Today marks the 8th anniversary of Skype’s launch as a free voice calling and instant messaging service running on Windows PC’s. Within the first month Skype had over 500,000 users; today Skype can boast of 170 million active users with as many as 30 million users online concurrently.

Skype’s Jennifer Caulkin, in her post, Celebrating Video Calling on Skype’s 8th Birthday, talks about the impact of Skype’s most unique feature: video calling. Having followed Skype since the launch of Skype video at 320 x240 resolution in 2006 followed by High Quality Video calling in the fall of 2007, one continues to be amazed at the various stories where Skype video has made a difference in people’s lives:

• Courtship: Skype’s initial low quality video (320 x 240) helped Eric and his wife carry on a long distance courtship five years ago at a time (before the launch of High Quality Video) when they were physically separated; today they are the proud parents of two children.
• Marriage: in times of geographical and cultural challenges, many Skype video calls have been used to assist and view marriages.
• Birth: Baritone Lawrence Brownlee was under a contract obligation to perform in Paris when his wife gave an early birth to their first son. Lawrence called Skype Video “an invention like the wheel”.

And the recent launch of Skype Group Video, combined with the voice quality of Skype’s SILK voice technology, is behind a very productive and interactive weekly meeting of an mentoring group in which I participate. I have also participated in other Group Video calls with participants across four continents for business meetings.

Aside from the “network effect” of Skype’s 170 million active users is the evolution of Skype well beyond the PC. With Skype’s cross-platform calling, video calls can be made between not only PC’s but also iPhones, iPad, Android phones and Internet-enabled TV sets. The recent launch of Skype for iPad is a perfect platform for video calls from the perspective of both portability and display size.

As Skype’s Jonathan Christensen pointed out at eComm 2008, Skype’s 2003 launch in success was not only due to Skype itself but also due to the confluence of PC market and Internet infrastructure conditions that made it possible to be easily installed and for adoption to take off:

Most Skype video calls on PC’s run at Skype’s High Quality Video standard of 640 x 480 (VGA) at up to 30 frames per second and require a minimum 384 Kbps upload speed on the Internet connection – easily achieved on most broadband Internet services. Recently Skype for Windows and Skype for Mac, combined with appropriate webcams, incorporated support for 720p HD video provided you also have sufficient Internet upload speed.

Today’s infrastructure challenge when it comes to Skype Video calling is the requirement for a 1.2Mbps upload connection to support HD video calling (720p @ 22 fps). Several webcams now support HD video calling; when it happens and your bring a video call to full screen display on a >20 inch monitor, it’s the closest Skype offering to telepresence. But most consumer broadband services cap out at 1 Mbps upload speed. Surely this will be addressed by broadband service providers over the next couple of years.

On the other hand, most users are simply happy with a good quality video call, whether at VGA or HD resolutions. It’s the call experience that matters most. It’s a bonus experience when you can take full advantage of High Quality Video or HD video.

Bottom line: Skype’s video calling has become the mass adoption of AT&T’s picture phone first demonstrated at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. With over 40% of Skype calls using video, it has become Skype’s most prominent defining technology; best of all, one-on-one Skype video calls are free and at a low cost for Group Video calls as one of three features of a Skype Premium subscription. It will be interesting to see how video calling evolves once Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype has been completed (later this fall?).

Update: Phil Wolff at Skype Journal reviews and speculates: Happy 8th Birthday, Skype! Many happy returns.

Note: webcams supporting HD video calling include FREETALK Everyman, FREETALK Conference HD Webcam, FaceVsion Touchcam N1 and V1, Logitech C310/C510 and C910 webcams as well as the webcams on the recently released MacBooks and iMac’s with Intel’s 2nd generation “SandyBridge” iCore processors.

Related articles

• How is it different from Skype? (skypejournal.com)
• Skype CEO Tony Bates talks about making Skype video calling ubiquitous (blogs.skype.com)
• 30 million people online on Skype (blogs.skype.com)

Just over a year after Skype’s first announcement of SkypeKit as a closed beta program for third party developers, Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s Vice President, Emerging Opportunities, announced the opening up of the SkypeKit developer program to a public beta at eComm 2011 this afternoon.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to discuss the program with Chris Andrews, Sr. Business Development Manager at Skype. The primary function of SkypeKit is to provide access to a “headless” version of Skype from which developers can provide their Skype functionality through their own product’s user interface. Otherwise SkypeKit provides access to the same functionality as standard desktop clients; however, it does not support screen sharing or multi-party video (Group Video).

To join the SkypeKit developer program developers create a developer account and pay a one-time fee of $10 to download the SDK and participate in the developer community forum. With its ability to support embedded Skype in hardware, hardware partners will also need to obtain Skype certification at the standard costs for that program. Software application developers have no additional cost. At this point there is no revenue sharing expected by Skype; that’s the one issue that will have to be addressed at some point if Skype is to demonstrate ROI to Microsoft.

Chris confirmed access to the video stream is available via Skype’s proprietary RTP interface which has been designed to address the various screen formats developers will encounter with either their own hardware or, in the case of a software application, the various PC and other intelligent device displays. Documentation is available at the Skype Developer site.

While SkypeKit provides support for both hardware and software, most of the development to date has centred around hardware devices. At CES Skype announced that SkypeKit was being used for a baby monitor based on the Panda chip and is being tested for incorporation into GM’s OnStar service. One new player he mentioned is Tely Labs, a startup with no website, who are developing a “living room experience” for their own branded TV accessory; we’ll have to wait to see what this means beyond the various Skype for TV/BluRay offerings.

An initial software platform incorporating SkyepKit is Imvox, a social voice communications platform for gamers. From their website:

The biggest benefit of Imvox’s participation in the SkypeKit developer program is it allows us to offer the gaming community crystal clear voice quality, which is used by hundreds of millions of people across the world every day. The Skype partnership also enables Imvox to work cross-platform, so Windows and Mac users enjoy the same high-quality audio. It’s about time a solution works for everybody in the gaming market.

I had an opportunity to experience Skype’s SILK codec in a gaming platform a year ago November with the launch of the Blabbelon “click-to-talk” voice service for gamers. It’s a different market space from the traditional consumer and business voice conferencing.

Long time Skype partner InnerPass has been awaiting the launch of SkypeKit’s open beta to incorporate Skype into their newly launched Group Mix team collaboration service – an evolution of their previous InnerPass Meeting and Sharing service that was offered as a Skype Extra.

The SkypeKit Developer Site provides documentation and samples to assist with the development process covering topics such as TV, audio and video and various development tools. However, Chris did mention that, while all the tools are there to support software development, they still need some work to make a software developer totally comfortable with using SkypeKit.

Bottom line: With Skype’s pending acquisition by Microsoft it will be interesting to see what uptake there is from developers and how this developer program works in conjunction with other Microsoft developer programs. Certainly Microsoft brings the financial heft and experience required to establish and attract a large developer community for SkypeKit as it evolves.

According to Stacey Higginbotham’s GigaOm discussion with Jonathan Christensen there are 2,000 developers who have been part of the closed program but there are over 10,000 developers who have applied and can now participate. As with the iPad and smartphone market spaces the evolution of the real time communications space will really depend on how readily users will adopt the resulting applications. Until other services can offer a combination of high quality voice, the ability to call a wide range of devices and platforms, HD video and over 170 million active users, Skype certainly starts out with an initial performance lead over pending competitors.

Skype Journal: Skype for iPad; SkypeKit launching at eComm next week?

Related articles

• Whither Skype Extras Today? Withered? (voiceontheweb.biz)
• The future of Skype Extras (blogs.skype.com)
• Skype for TV – Not on Windows (voiceontheweb.biz)
• With SkypeKit, Skype wants to be everywhere (gigaom.com)

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.

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• 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 morning, at the CEA Line Show in New York, Skype is taking the first step in the evolution of its revamped developer platform with the beta release of SkypeKit, “empowering consumer electronic and desktop software innovators to embed Skype into their products”.

In summary:

• Most importantly, SkypeKit allows developers to embed all the functionality of Skype into their offering without the need for the end user to have the Skype client open. They call it a “Headless” Skype toolkit whereas the developer community had been using the term “Naked” Skype.
• Initially SkypeKit is available as an invitation-only beta.
• Today API’s are available for Linux; API’s for Windows and Mac OS/X will be available in three to four weeks.
• The current program is targeted to consumer electronics and other telephony device manufacturers as well as desktop software developers
• SkypeKit includes support for Skype’s royalty-free ultrawideband audio SILK codec.
• SkypeKit supports Skype functionality beyond simply voice, including Skype video and H.264 processors embedded within hardware (such as with the FREETALK Everyman webcam).
• Skype’s developers have put significant effort into both security and scalability to sustain two of Skype’s key features.
• Skype will be promoting SkypeKit developers offerings through a “plugged into Skype” logo as well as making them available via the Skype Store.
• SkypeKit provides a long requested complement to the legacy Skype Public API’s used in applications such as Pamela, VodBurner, OnState, InnerPass and others.

This morning I had the opportunity to discuss the SkypeKit beta launch with Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s General Manager and Head of Platform. It provided an opportunity to dig deeper into Skype’s goals and strategy for the SkypeKit platform.

Primary goals of SkypeKit are:

• To provide developers with a “naked” Skype such that a Skype client is not necessary for the deployment of Skype on a hardware platform or Skype-enhanced application
• To provide an SDK that supports ALL the functionality of the current Skype clients, including video and SILK.
• To promote the incorporation of SILK into end point devices, making possible high quality audio calling such as experienced with the recent release of Skype for iPhone 2.0.
• Make the adoption of Skype into a device or application as friendly and readily adaptable as possible while providing appropriate levels of security and scalability
• To provide developers with a robust, scalable and proven channel for readily marketing their devices and applications worldwide.

In our discussion Christensen pointed out that Skype had not only reviewed developer requests for a revitalized and enhanced SDK but also incorporated the need to support all Skype functionality as well as maintaining the level of security and scalability required to meet the demand levels of Skype’s user base.

Christensen emphasized that Skype will be aggressively pursuing hardware vendors to license and adopt SILK as a standard feature of their offerings and to effect interoperability for Skype. IP-phones such as those offered by Linksys, Aastra, Polycom, snom and Grandstream would certainly be good candidates; their adoption of SILK would contribute significantly to Skype’s efforts to make SILK a standard. But it also means we could see the incorporation of SILK into, for example, the Skype for TV offerings available for certain models of Panasonic, LG and Samsung TV sets.

On another topic, Christensen emphasized Skype’s intention to facilitate marketing of the resulting offerings through both Skype’s “plugged into Skype” designation and the option to have them carried on the Skype Store. While any vendor can develop and market an offering on their own, it only receives the “plugged into Skype” designation required to be offered on the Skype Store  by meeting two conditions:

• it was developed using SkypeKit
• it meets Skype Certification standards when it comes to establishing a baseline for audio and video quality

Finally he pointed out that Skype launched this new SDK platform effort with this approach because “having an SDK for devices and desktop applications are a natural place for us to start extending Skype capabilities today”. As for supporting web developers, Skype only said, “We know there is demand among web developers, but we have nothing to announce at this time.”

To give a sense of developers intending to use SkypeKit, FREETALK (with their Webcam for Samsung TV), Panasonic, Litl with their Webbook and Grandstream are participating in the Skype booth at the CEA Line Show this week.

Bottom line: There’s quite a collection of legacy Skype hardware collected around my office over the past four years; most of it is no longer available due to  lack of ongoing support by previous Skype management, technology changes and vendor disappearance (who recalls US Robotics, for instance?). Frankly, if we look at Skype Certified hardware available on the Skype Store today, we only see offerings from FREETALK, Logitech, FaceVsion, RTX and some speakerphone vendors, such as Yamaha and ClearOne.

SkypeKit represents Skype’s first step in rebooting and revitalizing its hardware device support; it certainly fits in with Skype’s “Skype Everywhere” strategy. Last week at CommunicAsia, Skype CEO Josh Silverman was talking about his vision of “fixed-mobile convergence” for Skype where a user can transparently move from device to device and seamlessly continue a conversation without the need to even log on from one device to the next. But the final proof is in the execution:

• Has Skype made the business and ongoing support case for developers to employ SkypeKit and deploy offerings?
• Will SILK become an industry standard for audio quality? and will IP-phone vendors realize the value of SILK?

As for other Questions and Answers, check out that section at the end of Jonathan’s post today.

Full disclosure: In Store Solutions, producer of the FREETALK line of Skype hardware, has become a client of Denali InterConneXions, publisher of Voice On The Web, building on the author’s previous business development experience with establishing partnerships that can assist with the promotion of a primary vendor’s offerings. A more complete statement will follow shortly.

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Over the past two weeks we have started to see signs of a transition period for Skype’s developer support activities. Yes, Skype Extras is dead; however the current Skype API’s remain supported. Jonathan Christensen gave Michael Arrington at TechCrunch some hints of forthcoming developer support activity.  Skype for Asterisk was launched three weeks ago. All this builds on the “Skype Everywhere” theme announced last January at CES 2009.

And whither the Skype for SIP activity whose beta program was launched six months ago? Over the past two weeks we have seen a couple of Skype for SIP launch partner interoperability announcements incorporating Skype interoperability into their Unified Communications offerings:

• the initial announcement covered incorporation of Skype interoperability as a feature for Shoretel’s 11,000 enterprise customers using Shoretel’s IP Phone Systems.
• this was followed by an announcement of incorporation into the SIPfoundry’s open source enterprise IP PBX unified communications solution for organizations running a sipXecs IP PBX.

But today’s announcement of Skype for SIP interoperability with Cisco’s Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business opens up significant new markets for Skype through Cisco’s extensive worldwide reseller channels. From the press release:

“Cisco is committed to delivering easy-to-use technology to small businesses to help them run their business better and gain a competitive advantage,” said Mark Monday, vice president and general manager, Small Business Solutions business unit, Cisco. “We are excited about Skype for SIP interoperability since it adds a very cost-effective choice to the many other options within the Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series.”

Note that Cisco VARS will be required to register for a new Skype Service Partner certification program covering configuration of the Cisco solution to support Skype for SIP. And that the Skype for SIP interoperability with the Cisco 500 Series goes through third party certification at tekVizion Labs, an independent interoperability testing facility in Richardson, Texas.

In all three cases Skype for SIP increases the enterprise’s or organization’s worldwide communications choices while reducing costs through:

• taking advantage of Skype’s interconnection to the PSTN that provides low cost (SkyepOut) calling to most countries worldwide
• receiving inbound calls from Skype users via a global click-to-call button on the enterprise’s or organization’s website
• receiving inbound calls via Skype Online numbers in 25 countries (previously SkypeIn)
• interoperation of these features with all the other features of the PBX offerings of  Shoretel, sipFoundry and Cisco’s 500 Series, such as call transfer, call forwarding, voicemail, etc.

For organizations and enterprises, the availability of Skype for SIP, Skype for Asterisk and the Skype API’s used by Skype’s other business communications partners, such as OnState and Scendix (PamFax), brings about significant overhead benefits. This offering:

• ensures that, with one service, the enterprise can achieve low cost calling to any country worldwide without the need to mange and use country- or region-specific calling plans offered by the legacy PSTN telcos.
• eliminates a layer of communications cost overhead through the value-add of making all Skype’s global termination agreements available through one source via the various Skype for Business partners’ distribution and reseller channels.

Bottom Line: These announcements all build on Skype’s “Skype Everywhere” strategy. The key point here is that, going forward, Skype’s developer and partner activities will focus on transitioning business markets into Skype services by Skype-enabling legacy communications services and platforms, complementing its prior focus on applications that bring about communications enhanced business processes.

As predicted last spring these announcements execute on Business Long Distance: Death by 1,000,000 PBX’s.

Dan York says “Congrats to Skype and Cisco on this announcement”.

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The recent announcement of Skype’s decision to drop its Skype Extras (marketing) program initially caused much anguish across the blogosphere; however, more sober commentary has been appearing in the past few days. To recall the announcement:

1. Immediately: No new partner programs or upgrades will be placed into the Skype Extras
2. Going forward: Skype Extras will remain available via the Skype for Windows client until their certification expires (which may be up to a year).

Alec Saunders whose developer program experience crosses many platforms, in What Next, Skype?, reviews the “swift and brutal” reaction around the blogosphere, puts a perspective on the characteristics of good ecosystem programs and then measures up where Skype stands today. He concludes with:

17 points out of a possible 30. Even so, the only real killer flaw in the Skype developer program is co-marketing.  Since Skype owns the customer, they are the only cost effective channel by which a developer reaches the customer.

Without addressing these flaws, especially the co-marketing issue, Skype’s developer ecosystem will die.  It may take time, but developers will leave and go elsewhere.

Skype knows all of this, however.  The smart money is on Skype developing a new program, and judging by the recent spate of announcements around Skype in business, and the beefed up Skype for Business team, it certainly looks as if they’re going that way. It’s no coincidence that that’s where the money is too. [Author’s italics]

In No Skype Extras Anymore, Scendix CTO Christoph Buenger, a veteran at developing applications for both the Skype and eBay ecosystems, outlines in a PamNews blog post  why their products are not impacted by the shutdown of Skype Extras:

So how does this affect Scendix/PamConsult products? The simple answer is: not very much.

He goes on to review how Pamela only uses the Skype API’s; how the new upgrade of PamFax to Version 2.0 made the product totally independent of the Skype Extras system (they were the only developer who had incorporated Skype Credits into a product but they also use other payment services) and their “standalone” version of Pamela Call Recorder. He concludes with:

We believe that some changes are always a good chance to make something much better than it was before. For us, this means finding more ways to market our software and the opportunity to change the pay-as-you-go payment process in PamFax will be a great step forward in making our products even better.

So: R.I.P. Skype Extras System. Let’s find something better out there!

In Skype Says Next Generation Platform Will Embrace Developers Michael Arrington reports on a couple of weekend conversations with Jonathan Christensen:

Christensen says that the Extras announcement is not about Skype backing away from a robust developer platform. Rather, he says, Skype is focusing on a next generation platform that will hopefully address the deficiencies of the old program and open many more opportunities for developers to build on Skype services.

They went on to discuss third party applications that can make Skype calls directly and future web applications “leveraging Skype as a service”. But there are two reasons Skype has to continue to run on a client today:

• Maintaining high quality calls via their current audio/video encoding
• Skype’s p2p architecture which not only impacts latency issues but is also the major cost factor allowing free Skype-to-Skype conversations.

Read the post to see why Michael feels we’’ll first see desktop applications integrate Skype as a service first and how “the real win is when you can initiate Skype voice and video calls via web applications”. He concludes with:

Anyway, we’re looking a ways into the future with all of this. But one thing seems clear – Skype, which is happily soon to be under new management, will someday open its doors widely to developers.

Bottom line: Support for Skype developer activities is not dead; it’s evolving. No software partner’s business has been significantly impacted by the closure of the Skype Extras [marketing] program. Lots of suggestions about how Skype developer support should be executed going forward but it’s probably going to be an evolution rather than a “revolution”.

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With the launch of Skype for Windows 4.0, Skype delivered its first client incorporating Skype’s new superwideband SILK codec providing a new user experience in voice calling. For example, Alec Saunders in “Skype 4.0 audio: smooth as SILK”:

Perhaps the biggest improvement, though, is audio quality.  We all thought that Skype audio was great, right?  Skype’s internally developed SILK codec slipped into the final release, despite not having been in prior betas. A wideband codec that delivers the goods at half the bitrate of prior codecs, SILK makes talking on Skype a pure pleasure.

The SILK codec will be rolled out with the final release of Skype for Mac 2.8 (currently in beta but without the SILK codec) in April and in the next Linux release (no date given). The coding was designed to allow easy embedding into hardware devices, such as sound cards, headphones and Skype phones. But this still limits the SILK experience to Skype-to-Skype calls. So they looked at the question of how can Skype most readily advance the deployment of this high quality codec  and the resulting user experience at billions of additional voice conversation end points?

At eComm 2009 this afternoon Skype announced, during Jonathan Christensen’s keynote presentation, that the SILK codec will be licensable, royalty-free, to device manufacturers and others; it has been designed independent from Skype signaling protocols such that it can be used in voice streams incorporating the SIP protocol. Jonathan mentioned that there is no requirement to use the SILK codec in conjunction with a Skype implementation.

From an interview with Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s GM for Audio and Video, with Alec Saunders in Skype’s SILKen bear hug: “Further, SILK media streams pass unchanged across Skype’s own media gateways, meaning that SIP endpoints have suddenly become much more compelling in the Skype world”.  Alec goes on to discuss two reasons for Skype’s strategy: (i) to spread superwideband audio everywhere and (ii) to give existing carriers a bear hug. Read the post for details.

In his post on this announcement, Jonathan pointed out what the three year Skype SILK development process focused on:

• • improving audio bandwidth going from 8 kHz to 12 kHz, meaning that a SILK conversation sounds like you are in the same room as the person you are speaking with
  • providing real-time bandwidth scalability to deal with degraded network conditions
  • balancing codec optimization between voice, music and background noise, each of which can have an impact on the overall user experience
  • delivering a robust solution that delivers a more consistent audio experience, regardless of network conditions and an individual user’s voice signature

I have watched as a wireless carrier attempts at new video calling services are introduced and subsequently fail due to a lack of adoption – the primary reason being there are too few devices out there supporting video calling and thus, there’s nobody to whom one can make a wireless video call. Skype’s announcement today overcomes a major barrier to allowing a much broader user base to take advantage of superwideband audio. It’s a first, but key, step towards a broader goal than “Skype Everywhere”, namely, superwideband audio on all voice calling.

Finally, this afternoon I had a chance to meet many members of the SILK development team who attended Jonathan’s presentation. They deserve kudos and congratulations for all their ground breaking efforts and success in setting new standards in voice call quality.

Developers can find more information at Skype’s SILK website.

Phil Wolff, Skype Journal comments on the SILK performance slides shown at the presentation: SILK performs better

Update: The transcript of Jonathan Christensen’s Codec Evolution and Industry Proposal presentation.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be heading out to San Francisco for eComm 2009. Kudos to organizer Lee Dryburgh, who on his own initiative and at his own personal risk, launched this event last year. Late last week Lee was able to announce that registrations had surpassed last year’s attendance.

Attendees should come away with not only a much better understanding of how this will be a watershed year for telecommunications. The combination of shaky economies, emerging Voice 2.0 offerings and opportunities for more effective personal and business communications is creating a “Perfect Storm” for a watershed year in the communications space. Smartphones, video calling, collaboration services, communications enhanced business processes, communications infrastructure, business models and regulatory issues will all be on the menu. From the eComm press release last week:

Included among the dozen keynote speakers and scores of other presenters over the three days of eComm2009 are:

•    Ge Wang, assistant professor at Stanford University and co-founder, CTO and chief creative officer of Smule.com;
•    Jonathan Christensen, general manager for audio and video at Skype;
•    John Forsyth, vice president of strategy at Symbian;
•    Malcolm Matson, founder of the OPLAN Foundation and entrepreneur;
•    Michael Calabrese, vice president, and Sascha Meinrath, research director, both of the wireless future program at the New America Foundation;
•    Tony Jebara, co-founder and chief scientist at Sense Networks and assistant professor of computer science at Columbia University;
•    Media futurist Gerd Leonhard;
•    Richard Whitt, telecommunications and media counsel for Google in Washington, D.C.;
•    Martin Geddes, head of strategy at BT Design;
•    Benjamin Joffe, founder and CEO of +8*;
•   Mark Rolston, chief creative officer of Frog Design.

Sponsors include Skype, MetaSwitch, NEC Sphere, Voxbone, Global IP Solutions, Voxeo, Jaduka, Ribbit and Broadsoft.

I have already been approached by some companies for interviews (although with full days through to 9 p.m., scheduling interviews may be a challenge) and been made aware of announcements coming from Skype, Voxeo and Jaduka. I’m sure there will be others; it will be a most interesting week.

As Lee says at the end of the press release:

Those wishing to register online may do so at  http://www.amiando.com/ecomm2009.html. For an additional $100, attendees may register on site.

And by entering the promotional code “one touch”, you’ll get a 20% discount courtesy of Voice On The Web.

P.S. – Given that there are many these days in need of social assistance, whether food, shelter or otherwise, Lee has announced that “10% of any profit from the event will be given back to the local community by donating it to the Shelter Network (http://www.shelternetwork.org)”, a Bay Area non-profit undertaking that assists families and individuals with housing issues. Lee has personally guaranteed a minimum $2,000 donation and undertook an interesting social networking experiment to help raise additional funds.

Last day to register today for Regular Pricing; Late pricing applies for registrations after Feb.17, 2009. Enter “one touch” for a 20% discount.

Two weeks ago eComm 2009 organizer Lee Dryburgh observed that:

With the heavy backdrop of economic doom and gloom everywhere I’d been finding it ever more strange that virtually every company I was dealing with in relation to the 2009 conference, was reporting accelerating business let alone [as opposed to] flat or declining business.

Via a Skype multi-party call he held a virtual panel discussion involving:

• Jonathan Christensen (Skype)
• Irv Shaprio (IfByPhone)
• Rodrigue Ullens (Voxbone)
• Graham Brierton (Voicesage)on this topic.

When asked about today’s economy he repeatedly found eComm 2009’s sponsors saying “Oh no, we’re actually doing better, due to the downturn”. So he asked each of the panelists what their offering was doing such as to accelerate their business.

Graham Brierton (VoiceSage):

For example, we had a company that the key thing they wanted to do was bring in their debts cheaper and quicker, instead of reminding people to pay their bills.  Part of the paying the bill process was transferring them back into a call center to actually collect the money.  What we noticed when we analyzed the data was they were getting a hell of a lot of people that were wanting to pay between 3:55 p.m. and 4:05 p.m.  We still don’t know the reason why there is a peak at that point, but there is a peak at that point.

One of the issues that these guys had was that they couldn’t actually take all of those calls because they had a shift change at 4:00 p.m.  They were unaware that because they had a shift change there were a lot of people that wanted to engage in a process with them but they weren’t allowing it because of their internal business processes.  They actually changed that.  That came as a direct result of simply looking at the data generated from the interactions that their customers were having with us, and us trying to collect money from them.

Irv Shapiro (IfByPhone):

Batteries Plus is a franchise-based business in the United States and Canada that has hundreds of retail stores that sell only batteries.  If you need a battery for anything, you go into Batteries Plus or you go to their website and you can purchase a battery.

In many, many cases, people need a battery right away so they want to go to a store.  Batteries Plus was finding that they were fielding hundreds and hundreds of phone calls to stores asking for routine information such as “What are your hours of operation; which is the closest store to my address…?”  We automated that process for them.

In fact, they automated it themselves by going to our website, provisioning a toll-free number, putting in a IVR on the front end that asked a couple of very simple questions to determine whether the customer was looking for information about batteries.  In that case, the call was transferred to a central call center corporate.  Were they looking for the closest location, in which a geo-coded application automatically provided them with the closest location and driving information.  If they were looking for store hours of operation, same geo-code process except in this case we retrieved the hours of operation.

They found a dramatic increase in the productivity of their in-store personnel because now those personnel could concentrate on spending time with customers in the store.  The side effect of that is they sell more batteries.

Rod Ullens (Voxbone), who reported business growing at 15% per month:

At some point, they [cloud based services such as VoiceSage and IfByPhone] need to reach the PSTN.  Most of them actually need a telephone number to be activated.  The bigger they get, the bigger we get.  That’s already one reason.  It’s not necessarily because of us, but because of our customers that have services that are interesting, and we grow with them.

If you look at the way numbers were used in the past, where you had a telephone number that was just linked to a physical location, that’s all you can do with it.  The cost to dial such a number is pretty expensive.  What we’ve done is to just completely take away the geographical link.  Now a number is just a software-based identifier that people can use to call you on.  It’s very flexible.  You can just build up a service.

First of all, that service can be completely Internet based.  You can just use telephone numbers from Voxbone to make it reachable from traditional phone networks, from mobile phones and so on.  Basically, you can be a company and have a virtual presence in a lot of countries.  From day one, you can start a service provider, in forty-five countries.  I think that’s one major reason why we’ve grown, especially now.

Jonathan Christensen (GM Audio and Video Platforms, Skype), in response to Lee’s question: “What do you think is driving these minutes?  Is it businesses using Skype, for a change, in order to save money, for example?”

We’re seeing two things.  One is just consumer migration to value; people want to avoid long distance, but we also see in the consumer space a network effect around your friends being there, the quality being great, it being convenient and easy.  We have a large constituency of people where it is the convenience, free, and easy factor.

On the business side, Gartner, for example, recently said they kind of backed off their position that Skype is dangerous, evil, and will introduce Trojans into your network, and so on.  We hear; we have a bunch of case studies and we hear more and more from corporate IT, these commandments to their workforce saying, “When you’re travelling, when you’re making long distance calls, when you’re going to be faced with insane roaming charges, please try to use Skype.  It works, it’s easy, you can download it, it’s free”.  We are seeing acceleration in that sector, as well.

These are snippets from the discussion; Lee has transcribed the entire session in a eComm 2009 blog post.

Note that while all the participants in this call will be presenting, Jonathan Christensen will be delivering a keynote presentation: “Codec Evolution and Industry Proposal” along with a Skype announcement.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for value in communications services that drive business decisions, if you want to be a player in the emerging communications space, eComm 2009 provides the best opportunity to get a three day education in how the Voice 2.0 world will evolve. It’s an opportunity to network with the thinkers and business leaders who will be providing services for that market space. That’s why I’ve convinced a friend who is a 34-year veteran in the Canadian telecomm market to come; he wants his new consultancy to have relevance going forward.

Register here; enter “one touch” to get a 20% discount. Speakers. Schedule.

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• SILK: Skype’s New Audio Codec Sets New Performance Standards for Voice Conversations (voiceontheweb.com)
• Unexpected iNum Adds To DID (stuffem.wordpress.com)

The most recent hotfix release of Skype for Windows 4 Beta 3 had one key new feature:

• feature: Super Wideband audio codec

The associated Skype Garage post went on to say:

… Starting from this version we’ve included the new Super Wideband Audio codec. This is our second in-house built audio codec especially designed for calls over the internet with superb quality. The Super Wideband Audio codec will help you most on lousy network conditions and when you have lower bandwidth available, although it also improves quality in normal conditions too.

Today Skype for Windows 4.0 Gold release will now allow the entire Skype for Windows user community to take advantage of the SILK codec’s features.

SILK is basically a significant improvement on Skype’s previously acclaimed HD Voice performance. I have now experienced a couple of calls where this SILK codec was available at both ends of the call; it certainly provides a clearer, crisper audio experience. (For those unfamiliar with the term “codec” they are algorithms engineered into the voice communications network for converting audio waveforms into digital streams for transmission over the communications network and then converting them back to an audio waveform at the receiving end.)

Last week I had the opportunity to interview Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s General Manager for Media Platform to learn more details about this “SILK” codec. This codec is the outcome of a three year development process with a focus on:

• improving the audio bandwidth out to 12,000 KHz
• providing bandwidth management to deal in real time with degraded  network conditions
• balancing the codec optimization between voice, music and background noise, each of which can have an impact on the overall user experience
• overall robustness to provide a more consistent user experience, regardless of network conditions and an individual caller’s voice signature.

While the human ear can hear sounds up to 22 KHz the actual sound produced by human vocal chords has a frequency range of 20 Hz to 14 KHz; however, sounds below 70Hz are not what you would call “pleasant” (as experienced with those “thump, thump” car speakers). Skype’s SILK codec is optimized for the transmission of audio between 70 Hz and 12 KHz. Compare this to the bandwidth of the PSTN’s standard G711 codec of 400 Hz to 3.4KHz; wider band codecs, such as AMR-WB and iSAC cover the range of 50 Hz to 7 or 8 KHz respectively. And, as indicated in both the AMR-WB and iSAC Wikipedia entries, there is a major licensing cost consideration:

AMR-WB has been standardized by a mobile phone manufacturer consortium for future usage in networks such as UMTS. Although its speech quality (similar to Skype, including glitches) makes it likely that older networks will have to gradually be transformed to support wide band, its high legal costs may limit its uptake.

However, in order to deliver on this audio bandwidth, Skype also had to consider getting the voice stream across the Internet. SILK interacts with Skype’s redeveloped (network) bandwidth manager that uses a feedback algorithm to provide “adaptive bandwidth management”. SILK is a “variable bitrate” codec that can scale the bitrate (amount of data being transmitted as voice packets) up and down as necessary. The key network parameters governing this adaptation are packet loss and jitter changes. Fundamentally, to the end user, this means incorporating a level of call robustness that results in improved consistency of call quality, especially for lower speed Internet connections (below 3Mbps) with no user intervention required.

Another factor to be considered are accommodations for differences in perception of audio quality depending on whether there is voice, music or random background noise involved in the audio signal. Suffice it to say that Skype’s engineers have been involved in a balancing act amongst these factors in the development of the SILK codec.

The bottom line is that Skype has set new barriers for voice call quality and and the associated user experience. Since there needs to be SILK at both ends of a call, the number of calls I have experienced with SILK has been limited but, as mentioned above, those I have made had a very crisp, clear audio quality. With Skype’s launch today of Skype for Windows 4 Gold release almost all my Skype-to-Skype calls will be able to achieve this performance level. Going forward expect to see SILK incorporated into ont only Skype for Mac. But the the SILK codec has been modularly designed for embedding into silicon; we can expect some future Skype-enabled hardware platforms to be able to take advantage of SILK’s performance.

And finally note that, in order to keep costs low while improving call quality, Skype has no licensing costs associated with their proprietary codec. Is there a potential for a new Skype revenue stream by licensing this codec to other communications service providers as well as hardware vendors?

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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TMCNet Editor Michael Dinan has reported on Jonathan Christensen’s keynote two weeks ago at TMCNet’s IT Expo in Los Angeles. While many of us in the Skype world have heard pieces of this story previously, Jonathan was addressing an audience of enterprise and business telephony professionals who are dealing with VoIP implementation issues.. Jonathan’s basic thesis was that VoIP has become a commodity feature but the innovation starts by going beyond low cost voice conversations:

Now, Christensen said, are emerging three pillars of a generation “beyond VoIP.”

The first pillar, he said, includes different facets, including the fact that – unlike analog telephone conversations – services such as Skype are marked by an “explicit handshake model,” or agreed relationship, where both or all parties have agreed to communicate (a nice idea although this presidential election year will feature no robocalls, courtesy of Congress). Secondly, he said, there’s a new band of audio, including wideband audio, improving communications, in part, by allowing participants to distinguish among different speakers. Finally, higher resolution video makes video conferencing such as that offered by Skype, more real.

Three pillars that set the bar for fully equipped IP-based conversation services from the performance aspect.

Yesterday analyst Jon Arnold, who also attended the conference, wrote in his weekly Service Provider Views column: Is VoIP Dead?

Skype has an important message to deliver, not just for the consumer market, but for the business world too. It’s really a matter of how far ahead you’re prepared to look. While most service providers are just catching up to the realities and potential of VoIP, pioneers like Skype are way past that, and for them, VoIP is so old, it’s dead for them.

He goes on to point out:

The vision Jonathan paints, of course, is based in the world of IP, not TDM. VoIP can readily replicate the PSTN feature set today, but not much more. With end-to-end IP, not only can VoIP deliver an added layer of new services, and integrate seamlessly with Web services, but it can also deliver superior voice quality to what we’re experiencing today. Under these conditions, VoIP is actually a better product than TDM, and that’s where things get interesting. VoIP is still widely perceived as an inferior service, which explains why it is primarily sold on the basis of price rather than quality. Think of the possibilities for service providers when VoIP could actually be marketed as a premium service, and one that does not have to be sold as a way to lower your long-distance costs.

Well, by the time the incumbent telcos come around, Skype will be long past them. Skype has built up a sprawling international customer base that has embraced a communications platform that goes well beyond VoIP. PC-based VoIP and IM have been the backbone of their success, but Jonathan sees a richer experience emerging, and one that is much more than everyday VoIP. In the keynote, he talked about three pillars that will support this new mode of communications – presence, wideband audio and high resolution video.

And, after discussing the three pillars mentioned above, concludes:

Taking all of this into account, one of Christensen’s key messages was that innovation is happening today at the network edge, not the core. Furthermore, it is not coming from the telcos, but from the disrupters from outside the voice world, such as Skype, Google and the whole Open Source movement. Telecom, as we know it, is now software, and rapidly moving into the cloud and the world of Web 2.0. In this environment, voice becomes another data application, and telcos will no longer be able to build their business around it. This means walled gardens cannot last – and this includes Skype, by the way – and the end user will ultimately define what the optimal experience is, as well as where they choose to get it from.

This is the world Skype is building its future around, and to the extent that VoIP is offered as a standalone service, it will not have much of a future here. Service providers are certainly welcome to try doing so, but in my books, the voice of tomorrow will look a lot more like what Skype is talking about today. What does it look like to you?

It’s not about VoIP; it’s about the potential of multi-modal IP-based conversations. Read Michael’s and Jon’s complete posts for more insight.

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Our choice of PC’s and the associated applications are becoming a factor in the definition of our personality:: Windows or Mac? IBM or Dell? Our smartphone choices are becoming a factor in the definition of our personality. Blackberry, iPhone or, Nokia?

But just as important is how these associations are also playing a role in how IT departments are losing control over our IT platforms. I recall a story when the first IBM PC’s came out where a major Canadian bank Vice-President chastised an employee for having a modem connection — insecurity written all over his face and the modem ordered removed! My first cell phone required both a rather large handset device that was screwed into my dashboard and connected to a black box stored in the luggage compartment of my station wagon. And those external cell phone aerials attached to a rear window were a status symbol that you were “connected” anytime, anywhere. But the employer would usually define what you would have (@$3,600 for my first cell phone in 1986, you bet!). CFO’s wrestled with the expense, wondering why anyone would want to talk while driving.

Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s GM for Audio and Video, in two recent guest posts on Saunderslog.com talks about how IT is becoming personal. In the first post he talks about how “The Web is My IT”

But, we have more freedom when it comes to the applications we download and run. I use Skype for *all* of my telephony that is not mobile. I use Google Reader as an info clipping service. I use Gmail to manage my online subscriptions and travel arrangements. I use Twitter to stay up to date. With the myriad of great choices available, users are finding ways to make “personal technology” work for them. None of these are IT-sanctioned applications, but they are enormously helpful in my work (and personal) life… and I am saving my company real money on telecom and infrastructure costs.

Slowly, this shift is happening at the hardware level too. Our machines are reflections of our personal styles and tastes. At Skype, we are in two camps: the Lenovo loyalist and the Mac fan club. Apple has a reputation for inspiring fanatical loyalty, but ThinkPad users are every bit as rabid as the MacBook fans. They know every model number past and present. They reminisce about great machines they have retired and passionately compare notes about DIMMs, hard drives and battery configurations (I carry a MacBook Air – and thank goodness that Apple makes these decisions for me).

He starts off his concluding paragraph with “The long-term effect when users migrate to personal technology is that the IT-approved applications slowly lose traction.” Coming from a former employee of Microsoft whose revenue depends highly on IT-sponsored implementations of its server-based applications, it’s a powerful statement with lots of implications for the challenges ahead at Microsoft.

In his second post “IT Gets Personal – Mobility and the Desktop”, Jonathan talks about how, while Blackberry, with its Blackberry Enterprise Server, still controls authentication and authorization policies, RIM is broadening its market approach to encompass the prosumer and even consumers. He talks about the iPhone “thumbing its nose at IT managers”:

However, aside from the Blackberry/Exchange relationship, the IT department has had little to do with our mobile technology choices. My mobile is MY business, thank you. I use it primarily for work, but it is not an IT-approved device. Oh, by the way, thanks for picking up the airtime charges.

Certainly a noticeable trend lately is how, when someone leaves an employer, the two constant in his/her contact information is the mobile phone number and, if they have one, the SkypeID.

Jonathan goes on to talk about the decreasing role of the PBX, becoming identified with your personal mobile number and the adoption of desktop communications applications in the workplace, especially IM.

There is more rich interaction in these sessions. People are sending links, copying and pasting text and sharing files in real time. Today’s knowledge worker roams seamlessly between Mobile calls, SMS, IM, Blackberry email and PC calling. Nearly 30 percent of Skype users are using it for business and 28 percent of Skype-to-Skype calls include video. The old desktop phone just can’t keep up.

His bottom line:

Users are taking control of their communications channels. They are innovating, making personal mashups with the new tools, and they are creating a new namespace to go with it (e.g., Gmail address + Mobile phone number + Twitter ID + Skype ID). And all of this is happening outside the IT department’s “walled garden.” It’s good news for users and productivity, but what does this loss of control mean for the IT department and the organization? What does it mean for PBX vendors? And, if the users are happy, does it really matter?

Interesting perspectives from someone who has been integrally involved with the rise of IP-based communications and the extension of voice messaging to incorporate text chat, video and mobility over the past one-and-a-half decades.

The PC is transitioning to the lightweight laptop (many of my acquaintances have a MacBook Air); smartphones fit in the shirt pocket or purse or hang from a belt clip. The IT department is becoming more ethereal as in “figures light and aeriform come unlooked for and melt away”. Both posts (once again here and here) are well worth the read.

(And did anyone notice that, while RIM tried to distinguish consumer and business markets by having a camera in the Pearl and Curve but not in the 88×0 series, the about-to-be-released Blackberry Bold has everything – camera, new media player with iTunes support, GPS: all-in-one – and addresses both markets.)

We have previously posted about Jonathan Christensen’s presentation at eComm 2008; here and here. As well we have referenced the transcript here. This past week eComm 2008 producer Lee Dryburgh was able to make available videos of the presentation. The Standard Definition version is below while an HD version is also available for viewing.

For easy follow along we have reposted the accompanying slides: (Power Point version here).

Tags: eComm 2008, Skype, Jonathan Christensen

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Rising like a Phoenix out of the ashes of eTel, Lee Dryburgh has taken the leadership in establishing a new conference that covers the bleeding edge of emerging communications. To be held at the Computer Museum in Mountain View, CA March 12-14, 2008, eComm2008, the Emerging Communications Conference, features sessions led by industry gurus with visions into the evolving transformation of the telecommunications industry into an IP-based world.

eComm brings out the visionaries, emergent technologies, real-world startups, cutting-edge academic projects, views from the incumbent telecom players; garage based hacks and stirs required policy debates to create the ultimate three-day conversation.

The story of the decentralization of communications innovation has passed the second chapter which was VoIP. It is now regarded as a building block only. As a standalone service it is both uninspiring and unlikely to be highly profitable.

The excitement and profits will be derived from combining voice with other vectors we’re tracking … more here.

Recently Lee interviewed Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s General Manager for Video and Audio, as one of a series of interviews with several of the eComm2008 speakers, and covered several issues:

• Why eComm is so important?

I think it [Skype] really represents the first major innovation in this [telecom] space since the introduction of the telephone system. And right now, we are just at the beginning of where the possibilities are. And so, I think I see eComm is focused exactly on the right spot where there is going to be an explosion of new rich communication services on the Internet platform..

• What is the subject area of Jonathan’s keynote?
• What initiatives for analyzing and improving voice quality are you helping to lead at Skype?

Suddenly with the Internet, you have the possibility to do so much more but you also loose that deterministic quality. There are so many things that we have to do to get the whole thing right and it’s like a daisy chain. On the send side, you have to think about the microphone and then the sound card and the sampling and the coding. Then you have to send it correctly and you have to know something about the network when you’re sending it: is there packet loss on the network? is there jitter? is there delay? What is the bit rate that is supported on the network? All those things that you have to optimize for – all of those situations. Is there jitter in the system that you’re using because other applications are taking too much CPU? All those things.

• Can you comment of the evolution of Skype’s wideband codecs going forward?
• Do you see something less incremental (and more revolutionary than evolutionary) coming along out of Skype?
• Can you comment on the future of voice processing technologies? Where do you see them going?

We want to continue to make the whole experience as seamless as possible, as natural and as life-like as possible. And I think, as I mentioned before, there’ll be a trend towards the higher fidelity, better performance in the devices as well. So we need the help of the device manufacturers at this stage to realize that voice is not just about this old fashion PSTN-style voice. It’s really about, high quality stuff. Video is a major initiative for us and making life-like video available in the mass market is a big goal for us as well.

And, we think – we hope anyway – that we’re at the front of the pack. We’re certainly investing very, very heavily in these areas. And we’re hoping to make this stuff as good as it can be.

• When can we expect the average person to have Skype running on their mobile phone (aside from the 3 Skypephone)?
• Where do you see the future of communications going?

I just have to reiterate, I think that anybody who has not figured out that the Internet is the platform and that there isn’t any such thing as walled gardens that will survive, or sub-networks [such as AOL tried] that are going to survive, those people are doomed. The intersection of these worlds is going to be chaotic. It’s going to be violent. It’s going to be messy for a while but it is going to happen, and the Internet will survive as the one open platform.

• Can you elaborate on why you are so excited about open spectrum?
• (re SIP) Do you see fragmentation when it comes to signaling going forward? Do you see things becoming fragmented into different signaling systems according to the application?

Read the entire interview here. It provides more insight into how Skype operates and background for where they are probably going than we have seen from any Skype executive in some time. And the last question brings out a most interesting answer re Skype’s position on, and use of, SIP.

With all the recent interviews and participation in various public forums, is Jonathan becoming the successor to Niklas as Skype’s visionary and public spokesperson for future technology innovations? A very good reason to attend eComm2008 and learn more!

Additional references:

• Skype On The Go: A perspective on Skype’s current state on mobile devices.
• Skype say “No” to VoIP Interoperability – *because customers aren’t asking for it!* – Well I am! Dan York comments
• A SIP/Skype Gateway Is NOT In The Forecast Hudson Barton responds
• HD Voice: “Priceless”

Tags: Skype, eComm 2008, Emerging Communications Conference, Jonathan Christensen, SIP, Lee Dryburgh, HC Voice

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Earlier this week I mentioned that Jonathan Christensen would be appearing on Alec Saunders’ daily Squawk Box this morning to answer questions about Skype High Quality Video. The session has now been posted as a podcast on Saunderslog. Well worth a listen to get answers to how High Quality Video evolved at Skype as well as some details of how it was a full end-to-end effort on the part of Skype, Logitech and On2 Technologies to meet Skype’s goals.

As an indication of interest, normally there may be four to six participants on a Squawk Box con cast; today there were thirteen.

Tags: Skype, Skype Video, High Quality Video, Jonathan Christensen, Alec Saunders, Saunderslog

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For the past few weeks, Alec Saunders, CEO of iotum, has been hosting Squawk Box, a daily conference call discussing IP communications industry issues with anyone who wishes to join the call. Naturally he uses iotum’s Free Conference Call service on Facebook for these calls. Occasionally he has been able to line up a featured guest who brings a special interest to the discussion..

Thursday at 11 a.m. EST (GMT -5) Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s GM for Audio and Video, will be participating to answer questions about the evolution of Skype’s technology, especially the recently launched High Quality Video.

For reference here are Skype Journal’s previous posts about High Quality Video:

• Installing a Logitech High Quality Video Camera: The Experience.
• High Quality Video: What’s the Benchmark?
• High Quality Video: Definitely a Winner for Skype
• Expanding the High Quality Video Experience and Observations

I have been using the High Quality Video for a few months now; my contacts continue to complement the quality of the video they are seeing. ‘Nuf said!

Conference Calls Amongst Your Facebook Friends

Accessing Free Conference Calls on Facebook:

If you are a Facebook, member simply go to the links in the text above. If you are not a Facebook member, send an email to alec@iotum.com to request information on how you may join this call. SkypeOut access: if you are outside the U.S. and have a SkypeOut account, you may use SkypeOut to access the conference number to minimize long distance charges.

Tags: Skype, Skype Video, High Quality Video, Jonathan Christensen, iotum, Free Conference Calls, Alec Saunders

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High Quality Video certainly places superior demands on technology resources; in testing yesterday evening with Phone Boy, Dameon Welch, we found superior performance for the user who has those resources.

In previous posts I have talked about doing a setup for High Quality Video and subsequently putting together the requirements, goals and benchmarks for High Quality Video. Working with a 1.6 GHz CoreDuo Laptop, Logitech 9000 webcam with version 11.5 drivers, Skype 3.6 for Windows and a 6Mbps download/800 kbps upload cable Internet connection at my end and a 2.6 GHz Core2Duo Desktop, and even faster Internet connection at Dameon’s end we did test video calls of both Skype’s High Quality Video and SightSpeed 6.0 to determine what constitutes the better user experience. In today’s post I will describe our High Quality Video results; tomorrow I will provide a summary comparison with SightSpeed. along with commentary on some other experiences that helped to define what to expect for High Quality Video.

As a preamble to our results, and building on my recent interview with Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s GM for Audio and Voice, their High Quality Video is the result of extensive co-operation between Logitech and Skype working together to optimize their codecs and drivers, often at some fairly basic levels to achieve a sustainable high quality video experience. Skype had set initial goals of having a sustainable user experience that could be achieved by a reasonably broad base of Skype users: 640 x 480 @ a sustainable 24-30 fps outcome over an entry level broadband connection (384 kbps). They tested out many webcams on the market to see if there was potential to meet this requirement; nothing worked.

Then Logitech provided a demonstration of a prototype QuickCam Pro 9000 while it was still in development; they had finally found a camera that had the potential to deliver the sustained quality and frame rate in a consistent and reliable way. At that point they launched a co-development effort involving Logitech, On2 and Skype to optimize the codecs along with the capture and rendering software required. They also found it necessary to specifically optimize for real time video conferencing scenarios involving mostly “stationary talking heads” in sustained lighting situations and perhaps people walking into and out of a frame as opposed to the requirements for full motion broadcast video such az YouTube movies. This allowed them to cut back significantly on CPU utilization amongst other modifications.

“The result is that we have certainly arrived at a state-of-the-art situation in terms of coding, capture at the sending side and rendering at the other side”, stated Christensen. Amongst other issues Skype and Logitech had to deal with CPU utilization management, low light conditions, image sharpness and intelligent adaptation to varying network conditions (especially at the end points) to deliver a service that could work at a minimum 384 kbps bandwidth. While the released service reduces the wide variability of outcomes seen with other webcam configurations and provides a fairly consistent result, they are still working on issues such as better and more intelligent network utilization but they feel they have the camera, driver and coding issues well under control.

The Complete High Quality Video Experience

Over the past few days I have tried out the High Quality Video with almost all my Skype calls, even if the other party did not have a webcam. While the sending (capture) end of the call requires relatively new hardware (Dual core processor, Logitech webcams with Carl-Zeiss optics) the receiving end can view High Qualty Video even with higher speed single core processors and have an excellent video viewing experience (based on comments of several viewers).

The real challenge was to find a situation where both parties met the requirements for High Quality Video; yesterday evening “Phone Bay” Dameon Welch (who normally uses a Mac) had finally put together a Windows configuration, using one of the Logitech Carl-Zeiss cameras where we could truly test bi-directional video calling over reliable network conditions. (In another post I’ll talk about how testing for High Quality Video is resulting in the exposure of underperforming DSL services.)

Display Options with High Quality Video

Launching a call: once connected the receiving party sees the window on the left in the active call tab of the Skype client; after about 30 seconds High Quality Video has been established. The promotional bar at the tope goes away after a minute or so. The white logo in the upper left appears when the frame rate exceeds 24 fps; why this particular number is a question we have put Skype. Using the “technical call info” we found that, while occasionally the frame rate would drop to, say, 12 – 15 fps, the picture quality did not deteriorate noticeably. Certainly a crisp, sharp picture, moving the head or hand across the viewing range would not result in “shadowing” or other artifacts, even below 24 fps. The “camera” icon on the left in the bottom frame allows you to capture the picture; in the resulting captured image window two mouse clicks trigger a “file transfer” of the captured image back to the other party while the image is also stored in your “My Skype Pictures” folder.

High Quality Video with Call Management Options

Above is a “Video in Window” image (reduced from 640 x 480 to accommodate the width available in this post). While not having the logo due to insufficient frame rate (~ 15 – 20 fps) it represents the quality of video image we saw. Most importantly we did not see any “shadowing” if he moved his head or put up his hand and raised his five fingers. On the other hand this image is an example of the “intelligent adaptation” inherent to the Skype software at work, where Skype will adjust to both CPU utilization and changing network conditions (jitter, return time, etc.) such as to maintain a high quality picture even when not working above 24 fps.

CPU utilization management is one feature of the new Skype video where the software is monitoring CPU usage such that Skype video does not consume all the CPU resources. In one situation where I found the video “capped” at sending 15 fps, simply turning off my SlingPlayer (which itself was using about 2.5 Mbps of bandwidth via an internal LAN connection to my SlingBox) allowed the frame rate to increase above 24 fps to invoke the High Quality Video logo on a sustainable basis.

Full screen video at 1650 x 1080 gave again a good picture, maybe with a bit of pixelation in going from 640 x 480. In the SightSpeed comparison tomorrow I will comment on the “intense” room light above Dameon’s head and how the Skype video adjusts for the saturation such an intense light can create.

Checking out the "close-up" focus with a High Quality Video webcam

Finally an image that demonstrates some of the optics of the camera: close-up of a Pokemon card showing both how the auto-focus feature adjusts and the quality obtained even when an object is only 4 to 6 inches from the camera. And in my image at the lower left I had reduced the room lighting to one 50-watt recessed “under-the-shelf” lamp above my work surface, yet Dameon was able to distinguish the stripes on my shirt. This is the Logitech “Right Light” sensing in operation where it can pick up images in very low lighting situations. (And the High Quality Video logo during this conversation had held at this point for over 15 minutes.)

Clearly Dameon and I agreed that Skype’s High Quality Video is a winner and provides, in hardware and software configurations meeting all the requirements, an excellent user video experience. The issues here include:

• Skype’s High Quality Video, as a free service, represents one more threat to the personal communications segment of business video conferencing, even at the enterprise level. Business model disruption at work again.
• Having enough Skype users using the Logitech webcam to take advantage of the Carl-Zeiss optics and driver optimization. Dual core processor PC’s have now been on the market for eighteen months and become the entry level standard; the new Logitech Carl-Zeiss optics cameras are priced at the same level as their previous generation webcams.
• Ensuring a good quality Internet connection at least meeting the minimum 384 kbps speed but, in subtle ways, High Quality Video works better (for instance ramps up to the desired frame rate faster) on higher speed connections.

Dameon’s post; (Link to come when available)

Tom Keating and Rich Tehrani have done some testing as well:

As always, Skype has over-delivered on their free offering, providing superior functionality at the bargain basement price of zero dollars. Obviously you will need a new video camera and possibly a new pc to take advantage of the highest quality Skype video yet but these seem like small sacrifices to make when you consider you will not have to pay a recurring service fee to videoconference at far superior resolution.

This new product is certainly a win for the world’s most popular IP communications software company and moreover for users of the popular software/service.

Tomorrow: the SightSpeed comparison, working with Macs, other experiences and a summary.

Tags: Skype, High Quality Video, Logitech, Skype 3.6, Dameon Welch, Phone Boy, Jonathan Christensen, QuickCam Pro 9000, On2 Technologies, Carl-Zeiss optics

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Lots of confusion out there: High Quality Video, HD Video, HD Voice, High Definition Audio? What do these terms mean? And what does High Quality Video mean when it comes to Skype Video calling? “Well, my configuration should work”, comes from both other vendors and some end users. Did a bit of research to try to find a baseline against which all these claims could be measured.

HD Video generally refers to video with a minimum 1280 x 720 resolution (720p). Common to all High ?? Video descriptions is the transmission of video at 25 – 30 frames per second (fps). “HD VoIP” was the subject of an excellent session at Fall VON and generally refers to audio transmission of voice covering at least 8kHz audio — primary range of the human ear (sometimes called wide band audio); Intel appears to have taken over the term High Definition Audio to describe some of their audio-related technology.

The aim of this post is to provide some background that allow us to move forward in testing High Quality Video. Without a standard to be achieved we are seeing lots of claims about various webcams and the ability to transmit video. In this post I will set some basic benchmarks to help identify High Quality Video when it happens. In future posts I will cover some of my experiences attempting to have Skype-based conversations using High Quality Video.

My first question to Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s GM for Audio and Voice, was “What defines High Quality Video?” Summing up his response it’s the sustained transmission of 640 x 480 (VGA) video resolution at 24 – 30 fps over a minimum 384 kbps connection. And the key word here is “sustained” as in “carrying on a reasonable length conversation” user experience. Previously one could get burst of VGA quality but sustaining it was not practical due to non-optimization of all the technology pieces that need to come together.

Skype initially considered a higher resolution involving the 1280 x 720 “true HD” Video spec but soon saw that as unrealistic within today’s network conditions and video technology limitations. According to Jonathan, his Skype Audio/Video engineering team did a significant amount of research looking at factors such as webcam technology, codecs, webcam drivers, end user configurations, network conditions (including user end point configurations), image sharpness, CPU utilization, and surrounding light sensitivity in coming up with a video calling product specification. And they had to settle on the type of video content that would be most commonly used: “talking heads” in a home or office desktop environment. (No Discovery Channel panoramic scenery video or high speed action sports such as hockey or football here.)

Basic requirements: many have heard about the Sender (Capture) requirements:

• Intel Dual Core (or CoreDuo) processor
• Logitech QuickCams with Carl-Zeiss optics (9000 Pro, Pro for Notebooks)
• QuickCam software drivers version 11.5
• Skype 3.6
• Internet Connection: (an industry standard minimum requirement for video transmission)

At the Recipient (Rendering) end these requirements are relaxed to:

• Fast processor (but not necessarily Dual Core)
• Skype 3.6
• Internet Connection: minimum 384 kbps upload and download speed

So how do you identify High Quality Video is being captured and transmitted by the sender and received. and rendered by the recipient? Simply put, Skype injects a logo into both the active call window’s video indicator and the recipient’s video picture, whether within the active call tab, a 640 x 480 Window or full screen. This logo only appears in situations where either the Sender is sending 640 x 480 @ 24-30 fps (above) or the recipient is receiving 640 x 480 @ 24-30 fps (left). Drop below 24 fps and the logo goes away; come back above an it appears. To add to the confusion, the Sender can be sending High Quality Video, yet the recipient does not necessarily see the logo unless certain conditions are met.

A few other notes:

• In my testing I have come across a couple of situations where High Quality Video was being identifiably received under the “Recipient” conditions (for instance an Inspiron 6000 with a single 1.6 GHZ Pentium M processor, shown above, and Phil’s 64-bit AMD processor PC, both of which had Skype 3.6 installed).
• Note that the Recipient can launch not only a Chat session from the video within the Active Call window but can also “capture” the picture as a still photo (camera icon).
• If a recipient is using an earlier version of Skype (3.5 or earlier), they may be seeing High Quality Video but there is no indication via the logo. The only way to check is via “displaying the technical call info”¹.
• It can take about 45 to 120 seconds for a High Quality Video connection to be established.. Using Skype’s “technical call info” feature¹, you can actually observe the Send fps rate ramp up; High Quality Video identification only occurs above 24 fps (and a 640 x 480 frame size). So there is obviously some initial handshaking/negotiation activity generated on launching a video call.
• It is worthwhile checking your own Internet connection speed and connection conditions^2. I have found using the Visual Ware VoIP Quality and Speed Test provides a relatively good measure (requires Java on your PC). However, other measures may be required on other continents as distance from the measuring server can play a role in the resulting tests. My cable connection appears to be running between 6 and 6.5 Mbps for download and consistently around 800 kbps for upload. QoS is usually above 90% with low jitter (<10 ms) — more than sufficient for High Quality Video requirements.
• The best SightSpeed can support for “Send” under my network conditions is 320 x 240 @ 30 fps; if my upload speed could be raised to 1.5 Mbps, it could then support 640 x 480 at this frame rate.

But the real challenge is the overall end user configuration including network conditions. And this is where Skype still needs to some testing and more experience to achieve a consistent and sustainable³ High Quality Video user experience. I have attempted Skype High Quality Video calls in several situations with significantly inconsistent results and continue to expand on that experience base.

A second question: In launching High Quality Video as a marketing tool “why did Skype let the situation get out of their control in terms of setting user expectations?” (Note: broken link to original post; no other reference) Can’t hit the target when there is no stated target to aim for. It’s insufficient to state what the requirements are; independently measurable benchmarks are also required:

• Resolution: 640 x 480 (VGA)
• Transmission rate: 24 -30 fps
• Time of call: 30 minutes meeting these requirements
• Time to reach transmission rate at stated resolution: < 2 minutes

And how does it deal with other considerations?

• Low light environment
• CPU utilization management
• “Intelligently” adaptation to network traffic conditions

Both subjects of upcoming posts.

¹ Tools | Options | Advanced | Connection –> “Display technical call info ….”; then run your cursor over the active call window to bring up the technical info for your call.
² In one instance the other party found his speed to be about 400 kbps download; he thought he had subscribed for a 3 Mbps service 3 years ago so checked with his service provider who confirmed he was only getting a 500 kbps service. At this point he is seeking compensation from his service provider!
³ Sustainable means to have a 30 minute or longer video call while maintaining the High Quality Video status as indicated by the presence of the logo at both ends.

I spent some time this afternoon interviewing Jonathon Christensen, Skype’s General Manager for Audio and Video. After reviewing with me how Skype came to be able to offer High Quality Video (which will be the subject of another post), Skype released this statement of interest to those Skype enthusiasts who had been using a video configuration option (i.e. – “hacking” the config.xml file) to allow Skype video to use a 640 x 480 mode of non-Logitech webcams.

Last year, we created a configuration option to enable better video performance on Skype for Windows for tech-savvy users with webcams that could handle it. In Skype 3.6 for Windows, the option was removed. While it’s true that the configuration option (which was essentially a garage hack) did offer better-than-average video, the quality was very unreliable. It worked for some users while frustrating others.

Any benefits of the removed option pale in comparison with High Quality Video, which was our focus in Skype 3.6 for Windows. High Quality Video has moved the video-quality bar significantly higher. That’s because, together with Logitech, we worked on all aspects of the video system — from optics to drivers to the video codec — to achieve reliable High Quality Video performance.

Very few people used the previous video configuration option, so we were surprised at the reaction of some of these users when the option was removed. We’ll therefore happily re-introduce the option very soon. However, we’d like to remind users that the restored configuration option will not provide the High Quality Video experience. In order to get that, users will need a combination of certified Logitech hardware and optimized Skype software.

Fundamentally Skype had set out some time ago high standards they wanted to achieve in terms of sustainable, reliable, robust video calling performance and evaluated many brands of webcams before partnering with Logitech. They then worked together on both hardware and software to achieve what has been released in Skype 3.6 as identified by a High Quality Video logo which appears when meeting all the appropriate conditions, including frame rate.

Skype listened to those who raised the issue. Of importance is to understand that users who deploy the video configuration option do so at their own risk; Skype can only guarantee High Quality Video to those whose PC, webcam, software and network conditions meet the High Quality Video specifications. No date has been given for the hot fix that will include not only the restoration of this capability but some other video operation improvements, but let’s hope it’s within the next couple of weeks..

Now as for Dan’s question about getting High Quality Video on the Mac. Recall the difficulty of getting any tools to allow third party development on the iPhone? Suffice it to say it’s not for lack of trying on the part of Logitech and Skype to work with Apple. When I tell the rest of the story about the level to which Logitech and Skype had to co-operate to achieve what we’re seeing in Skype 3.6, you’ll understand.