Skype announces new names for its developer offerings, new video API’s for SkypeKit for Desktop and “plugged into Skype” designation for Skype Desktop API programs.

Since 2004 Skype has evolved an API kit that allows third party developers to offer Skype-enabled applications that require access to the primary Skype client on Windows, Mac and Linux. Basically it allows developers to extend the functionality of Skype while using the Skype client application. Examples have included call recording applications such as Pamela and VodBurner and hosted desktop sharing applications such as InnerPass (now transitioning to GroupMix).

This past June Skype announced the public beta for SkypeKit, which is intended to add native Skype functionality directly into partner applications. From the developer website:

SkypeKit enables developers to create innovative products and applications that deliver virtually the entire range of Skype’s functionality—including calling, chat, account creation, and contact management—without the need for your users to separately download Skype.

Whereas SkypeKit had largely focused on embedding Skype in consumer electronics hardware, feedback from that announcement demonstrated a demand for more support of desktop applications with integrated Skype functionality.

Today Skype announced changes to the names of their developer offerings:

• SkypeKit for Desktop, which is intended to add native Skype functionality directly into partner applications
• Skype Desktop API, previously known as the Skype API or Public API, which allows developers to extend the functionality of Skype for Windows, Skype for Mac and Skype for Linux.

Basically the previous Skype developer programs continue to exist; however, their branding is changing. It also means that applications developed using the Skype Desktop API can now use the “plugged into Skype” designation shown above.

In addition Skype announced the SkypeKit for Desktop now includes Video API’s which “will allow developers to bring their desktop applications to life using video calling, with the goal of making their applications feel less isolated and more human.” Previously developers could access the the video stream via Skype’s proprietary RTP interface; however, the new API’s relieve developers of a lot of time consuming and complex “wrap around” work that would have been required to provide video in an application. At this point support is for one-to-one video calling; however, group video chat and screen sharing are on the roadmap.

While the announcement post references three case studies, where one is VodBurner that has been using the Skype Desktop API since VodBurner’s launch two years ago. The other two are planning to use SkypeKit for Desktop:

• Tely Labs is still taking beta testers and expects to launch early in 2012;
• Trillian’s Instant Messaging aggregator product has a beta version of Trillian where they are demonstrating Skype integration using SkypeKit.

The announcement also references the new Skype Apps Directory which was discussed here about two months ago.

Bottom line: SkypeKit was first announced mid-2010; it went public in June 2011. If Skype wants to have an viable developer program we need to see results soon that can bring revenue to the developers. Maybe the incentive to recover a $8.5B acquisition investment will provide the focus required to demonstrate that it’s worthwhile to become a Skype developer partner.

Dan York also comments: Is Skype Soon To Release New APIs? Skype Renames Public API And Extends “Plugged into Skype” Partner Program

Since the demise of the Skype Extras program was first announced two years ago, several of the developers with third party applications worked to wean themselves off a dependence on the Skype Extras program for their survival. However, the products remained available via the fairly innocuous and plain Skype Extras page on the Skype Store.

Yesterday I learned that a new, unannounced, menu item had been slipped into the Tools menu of Skype for Windows 5.5 as shown on the right.

Click on the Get Apps… and you go to a new page on the Skype Store:

A couple of points:

• It’s called an App Directory, not an App Store. While there is a detailed description for each application , the “Get Now” Links go to an App Store or a file download; on installing the file, you will be led to the individual application developer’s “store” page.
• For instance, the link to Qik Video for Apple takes you to the iTunes preview page with a link for purchase on the Apple App Store.
• Currently listed products comprise previously available third party products or Skype utility products listed in the Apple or Android app stores.
• Applications are categorized by “genre” such as Business, Call Recording (audio and video), Call Recording  (audio only), Faxing, Desktop and Whiteboard Sharing, etc.

In a discussion with Ash Valeski, Skype’s Senior Account Manager for the Skype Store he pointed out:

• This is simple a starting point for building a third party applications distribution channel. The SkypeKit team wants to have a distribution channel that provides awareness of forthcoming applications while supporting publishers who currently have applications that use the legacy Skype API’s.
• Expect to see more features added to this page over time.
• They have reduced the available applications to those that are currently active and appropriately supported by the application publisher, including the availability of a shopping cart where payment is required.
• There is a carousel rotating through top downloads (free and paid) and top-rated offerings.
• The directory does provide an opportunity for ratings and short reviews (via Comments) for each application. (As a test I have submitted a comment on PamFax; note that, when you make a comment, you can sign in via Twitter, Facebook or other options.)

Bottom line: This App Directory is simply infrastructure for supporting the Skype developer program. The real challenge remains for the Skype Developer program to make SkypeKit an offering that can readily and widely be adopted by not only hardware developers but also software publishers. The initial feedback on the program has been provided in this post about a hardware partner whose offering will become available later this year.

In the meantime I still find these partners are using the legacy Skype API’s; for instance, Pamela just went through an upgrade based on the legacy Skype API’s. And, amongst the publishers listed in the App Directory, Pamela publisher Scendix is not alone in this regard. However, this launch is one small step that demonstrates that current management wants to get more proactive with both the Skype Store and the Skype Developer program.

Related articles

• Whither Skype Extras Today? Withered? (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype’s developer websites: an overview (blogs.skype.com)
• Skype Launches Third-Party App Directory (techcrunch.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)

If Skype Extras is creating an issue with software bloat through its games partner, Easybits, why do I get a blank Skype Extras window from the Tools | Get Skype Extras menu in Skype for Windows 5.3?

In one of its previous lives, ca. 2006, Skype introduced a Partner program where they encouraged third party developers to innovate products around the use of Skype. These products arrived in the form of games, productivity tools, hosted business services and utilities that enhanced the Skype experience or incorporated Skype for its real time communications features. At the time Skype provided API tools that facilitated development of these products; they remain available even as Skype ramps up its SkypeKit developer platform. Products were made readily available to Skype for Windows users through the Tools | Skype Extras menu of the Skype client. One partner had over 3 million downloads between January 2009 and August 2010; a very significant number have become ongoing subscription-paying customers.

Original Skype Extras Window

During the summer of 2007 Skype held a Mashup Competition with regional and worldwide winners. PamFax, still in its infancy but sending faxes from a PamFax window, won the worldwide competition. (Watch Voice On The Web for a complete update on PamFax’s evolution to a one-stop multi-platform “Fax for business” solution in the next few days).

Some the Extras publishers were acquired; for instance IBM’s Lotus Sametime division acquired the popular desktop sharing utility, Unyte. Others went away due to either  a lack of market acceptance, a failed business model or impatient investors. And there were many issues with the level of support provided by the Skype Developer program at that time.

Skype announced the end of the Skype Extras program in late August 2009, pointing out that no new Extras would be accepted from that point forward and that Skype Extras would not be accessible from the Skype for Windows menu after August 31, 2010. However, while this menu is still available from the Skype for Windows 5.3 client, I get the blank window shown above. However they can still be found available on the Skype website: Skype Extras page and on the Skype Store.

So what puzzles me is the recent appearance of stories about an additional program, easybits.exe, being installed with Skype for Windows. Easybits provided the platform for the Skype Extras games; it seems that a recent update to Easybits inadvertently got into some users’ recent installations of Skype for Windows. Looking through my Task Manager, there are no traces of easybits.exe; the only item related to Skype Extras Manager is skypePM.exe and it’s not consuming much RAM. Phil Wolff, over at Skype Journal, has more to say on this, including Easybits response, in #Skype Extras partner EasyBits releases game uninstall tool.

Bottom Line: So my real question is, given the blank Skype Extras screen I receive as shown above (and have received for some time now), the lack of any trace of EasyBits software on my Skype for Windows 5.3 installation and the announcement that Skype Extras would go away last fall, what is the real status of Skype Extras today? Or is it just quietly withering away?

Skype’s statement: EasyBits Update for Skype Extras Manager

P.S. – many of the former Skype Extras publishers have continued to offer their software and even built additional products that use the Skype API’s. Within a few days I’ll provide an update on where you can find these products today and their evolution into even better offerings.

Related articles

• EasyBits releases removal tool for afflicted Skype users (zdnet.com)
• Skype pushes gaming software down users throats (go.theregister.com)
• How To Uninstall EasyBits GO (EasyBitsGo.exe) Completely (ghacks.net)

Earlier today I blogged about the Skype Login Disruption that occurred this morning. Seems like Skype’s developers got onto the issue pretty quickly with the announcement on Skype’s Heartbeat Blog this evening:

• An update of Skype for Windows is available immediately.
• An update of Skype for Mac will be available tomorrow is now available.
• Updating Skype for Linux will continue to require a manual update.

Update: May 27: Skype’s Heartbeat blog reports on the Skype for Mac 5 upgrade. Also ensure you have Skype for Windows 5.3.0.116, released early this morning to address an auto-installation issue with last nights update.

Kudos to the Skype developers for getting on top of the issue and doing the software updates so quickly and to Skype corporate for communicating the issue and the fixes as they became available.

Hopefully each fix such as this builds a little more robustness into Skype.

Oh, and it had nothing to do with the Microsoft acquisition.

Related articles

• Skype faces second big outage, already has fix (electronista.com)
• Skype Outages Worldwide & How To Fix App Crashes For Windows/Mac [News] (makeuseof.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 SDK beta gains Windows and Mac support (slashgear.com)
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• Skype Announces Mac, Windows Support for SkypeKit (pcworld.com)
• SkypeKit to allow integration of Skype into all web-based devices (boygeniusreport.com)
• SkypeKit: Easily Building VoIP Into Any Application (fastcompany.com)
• It’s Been a Week for New Skype Video Experiences (voiceontheweb.biz)

Transcribing medical image (X-ray, CT scans, ultrasound) dictations by radiologists and other specialists is a critical pivot point in diagnosing patience conditions and outcomes. Just as important, for both medical and billing purposes, is the coding of the processes involved in taking an image as well as getting the resulting information into patient records. Suffice it to say that one of my previous clients was heavily involved in this area from the medical side; I’ve seen the ongoing demands in this area covering regulatory compliance, patient case management integrity and insurance claim issues.

Enter Oak Horizons, an industry leader in medical transcription training, education, and curriculum development. Simply put they have leveraged Internet communications technology to make their programs available to healthcare facilities across the U.S., not only for the new medical imaging technician or transcriptionist but also ongoing training programs for experienced professionals who need to keep abreast of new developments within their field.

They found that they needed a collaboration resource where they could readily and persistently store lessons and complementary background information, lead training sessions in virtual meeting rooms, and activate tutorial sessions on demand. Enter InnerPass whose combination of online document management, desktop sharing and Skype communications provides an appropriate communications infrastructure that meets these needs. From the press release:

“When students first start their program, be it medical transcription, coding or billing, the course content tends to be very overwhelming,” says Kathryn Martin, owner and instructor at OAK Horizons. “The real-time introduction is very important and helpful, since the course content tends to overwhelm everyone at first. We set up an InnerPass meeting room and walk our students through the first lesson in real-time, and then throughout the semester hold check-in and help sessions. I think it really helps us to set the right tone with our students; that they’ll be learning the material through directed study, but there is real-time help and instruction if they need it,” says Martin.

As OAK Horizons looks to expand its roster of partnership and client organizations, Kathryn Martin realized she needed to set the organization apart from a growing field of competitors. She adopted InnerPass and leveraged the technology to implement a system that facilitates real-time collaboration, content sharing and tutorials between teachers and students. Instructors can invite students to small-group tutorials with a live-participation component, for those students who request extra time with an instructor.

InnerPass provides easy-to-use tools, including screen-sharing and “persistent” meeting rooms, which reduce the cost of online instruction, expand access to education and training opportunities, and bring client organizations to the leading edge of educational and training technology.

Bottom line: For an activity where medical practitioners can lose up to 20% of their potential income due to faulty insurance claims, InnerPass’s aggregation of document sharing and communications allows Oak Horizons’s clients to increase not only patient case integrity but also simplify the revenue recovery process from healthcare insurance companies.

Previous InnerPass posts.

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• InnerPass Enables Global Education and Training with Distance Learning Technology (eon.businesswire.com)

Skype has always been challenged with respect to making its growing feature set available on the most popular operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The major ongoing complaint from Skype users has been features on a new release for one OS that don’t appear on the other OS’s clients that may not be updated for up to a year later. With respect to Skype’s developer platform, a major complaint of third party developers has been the lack of any web services tools to embed Skype into web-based applications.

But maybe Scendix, publisher of PamFax and Pamela, is showing us how to make applications OS-agnostic such that all versions of an application get new features concurrently.

Since its launch in December 2007, although it was not obvious to the end users at the time, PamFax has been largely a web-based application, starting with PamFax for Windows. For the next sixteen months, the Scendix PamFax team worked not only to release PamFax 2.0 but also put resources into building a more robust back end, adding support of Fax-in numbers in 26 countries and extending their OS support to make available PamFax for Mac OS X. And subsequent upgrades have made it a more robust, lower cost and multi-lingual service.

Earlier this week Scendix announced the release of PamFax for Linux, bringing low cost, worldwide faxing to all those rabid Linux users who espouse the virtues of a very robust, yet open and feature rich operating system. In so doing, Scendix has, in practice, demonstrated how to make an application OS-agnostic, essentially by building a single website dedicated to the application.

So what did Scendix need to do to make their application run under Linux? After all, they had a core web-based engine supporting the entire feature set. Three steps:

• Build an installer package for each version of Linux supported
• test PamFax’s operation in each operating system environment, and
• perform integration with Skype for Linux (there is an option to send notifications to a Skype chat session)

But there was no need to build a new application or backend – as shown on the left, even the user interface is the same. Its web-services architecture simply needed the modifications described above. Bottom line: PamFax is basically an OS-agnostic “Software as a Service” (“SaaS”) application. And limited developer resources are required to migrate support between OS’s. Effectively the operating system becomes secondary to the more universal web browser.

As their next step, the experience of bringing PamFax to this level has led Scendix to start work on PamFax 3.0, due for release later this spring. The major change here will be to migrate the PamFax web-based infrastructure to an API-based architecture such that PamFax can be readily embedded into third party applications – for instance, a WordPress plug-in that puts a “Fax This” icon on a web page would be one such potential application.

Bottom line: As we await Skype’s new developer platform, PamFax serves as a proxy for demonstrating why a web-services architecture would be an ideal transformation into providing Skype client access not only from Skype-specific clients but also from Skype embedded into a third party’s offering that incorporates Skype access without the need for opening a separate Skype client. In other words, another key link towards building “Skype Everywhere”.

Note: Skype CEO Josh Silverman talks about this topic towards the end of the first half of our recent CES conversation.

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• Skype For Linux Is Opening Up (mashable.com)
• Skype for Business: An Interview with Skype’s Matt Jordan (voiceontheweb.biz)
• InnerPass 2.0 – Exposing Skype’s Collaboration Potential to Over Two Million Users (voiceontheweb.biz)
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At last month’s CES I had the opportunity to meet with Skype CEO Josh Silverman and discuss various Skype issues that have arisen over the past year as well as where Skype is headed as a privately owned company. At the time I thought this would result in a normal text-based blog post outlining some of our discussion.

However, when I arrived for the interview I realized it would also be a good occasion to try out the HD video recording feature of a relatively new Canon SD980 camera. Over the past week I have been using a new MacBook’s iMovie and found I could edit it down to a fairly succinct outcome, having eliminated much of my own nervous glitches, personal comments and humming and hawing. Most importantly, Josh makes a much better presenter of Skype’s case than I could ever hope to do in reporting on the interview. The result follows.

In this first portion we talk about

• Skype operating as an independent, private company and the role the new board members can play,
• the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s participation as an investor (full disclosure – about 17 million employed or formerly employed Canadians have an interest in CPPIB investments),
• what performance numbers can we expect to see going forward
• the prospects for an IPO
• what’s on the CEO’s radar as priorities for Skype
• what’s going to be available for developer partners

(My apologies to fellow Canadians for not asking about Skype Online numbers in Canada but, given there are regulatory issues involved, I’d probably get the standard “we’d love to do it but…” response. For mention of a Skype service that is being expanded into Canada, see the second portion of the interview with Skype for Mobile VP & GM Russ Shaw.)

In the second portion of the conversation we covered issues such as

• the growth of the Skype developer team
• Skype’s evolving mobile presence, including Skype for BlackBerry and video calling on mobile devices
• the launch of a formal Skype for Business program
• Skype’s video calling as a new pop culture
• Skype and the broadcast television market

Complementary to the “pop culture” discussion here, at Josh’s keynote presentation to the CES Innovation Leaders dinner, he spoke about how Skype video calling has brought to consumers the most effective realization of AT&T’s 1964 World’s Fair video calling vision where they introduced a very primitive video calling setup.

Bottom line: what can we expect to see from Skype in 2010?

• a revitalized developer program built around a more comprehensive platform from which developers can, amongst other features, embed Skype into their applications
• Skype access on many more mobile platforms as well as taking advantage of wireless carriers’ recognition of Skype as a mainstream telecommunications environment
• expansion of video calling services, including a strong role in the introduction of Internet services as a feature on a new generation of television sets;
• launch of a formal comprehensive Skype for Business program targeted at small-to-medium businesses
• many more Skype video interviews on broadcast media – for example, Skype video (and voice) calling has been used quite extensively by several networks to facilitate communications with Haiti following the earthquake

This is the third of three Skype executive interviews that took place at CES 2010; the others:

• Skype for Mobile: An Interview with Skype’s Russ Shaw
• Skype for Business: An Interview with Skype’s Matt Jordan

Other relevant posts:

• FREETALK Connect: Liberating Small Business from the Telco Oligopoly
• FREETALK’s New Webcam Product Line: Delivering 720p HD to Skype Video Calling
• Skype Video Calling on Your TV? Maybe, Maybe Not: It’s Your Call

Full disclosure: In Store Solutions, producer of the FREETALK line of hardware for Skype, 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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Last fall Phil Wolff at Skype Journal mused on the topic of “Why Collaboration is Strategic for Skype”. His conclusion – collaboration is a competitive edge:

Skype could advance the best collaboration practices and technology. And with Skype’s distribution (one billion accounts by 2013), could easily become the tool of choice for producing results, enjoying your job, and building economic security.

While I am not holding out any hope for the full collaboration amongst Skype, Facebook, MySpace and other social networking platforms that many would like to see, I have long seen the potential for a product that supports Skype voice, chat and video conversations, presence, persistent file transfer and document management along with desktop or screen sharing – all managed from a single client. Of course with any collaboration a degree of enhanced Contact management also helps simplify a worker’s daily activities.

My original exposure to online collaboration goes back to my Quarterdeck days when they had developed VoIP software and whiteboarding services. (The latter later became the foundation technology for Webex.) In the early 2000’s I did some work with a desktop sharing service; more recently, over my four years of covering Skype, I have seen a few collaboration services come and go. Unyte has become integrated into IBM’s LotusLive while a couple of Skype-enabled offerings have gone out of business (not for lack of support from Skype). Citrix “Go To” services (Go To Meeting, Go To Assist) have become popular collaboration services at $49.95 per month per host (in fact, last year Citrix Online acquired HiDef Conferencing to have a consistent audio component for these services).

Yet, business’s appetites for collaboration services continues to grow, probably accelerated by not only the cost of travel but also the security issues surrounding air travel today. And they are certainly looking at cost versus value-add in the feature set as one component of their decision making.

A year ago January InnerPass launched their collaboration offering that integrated Skype with basic business-class hosted document management services targeted at business and work teams. In one sense InnerPass could be considered a persistent version of Skype’s file transfer feature; recipient users do not have to be present when files are added, modified or downloaded. They can readily be accessed at any time by any of the designated participants in a Room. The service provides more value-add through the ability to manage multi-party team calls via Skype and/or the PSTN complemented by the ready availability of the team’s documents during the call.

The recently launched InnerPass 2.1 expanded on these services with:

• a new user interface that improves navigation, especially when it comes to working with document “rooms”, their associated user groups and screen sharing
• contact import integration with Skype, Outlook and 50 other services such as GMail, Hotmail, LinkedIn and MySpace.
• call scheduling and management, incorporating the ability to access a multi-party conference call via Skype or a conference bridge

But the launch of InnerPass 2.0 last fall appears to have accelerated growth of the user base; last week InnerPass passed above the 2 million downloads mark, about one year after launching their service. While initially attracting many downloads via the Skype Extras program, viral adoption as users invite participants into rooms and meetings now has taken over as the leading source of new users.

While there is a free “Personal” service, any serious user will easily pass its 2 room, 5 guests per room limit; this service basically serves as a trial offering. In fact, I purchased a $4.95 per month Professional plan some time ago and quickly ran my usage up to its limits. As result any serious user should expect to quickly get to the $14.95 per month Business plan where business teams have more flexibility for both managing and operating both their dynamic and ongoing collaboration activities.

Bottom line: InnerPass provides a low cost collaboration service for work teams who need to be persistently in contact across team members via shared documents, text chat and voice. Definitely a tool to consider when it comes to increasing team productivity while keeping sharing costs under control.

Click here to download InnerPass for either Windows or Mac.

In two separate press releases over the past two days, OnState Communications has broadened the scope of its call center offering and made it more readily accessible to businesses without internal IT and communications support.

In the first press release Monday, OnState announced the addition of the Yuuguu screen sharing service that provides call center agents with a tool that facilitates both visual presentations and resolution of customer support issues. Yuuguu’s screen sharing allows a call center agent to have a real time collaboration tool with:

• on demand screen sharing
• moderator control of adding/removing participants
• sharing of keyboard and mouse control amongst participants
• easy escalation of a chat session to desktop sharing
• no download requirement for callers to participate

One significant point: recall that OnState’s chat service, while originating from an agent’s Skype or GTalk account, can be accessed by any caller with a web browser. Once again, using Yuuguu’s screen sharing, an agent can have a screen sharing session with any caller with access to a web browser. Yuuguu’s service is cross-platform, supporting both Windows and Mac PC’s with Linux support to come soon.

From the press release, OnState Partnership with Yuuguu Provides Total Customer Collaboration For Virtual Workforces:

OnState is the first and only provider to include integrated voice, text chat and screen sharing as part of a cost-effective, on-demand virtual communications service. The addition of Yuuguu into OnState’s solution enables sales and support staff and all virtual workers to collaborate with customers by sharing screens or even keyboard and mouse control to help demonstrate solutions or solve problems.

“With Yuuguu screen sharing capabilities, OnState users can now conduct virtual sales calls – from anywhere in the world – with visual presentations, product demonstrations, and interactive communications,” said Pat Kelly, CEO of OnState. “And using real-time screen, keyboard and mouse sharing, support staff can resolve issues, answer questions, and assist customers more efficiently. Best of all, the combined solution is delivered as a secure, device-independent, cloud-based service that requires no installation or embedded applications on the customer side.”

In a second announcement yesterday, OnState announced a partnership with Bandwidth.com as a complete end-to-end IP-based communications service over which a business can operate its entire OnState call center operation “in the cloud”. Basically, if an end user can plug an RJ-45 jack into an Internet service modem or connection, and plug IP-based phones into a router, they can have all the communications infrastructure required for using the OnState service. And  inherently the network supports additional communications modes such as chat and screen sharing, as well as Skype conversations.

Once again call center agents can be located anywhere geographically and access the service via a phone, softphone on a PC, including Skype or GTalk, or mobile phone. While Bandwidth.com is U.S.-based they provide international access with support for international numbers via Voxbone’s service. From the press release, OnState and Bandwidth.com Deliver the Cloud Call Center:

For companies that rely on call centers for sales or customer support, reliability and quality-of-service are key. Bandwidth’s FlexNetwork is architected with full geographic redundancy, with separate signalling and audio facilities for reliability and flexibility. When this is combined with OnState’s cost-effective virtual communications, the resulting solution is one that is highly available, easily scalable, and encourages customer collaboration through multi-modal interfaces like voice, chat, and web.

OnState’s core competence is call center functionality; having come from a legacy call center operation that was acquired by Cisco, it’s in their genes. But as for the underlying communications services, they are becoming more and more agnostic by giving their customers options to select the underlying service provider as well as the communications clients, whether they be a traditional phone set, a mobile phone or a software-based communications client, such as available from Skype or GTalk. It’s a case of the customer defining its requirements and OnState can provide a solution from a buffet of options while delivering on the economic advantages of IP-based communications.

But OnState’s ultimate advantage comes from making it possible for their customers’ customers to access a call center via a simple call from a phone, mobile phone, Skype, GTalk or a Click-to-Call button on a website. And, where the caller has PC access, adding modalities such as chat or screen sharing requires no customer downloads; it just happens via the browser. As highlighted at this fall’s eComm Europe, the value-add comes in minimizing user friction with intelligent decision making tools that value a customer’s time.

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There  was lots of lament and thrashing when Skype announced the forthcoming end to the Skype Extras program for distributing Skype software partners offerings. By the end of August, 2010 the Skype Extras item in the Skype for Windows client will go away. But does that mean the end for developing products and services that use the Skype API’s? Certainly three of Skype’s software partners do not think so; they each have recently launched either an upgrade or a new offering:

Scendix has released Pamela version 4.6, continuing the enhancement of its popular utility for managing, archiving and recording Skype calls. Pamela also lets you have some fun with its Rich Mood Message editor and Emotions player. But most importantly Version 4.6 provides the long sought recording of Skype video calls.

InnerPass last week launched version 2.0 of its Skype-enhanced document management offering. A new client, which, in addition to incorporating traditional document management features such as version management, also allows you to manage all your Skype activities – web collaboration with conference calling that also includes multi-party desktop sharing.

And yesterday, Netralia, whose Skylook and Call Burner offerings have built significant user bases since their 2005 and 2007 launches respectively, have just announced the forthcoming launch of Vodburner, “the first product on the market to create video podcasts”.

Netralia CEO Jeremy Hague, in the press release linked above, has nicely summarized the reality behind what is currently available to support development of applications that incorporate Skype:

“We are proud to announce the upcoming launch of VodBurner today, which comes at an interesting time for the Skype Developer community, given the recent announcement regarding the Extras programme.”

“I think Skype’s announcement has caught a lot of people off guard, and there may have been some overreaction in some of the media comments.   It is important to remember that the programme is only being closed in its current form.  This does not mean Skype is removing support for developer apps.”

“Skype has supported developers since 2004, with the release of the Skype Public API.  This support is continuing.”

“Extras Manager, a separate initiative, was introduced in early 2007.  The idea was great – provide new and existing apps with an advertising platform inside the Skype client, and a payment platform integrated with Skype Credits.”

“However, the implementation was lacking.  As you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, we believe Skype has made the right choice to curtail this programme.  We are hopeful that Skype will find another way to execute on the promise of some of the great ideas of the Extras Manager dept, but providers of Skype apps do not need to rely on this.”

“What we are about is providing great applications that make use of Skype’s technology to benefit people, who will hopefully go on to be our customers.  This was our approach before Extras Manager was first thought of, and will continue to be our approach regardless of the approach Skype takes in the future.”

The important point at this time is to emphasize that developers, who make the effort to use the API’s, can be successful and continue to dedicate resources to the development of new or upgraded products.

• They have all built significant user bases; InnerPass has has over 1.5 million downloads since its version 1.0 launch in January 2009.
• They have found new ways to work with Skype as a conversation tool.
• They have all developed products which contribute to making Skype disruptive about business.

Two previous posts on this subject:

• “Skype Extras” Is Dead; Long Live the Skype API’s!
• Demythifying the Skype Developer Story

And Scendix comments on the end of Skype Extras in their PamNews blog:

• No Skype Extras System anymore

Summaries and reviews of these new offerings will follow over the next two weeks.

Question: will we learn any more about Skype’s developer and/or business programs at next week’s eComm Europe? Nobody’s saying but … there is a keynote speaker from Skype, eComm Europe’s headline sponsor.