo, PamFax, Phil Wolff, Russell Shaw

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The past week has provided an opportunity for all the nay-sayers and pessimists to say “I told you so”. But many bloggers have followed on Jeff Pulver’s lead with I Come to Praise Skype, not to Bury Them. Alec Saunders: Stop Wringing Your Hands. Skype is a Huge Success:

No, Skype isn’t a failure. By most definitions it’s a roaring success. The failure was EBay’s when they paid so handsomely for a business that was dedicated to sucking the profits out of a bloated telecom industry. Skype’s business plan was to take less money from consumers than a telco would for the same services. What were they expecting? What Skype hasn’t done is live up to its potential. The platform which many hoped would emerge from the momentum of Skype — the Voice 2.0 ideal of voice as an element in all applications — appears to have been sublimated to the needs of EBay’s balance sheet. The potential for Skype to utterly dominate voice in this new world has not yet been realized.

There’s still time. Nobody else has come close to what they’ve accomplished.

Over the past week I have also spoken with several Skype Partners; they all can only talk about the potential of Skype. I have to say, that due to the entrepreneurship shown by these partners, the Voice 2.0 ideal is being demonstrated in practice. Yes, they may be Skype versions of some legacy applications; however, Skype makes them even more useful and cost effective as applications. Best example: OnState’s Call Center virtually eliminates the need for a six figure PBX in order to operate a call center. And it provides an additional mode of communication with its unique chat capabilities. Three collaboration tools (my series will continue later this week); a voice conferencing app that handles up to 500 participants; Skype utilities (Pamela, Skylook) for logging and archiving in depth your Skype activities and a voice hosting service are all contributing to the Voice 2.0 ideal. And Paul Amery has done an excellent job of leading the Skype Developer Partner program while still recognizing there’s still a long road ahead to make it totally successful. The recent Skype Mashup contest demonstrated developer enthusiasm for incorporating Skype services into new applications.

Ken Camp, one of Skype’s most frequent critics, in “Comments from the Blogging World on Skype” sums it up with (typos corrected):

Overall, I think the community at large is still waiting to see what happens. There have been times I have not been a fan of Skype at all. That said, I want to see them succeed. I want to see them thrive more than they ever have. And like others, I’m optimistic that under the right leadership, Skype can set the bar far higher than they ever have before.

Thanks, Ken. Enough said….

Now that we are through the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday my Skype Primer series will continue later this week also.

Tags: Skype, Jeff Pulver, Alec Saunders, Ken Camp, Paul Amery, Skype Developer Program, OnState, Pamela, Skylook, Evoca, Convenos, Unyte, Yugma