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)

Two weeks ago in the post, Whither Skype Extras Today? Withered?, I asked for a clarification about the status of Skype Extras.

Today Skype announced a HotFix that effectively removes access to Skype Extras although it shows up, greyed out, in the Tools Menu. Go to Help | Check for Upgrades. In Windows Task Manager you’ll find that SkypePM.exe is no longer seen in the Processes tab.

As PamConsult’s Dick Schiferli points out in the comments below the Skype Extras do remain available in the Skype Store and are also available from the various publishers’ websites. However, the good news is that several publishers of Skype Extras have not withered away but rather have upgraded their products to remove their dependence on the Skype Extras program while introducing new features.

The Skype Extras Survivors

PamFax – winner of the 2007 Skype mashup competition, continues to grow; their recent infrastructure upgrade means that faxes are delivered within a minute of clicking on the Send Fax button. No ongoing obligations yet there are subscription programs that include a fax number in 27 countries. Send and received faxes to/from PC’s, iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch and Android. Fax Dropbox documents; receive faxes in DropBox. Click here for a complete update on PamFax,

InnerPass is releasing a new team collaboration product, Group Mix, that aggregates all their document management, persistent “rooms” and desktop sharing expertise into a web-based product with a great user interface that is easily accessed in any browser from, say, a bookmark. The first release includes voice connections in several countries via the PSTN; they will bring Skype back in shortly. More details will be forthcoming in a post early next week.

Pamela continues to upgrade and add more features to the longest running Skype Extra. Call recording, conversation archiving and many other nifty features that enhance the Skype user experience.

Netralia continues to offer its Skylook Outlook plugin that has done very well in the customer relationship management space. More recently they launched and have upgraded VodBurner, capable not only of recording Skype Video calls but also performing editing of the recording and direct upload to YouTube.

Evoca has been building their online audio recording and hosting business where you can call in from any phone, Skype or PC mic, record interviews and conference calls. From their website:

Dial any of our U.S. and international phone numbers or use the Evoca Skype Call Recorder — available for registered subscribers. Our 100% web service securely saves and stores your audio file in digital MP3 format in your online Evoca account. You can keep it private, share it with colleagues, or publish it online for the world to listen.

OnState continues to provide and grow its web-based, pay-as-you-go call center/PBX offering. In fact, in addition to its Skype integration, it now supports Google Talk and Salesforce.com amongst other features.

There may be others; I’ll be glad to add them. But these are the publishers who have managed to build on their user feedback and market acceptance. They have continued development to enhance their products which incorporate Skype integration but can operate independently of the Skype Extras infrastructure.

Since its version 1.0 launch in late 2007, PamFax has provided an easy-to-use web-based fax service, that allows you to send faxes worldwide without any hardware requirements. Initially a fax sending service, PamFax 2.0 introduced features such as a Windows print driver, support for Mac and Linux and inbound faxing to a local number in your area code in 25 countries.

Over the past week Scendix, producer of the cloud-based PamFax service launched PamFax 3.0 with a focus on improving delivery speed, scalability, robustness and access. But to meet these goals they had to start over from scratch, building a newly architected back end that also incorporated new hardware to meet the growing demand for the service.

New features include:

• Faster fax delivery – in my recent experience, the new service was delivering faxes in one to three minutes as opposed to 15 to 30 minutes under the previous setup
• More registration/login options: Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and several others
• Two plans for fax-in numbers:
  • Basic: provides fax-in number for 12 months that allows you to receive an unlimited number of faxes
  • Professional: provides fax-in number for twelve months, 20 fax pages to Zone 1 recipients per month and 33% discount for additional pages, unlimited storage of send and received faxes and “My Company” PamFax Manager to sign up employees and delegate PamFax credits as well as report on company fax activities.
• Three free fax pages upon sign-up to check out the service
• Every new registrant will receive a free Basic Plan for three months, including a fax-in number
• Free faxing from PamFax to a PamFax fax-in number.
• PamFax API’s – allows you to fully embed the PamFax functionality easily and quickly into your application or device

PamFax continues to offer:

• A simple, straight forward five or six step process for sending a fax
• Fax from a Windows/Mac/Linux client or online via a web browser
• Operation from any web browser worldwide with no additional hardware requirement.
• A portal to manage your fax activity
• Fax status messages to e-mail, SMS and/or Skype chat
• No minimum commitments
• Support for over 100 file formats
• Payment either pay-as-you-go or via PamFax Credit packs
• No contracts or ongoing obligations

Often my posts on PamFax bring up the question of “who’s using faxes today”? With various alternatives for exchanging documents electronically, one would think that faxing is becoming passé. However, with billions of fax machines still attached to phone lines and the ongoing need for “recognized originals”, such as contract execution signatures, Scendix reports that their monthly page volumes continues to grow at a significant pace. And, were the market not still a significant one, Scendix would not have invested their resources since last summer in the  very extensive development of the PamFax 3.0 platform.

Yet, with PamFax, fax activity can become paperless and “totally green”. Sending documents involves simply attaching a document (in over 100 formats) during the fax set up process unless it is one that has to be scanned in. While there are options for printing received faxes, they can also simply be read on the user’s PamFax portal and printed only when absolutely necessary.

The Scendix team has prepared an “office drama” introductory video about how PamFax brings relief to the frustrations of faxing:

An introduction to PamFax from PamFax on Vimeo.

Voice On The Web posts about PamFax

Related articles by Zemanta

• PamFax Adds Linux Edition; Scendix Demonstrates the Power of Web Services (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Tungle.Me 2.0 – Meeting Acceleration Through Participant Aggregation (voiceontheweb.biz)
• It’s Been a Week for New Skype Video Experiences (voiceontheweb.biz)

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.

On Friday the Skype Developer Blog posted a blog announcing the end of the Skype Extras program in what amounts to two stages:

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).

Effectively, Skype has admitted that the Skype Extras program has not been a great success as a marketing tool. “Despite the incredible breadth of Extras developed for Skype, simply not enough people were using them to justify our continued support of the Extras programme.”

However, as indicated by a Skype Software Partner’s tweet above, Skype’s developer support will be continuing. Why?

In the same announcement, it was stated that the Skype Public API’s and their documentation remain available; more importantly, it was stated that “Skype will continue to support accessories via the Public API.”

But the uniformed media fallout has been attempting to put “doom and gloom” for Skype developer activities going forward. However, had Skype personnel worked with their PR agency who has been very adept at educating both mainstream media and bloggers with the background on Skype announcements, this “doom and gloom” cloud could have been avoided. (No press release was issued; so we have to assume Skype’s PR agency was not consulted.) Some of this “missing” information is in my recent post: “Skype Extras” Is Dead; Long Live the Skype API’s!.

Here are some of the myths that have resulted along with some of the facts that dispel them:

Myth: GigaOm: Skype kills its developer ecosystem: While it is true that “if you put your lot with Skype then you are on your own” for the marketing aspect of a software partner’s offering, the Skype API’s are not going away. And Skype is finally reviewing how it can work best with developers. Some considerations:

• Last fall, Skype announced the appointment of Daniel Berg as Chief Technology Officer. In the spring they announced the appointment of former Counterpath CTO Jason Fischl as Director of Developer Relations heading up the Skype Developer Program. Maybe their silence to date says something about their evaluation of the previous Skype developer activity and their need to take time to articulate an overall Skype platform within which the Skype SDK and Skype API’s will be playing a role. Most importantly, my network’s jungle drums say they are still very active within Skype.
• Check out this job opening for a Platform Release Manager that starts out with “You will be responsible for planning and releasing each new version of the Skype SDK used as part of the upcoming Platform strategy.”
• The Skype post itself ended with: “we still believe there are opportunities for third-party developers to enhance the Skype experience”.

As implied in the OnState tweet above, and confirmed by my own conversations with other Skype partners, we should be looking forward to new enhancements to the Skype Developer Program and the Skype SDK. But maybe Skype should have filled in media and bloggers with this information via their PR network instead of bluntly announcing the end of a support program with no offsetting information.

Myth: Skype is eating its software partners. Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch, Skype Shutting Down Extras Program: “Skype will begin offering more services that are labelled as Skype vs from third parties”. What this really should read  is:

Skype will begin offering more services expanding on its core “conversation” technology expertise and will be looking to third parties to complement their core services by incorporating Skype into offerings that leverage the individual partners’ unique expertise.

For instance:

• Skype for Asterisk (developed by Skype partner Digium) and Skype for SIP will be integrating Skype’s calling and presence functionality into “legacy” platforms as they evolve the Skype for Business program. Expect to hear more at Christopher Dean’s talk at Fall VON next week in Miami.
• As initially indentified by Phil, the Skype Jobs listings include some for a new “Skype Labs” location:
  

  Skype Labs is a new R&D center located in the Bay Area focused on next generation technologies for Skype which will be applicable over the next one to five years. The initial areas of work will include security, signaling and call control for audio, video and presence, p2p and collaboration.

• However, OnState brings decades of call center experience into their Call Center – an application for which Skype has neither the experience nor bandwidth to develop. (Full disclosure: the author is involved with a new small business that will be using OnState’s Call Center as a paying customer.)
• PamFax brings a simple five or six step process for sending faxes worldwide from any PC. Having followed the development of this service over the past two years, they have built a system that solves the basic faxing problem in a user friendly, yet highly secure, manner. Once again Skype has neither the expertise nor bandwidth to address this issue. (And Scendix, PamFax’s developer who was the only third party using Skype Credits to any extent, has already made plans for other payment services when they launched version 2.0 last spring).
• Looking at Skype Jobs, one finds the engineering jobs are focused on evolving Skype’s core functionality: video codecs, video QA engineer, audio components, director of mobile engineering, etc.
• The Product Manager – Applications job description includes responsibility for:
  • Extras like call recording and faxing. (Is Skype going to make an offer for veteran Skype software partner Scendix?)
  • Partner integrations with CRM, Security, Collaboration and similar applications (insert Call Center here).

Bottom line:

• Recent Skype successes include their High Quality Video (nobody has duplicated their ability to do VGA-standard video calling over standard broadband connections) and the SILK codec for higher quality Skype-to-Skype voice calling.
• Expect a multi-party video conferencing service, improved audio and video services and hardware (for instance, finding partners such as client In Store Solutions whose FREETALK Everyman headset addresses an identified end user issue with respect to call quality in a user-friendly way).
• Skype will continue to seek out partners, such as Scendix (Pamela and PamFax), Digium, Skylook (CRM), OnState and InnerPass (document management), who incorporate Skype into a range of business services where the partner has significant expertise that can complement Skype’s core conversation technologies via their API’s (both existing and future).
• Skype’s current Partners are seeing business success:
  • Unyte and VAPPS have been acquired by IBM’s Lotus Sametime Division and Citrix Online respectively
  • OnState is finding its Call Center offering stealthing into larger enterprises due to not only its feature set but also its cost saving
  • PamFax 2.0 has been a most successful launch; Pamela 4.6 was recently launched with video recording.
  • InnerPass has had over 1 million version 1.0 downloads since January. Watch this space for future announcements.
• Statements to the effect that “Skype is abandoning/axing its developer partners” are a myth; once more it’s a case of Skype’s managing their communications onto the blogger space. Memo to Skype: Work with your PR agency (who has done an excellent job over the past two years) and the complete message can get out.

Question: What should Skype really be doing for developer support programs going forward? A recent TechCrunch post by Michael Arrington, some of Andy’s other comments and some comments in Skype Journal’s Skype 5.x Public Chat (Phil’s rushing it – this was the Skype 4.x Public Chat until a week ago) provide some hints. A post will follow.

P.S. – Do you have communications technology and/or marketing experience? It seems like Skype is doing its part to stimulate the economy. Check out the Skype Job Vacancies page where, today, over 60 job openings are listed (some listings are actually for multiple hires).

Related articles by Zemanta

• Skype closes its Extras program for developers (infoworld.com)
• Skype Pulls Plug On Third-Party Extras Program (paidcontent.org)
• Skype retiring third-party Extras (download.cnet.com)
• Skype killing off Extras, developer program (downloadsquad.com)
• Skype retiring third-party Extras (news.cnet.com)
• Skype Shuts Down Extras and Its Developer Program (readwriteweb.com)
• Skype: No More Extras! (mashable.com)
• Skype’s Stefan Öberg @ Interop: Stealthing Skype Into Business, But Cover the Entire Skype Ecosystem (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Stealthing Skype into Larger Businesses (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype for Asterisk Release Marries Skype Calling into Popular Asterisk PBX Platform (voiceontheweb.biz)

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

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

So to clarify today’s announcement:

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

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

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

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

Related articles by Zemanta

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

OnState Communications provides hosted communications services that allow any size of business to operate a call center or PBX with low cost worldwide access via Skype, Skype Online numbers or the PSTN, including toll-free and DID numbers. Low monthly fees and service charges (covering inbound numbers and outbound PSTN calling) along with zero capital expenditures are the selling points that have driven evaluation and adoption across a range of businesses.

During early May OnState will be upgrading their services to add:

• a “My Account” dashboard that tracks credits and charges for services such as toll-free numbers and SkypeOut charges in real time
• OnState Mobile allows employees to use their mobile phones (such as iPhone and BlackBerry) to participate as part of a call center operation, either directly receiving customer calls, transferring to another employee in the company, or acting as a secondary support resource to a business’s core sales and support teams
• Warm Transfer and Conferencing for OnState Anywhere — A warm transfer allows an agent to speak with a new caller before transferring the original caller to provide a better calling experience.
• Outbound calling with Caller ID in OnState Anywhere. Enables calling from any device (Skype, SIP soft phone, etc) with a unique Caller ID displayed to your customers.
• Support for SIP Phones. While most calls are handled via softphones, such as the Skype client, OnState services now support selected Polycomm and Grandstream SIP phone sets.
• Several other service tweeks and modifications; check out the OnState blog post for the details.

OnState will be upgrading services to all their current clients over the first ten days of May. As with many other players in the economically challenged Voice 2.0 world, I confirmed in a recent interview with OnState CEO Pat Kelly that they are finding increasing demand in the small-to-medium business market for their SaaS-based services. The key selling point remains offering a disruptively cost effective way to communicate across an enterprise ecosystem comprising employees, customers and suppliers.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Business Long Distance: Death by 1,000,000 PBX’s (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype Dials Up Bid for Business (wired.com)

There’s a “new sheriff in town” when it come to running Skype; CES 2009 was a “coming out” event for the new executive team.

CES 2009 provided an opportunity to catch up personally with many of the vendors we have covered in Skype Journal including Skype, Truphone, SlingMedia, Philips and Research in Motion (BlackBerry). I also had a chance to attend a most informative afternoon session of Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle event. Unfortunately Palm closed their suite after only two days of CES; thus, I missed an opportunity to learn more about the Palm Pre on Saturday. As Palm had just been awarded a CES “Best of Show” award, that was a “Huh?” moment when there was only a security guard at the suite’s door.. I also wanted to catch iPevo and Nokia but did not have time to get to their booths.

With respect to Skype we had three activities: the Skype press conference, an interview with new COO Scott Durchslag and Skype’s first reception event Friday evening. It was our first opportunity to observe the new Skype executive team in action. While I will be providing some more detailed posts, here are a few observations:

• For the first time, a senior C-level Skype executive personally acknowledged Skype Journal’s participation as a playing a significant role in the Skype ecosystem. Scott thanked us for our loyalty to Skype through all the challenges of the past two years. (That does not mean we’ll always be cheerleaders; it’s important that we maintain a skeptical and critical viewpoint within the context of the overall IP-based communications space.)

While we have had co-operation in the past,  usually via Skype’s public relations agency, from many Skype employees at an operating level, it’s important for the media to be able to communicate regularly and openly with those at the C-level who are providing overall direction and developing high level strategy. Josh has initiated such openness through his blogging and interviews; now we are seeing it on a person-to-person basis..

• On the other hand many times, last week in both the press conference and our discussions, Scott acknowledged the existence of several previous controversial issues, such as technical support, platform development, the role of partners and internal management structure issues as requiring attention by the new management team. The newly recruited management team will be introducing a new level of experience and maturity to address these issues; execution over the next few months now becomes critical.
• One future post will cover Skype’s new operating and management structure focused on products and geographical markets.
• Another will cover Skype’s overall focus as a software platform developer and the standards being set for these developments. Within this context I’ll provide my perspective on what is meant by “liquid communications”.
• We’ll soon have a follow up post about our discussion with Scott of what Skype’s new executive team learned from the TOM-Skype privacy breach last fall and how it became a bonding exercise within Skype as well as establishing some new operating parameters to avoid a repeat.
• Skype is NOT shoving its partners under the bus. The new executive team is determining what innovation Skype will drive and what innovation they can expect partners to drive. Andy Abramson articulates his perspective on the issue:

Most of all, Skype is not sitting back. The are pushing the envelope, but at the same time sending mixed messages externally to partners and developers. But that too will change. Some recent hires have brought maturity to the table.

• We learned the answer to “Will There Be a Skype Client on the iPhone?”
• Finally, for the first time since I have been writing about Skype, we can see some well-articulated high level vision for where Skype is heading, where they need to focus and how they want to play in the real time communications market space at a strategic level.

Looking forward to writing about the evolution of Skype as it grows from a $500MM per year operation with 500 employees into a business with a revenue level and valuation that finally justifies eBay’s initial investment in Skype.

Powered by Qumana

Over the past few months, announcements have been few and far between with respect to Skype product news. But at the same time I have often discussed Skype’s restructuring moves; the first official disclosure of a restructuring was disclosed in our September interview with Skype’s new President Josh Silverman. Well it appears that Josh has been busy doing interviews; today three top level appointments were announced:

Daniel Berg, previously Sun’s London-based Chief Technology Officer for Global Sales and Services as well as Vice-President of Systems Engineering for EMEA, has been appointed as Skype’s Chief Technology Officer, starting January 2, 2009. In a summary statement from Skype’s blog post:.

As CTO, Daniel Berg’s primary responsibility will be to drive innovation and ensure Skype continues to develop great software. With a mandate covering Skype’s full range of products, he will develop and maintain a global team of more than 300 staff.

Daniel has authored several books. But since he has not made any statements on his appointment yet, we could paraphrase a statement he made about his Sun activities last April in a post entitled “Travel, Talk, Repeat” on Sun’s “Contrarion Minds” blog:

So he travels. A lot.

“I actually spend 25 percent of my working day, on average, in the air,” says Berg, who is based in the U.K. “That’s not going to the airport, not coming home from airport, that’s in the air.”

He knows this because he sticks to a time budget.

“I know I need to be spending this much time with customers and this much with organizational matters and this much with employee development, to make sure I’m staying focused and balanced,” he explains.

His biggest challenge?

“Articulating the value Sun [Skype] has,” Berg replies. “I know this has been said before, but I’ve been at Sun 15 years and this is the best lineup of technology, products, and offerings we’ve ever had. Yet when I go talk to customers, one of the first things they say is, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you guys did that.’”

So we’ll be expecting you to become one of the more “public” faces of Skype. And that those air miles will keep on building up.

The second appointment is Christopher S. Dean as Chief Strategy Officer. From his LinkedIn profile, Christopher has a long history of working with startups, including periods on the venture capital side in Silicon Valley, most recently as co-founder of Texada Capital. At one point he and Skype’s GM Audio and Video Jonathan Christensen were colleagues in a San Francisco-based venture capital firm called Sweetwater Partners, whose Internet traces seem to have disappeared. From the Skype blog post announcement:

Christopher S. Dean will focus on Skype’s strategy, including the development of partnerships and strategic alliances with other like-minded organisations and the acquisition of companies and technologies for Skype. His team will act as the incubator and strategic planning hub for new ideas and projects which support Skype’s technology vision and long term corporate goals.

It appears that Christopher will be based out of Skype’s San Jose office; his responsibilities will be a key to driving Skype from a $500MM per year revenue business into the the multi-billion dollar revenues needed to justify eBay’s initial investment in Skype. Why the “S.”? I assume that Christopher is trying to avoid confusion with the U.K.’s Olympic Ice Dancing multiple Medallist Christopher Dean.

The final appointment, another key to ensuring Skype hires and maintains appropriately skilled and motivated employees, is the appointment of Anne Gillespie, whose long history of EMEA positions with Compaq and HP, brings the experience required to serve as head of Skype Human Resources.

There’s still one more major executive move I am expecting – a Chief Marketing Officer who bring the badly needed messaging and market communications strategies and disciplines required for a business that’s expected to attract sufficient usage to generate those multi-billion dollar sales.

And I’m sure Lee Dryburgh has no problem with my publicly inviting Dan and Christopher to join the rest of the Emerging Communications community at eComm 2009; after all Skype is a Platinum sponsor.

Best wishes for success, Dan, Christopher and Anne from Skype Journal.

Powered by Qumana

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related posts:

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

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

This is the fourth in a series of posts resulting from an interview a week ago Friday with Josh Silverman, Skype’s recently appointed President. In this post we talk about addressing the small-to-medium business market as well as various geographical markets.

Over its five years, Skype has built up, almost totally virally, a significant base of users who take advantage of Skype to not only reduce their business communications costs but also to communicate more effectively with colleagues and customers around the world. At the same time various Skype software partners have built offerings, such as Pamela, PamFax and Skylook, that either focus on Skype as a business communications tool or include Skype amongst their options for calling. Within Skype’s own offerings, the Business Control Panel provides the tools for a system administrator to handle both the deployment of Skype and the administration of Skype accounts within a business’s operations.OnState is a primary example of the latter. They have built up a call center offering that takes full advantage of both instant messaging chat and voice in dealing with both inbound and outbound calls; they also take advantage of the three founders’ combined over sixty years’ experience participating in the call center market. Yet, they encountered many opportunities where they had to go back to Skype for assistance since, for one reason or another, Skype’s program were insufficient to address business users’ requirement. The result is that today OnState offers their customers “one stop shopping” whereby, on acquiring a customer, OnState takes on responsibility for addressing Skype subscription needs, hardware requirements (headsets and handsets, implementation issues and first level technical support.

The Business Control Panel has had its limitations also; the main fear has been to mitigate potential for fraudulent or unauthorized activity through purchasing and licensing limits.

As for geographical markets, Skype met a much larger need for communications cost reductions in Europe and Asia than in North America. As a result over 80% of Skype’s revenues continue to come from outside the U.S. The two primary needs met in North America are for “Friends and Family” calling outside North America and small businesses who are working to grow internationally – both internally and with their suppliers and customers.

In growing internationally, there has been the challenge of building user bases in widely diverse markets; “free”, “easy-to-install” and a whole lot of viral marketing action have introduced significant adoption around the world. But this success has led to more business-oriented challenges in working out termination agreements, establishing effective multi-currency transaction systems (although being an eBay co-unit of PayPal certainly helps), multiple language versions of software (27 at last count) and providing multi-lingual, internationally available technical support. (We’ll talk about marketing and more about technical support in future posts in this series.)

We asked Josh about the Skype’s approach to the business market:

JS: Skype in the business market. There’s more that needs to be done. (you guys are smart, you’re asking all the right questions). Platform is a huge opportunity for us; business is another big opportunity for us. About half of the communications market is business; we have a great solution, especially for small-to-medium size businesses. We haven’t tailored that solution to businesses very much; we haven’t communicated to businesses that we have that solution. In the new organizational design one of the pieces of that will be to build out a business unit focused on small-to-medium size businesses where we’ll have some resources available to tailor our product and some sales and marketing resources to work … I don’t think that we’ll be directly selling to small-to-medium size businesses but we can work with VAR’s to help support them in bringing Skype to businesses.

(Note this interview occurred two weeks prior to last week’s announcement of Skype for Asterisk, a program that leverages Digium’s Asterisk reseller channel for sales, implementation and ongoing support requirements.)

We then moved on to ask about various geographical markets:

SJ: North America. (Thank God for Oprah!) Skype has become much more a household name this past year (with an acknowledgement to Don Albert, GM North America). What does it take to keep that business going forward in U.S. and Canada and what are the strategies for U.S. and Canada?

JS: We’re very aware that the number one way to grow Skype is to build products the users love. That is our first mandate always. Once you have a product users love, we can accelerate it by some smart marketing programs. (By the way if you don’t have a product that users love no amount of marketing on earth will save you, right?) So we do have a product that users love and I don’t think we have done as much as we could to communicate that.

Oprah is a great example. It is not our intention and people should not expect massive multi-million dollar marketing budgets from Skype. But there are some smart tactical things we can do working together with evangelists like Oprah to build awareness. It’s our belief that once you’ve grown awareness, people will try it; once they try it they’ll love it. and the rest takes care of itself. At the Democratic national convention we were quite happy to see many of the national broadcasters using Skype as a way to expand their coverage and you should be looking for more programs like that in the United States in the year to come.

SJ: China is your biggest market?

JS: In terms of total users it’s one of our top markets; the answer is yes.

SJ: QQ is still kicking butt in China? What strategy do you have in your existing partnership with Tom?

JS: We have a great partnership with Tom who knows the local market very well. Tom is also a very entrepreneurial, innovative, fast moving company. We’re very pleased to be partnering with them; they’re the right partner to continue building our presence in China.

SJ: Do you have your own people in Asia?

JS: A couple of people in Asia who work with our partners to make sure they’re getting the support they need and also giving us real feedback from the market on what we need to be doing on [our] core platform to be able to support Asia better.

SJ: How about India?

JS: We don’t have anyone working in India. We don’t have a partnership in India to announce but we are seeing good growth in India but we think it’s a terrific market and we are expecting to have more focus on that in 2009

My observation, five months in, [is that] markets where Skype has the most power are markets where you have high broadband connectivity, you have a large ex-pat population, and where the local telephony system is not as efficient as it could be. Many of the developing markets meet that profile so we think we have a huge opportunity in developing markets such as India and it’s our intention to focus more on that in the coming year.

SJ: To succeed in the mobile market place, mobile device manufacturers have had to build carrier relationships. What does Skype need to do with either handset manufacturers and/ or carriers to succeed in the mobile market?

JS: I don’t think the carriers should be able to dictate what software the users get to use. any company,. the smallest startup in the world, if it has really outstanding software ought to be able to take on the whole world and not have to hire 50 people to develop relationships with 300 carriers.

Phil has already pointed out the Skype for Asterisk news announced at Stefan Oberg’s AstriCon keynote this morning along with links to several blog postings and the news release. This afternoon I spent fifteen minutes talking with Stefan, Skype’s Vice-President and General Manager of Telecom, and Digium CEO Danny Windham to get more details.

First I asked who would benefit from the Skype for Asterisk announcement?

Danny and Stefan responded that the primary beneficiary would be the end user, especially small-to-medium businesses who have installed an Asterisk PBX. In particular:

• A generic SkypeID, say “acmesales”, could be setup for inbound calls to the PBX; think of this SkypeID as a “global 800 number”.
• The Asterisk PBX would then be able to hand off the call, as appropriate, to a call center, voice mail, IVR, conferencing and click-to-call from a website, amongst other Asterisk-based services and functionality.
• Each employee or agent can also access the PBX via individual SkypeID’s for taking inbound calls (including calls directed from the generic SkypeID) or placing outbound calls.
• Outbound calls can be placed to any location worldwide, either to a Skype destination or, via SkypeOut, to the PSTN in any country.
• Outbound calls can be to customers anywhere worldwide
• Also the PBX with its Skype inbound/outbound call handling can serve to provide internal company communications amongst offices worldwide. Remote employees are simply at “extensions” of the Asterisk PBX.
• As with any VoIP-based service, agents can be located in remote offices, work from home or be available in any location where they have set up a Skype-enabled PC with broadband access.
• Asterisk PBX already can be programmed to handle least cost routing of international calls; the Skype cloud will be added as an option for least cost routing.
• Calls that involve Skype at both end points will have the full HD (wideband) audio bandwidth of Skype, providing clearer, more readily understood calls than those that involve a PSTN connection at one end.

Naturally the major benefit to end users is the cost savings; Skype to Skype calls are free; calls involving SkypeOut have the normal SkypeOut charges as low as US$ 0.021 or €0.017 per minute. (On SquawkBox this morning Jim Kohlen of the VON Coalition estimated full implementation of VoIP throughout the U.S. could result in savings of up to $110B per year.)

I then probed about the extent of Asterisk installations. It turns out that there were over 1 million downloads of Asterisk via Digium last year; this year is on a run rate of over 1.5 million downloads. Danny estimates there are over 4 million active Asterisk servers worldwide that have been implemented and/or supported by Digium’s various services. Since Asterisk itself is open source, it is speculated there are many more installations out there that are not supported through Digium.

Product: Skype for Asterisk will involve a software module, developed in conjunction with Skype, that is downloaded and compiled onto an Asterisk server. Premium packages will also be available from Skype; these will be comprehensive packages tailored for various business functions and include the Skype Business Control Panel. There may be opportunities to include Skype Partner products and services, such as Pamela and/or PamFax. There will be “low” monthly licensing fees for use of the basic software module as well as the premium packages.

Distribution: Here is where this agreement is significant for Skype. Digium has an established ecosystem involving a market place, technology partners and Value Added Reseller partners (VAR’s). For the VAR’s Skype for Asterisk will be an incremental Digium reseller offering (channel driver) for which they will receive commissions for both the software licenses and premium packages described above as well as for all SkypeOut traffic brought through their customer bases. These VAR’s are responsible for implementation services as well as providing first level technical support to individual customers using Digium products and services.

The Beta program will involve two phases. Phase I will involve a limited number of participants to finalize the software while obtaining feedback from user experiences. Phase II will be a much broader public beta to provide both extended feedback as well as to train VAR’s and even end users on implementation and use of Skype for Asterisk. The beta program will require the use of version 1.4 or 1.6 of Asterisk; Skype for Asterisk will only support these versions once the commercial version is available.

As Rich Tehrani stated in his post:

What this means to Skype is that company has finally found a way to get into the enterprise in an easy way — by partnering with Digium/Asterisk which has great traction with developers, resellers, carriers, SMBs and more. Expect more enterprise use of Skype and as this happens, Skype should see more revenue from business users.

And to narrow down on Dan York’s speculation about any Skype-to-SIP gateway:

• Any existing SIP interfacing functionality within the Asterisk PBX will be available as appropriate to reach non-Skype extensions involving a SIP interface.
• The only additional Skype-to-SIP functionality will come through the existing SkypeOut gateways.

To follow on from my comments yesterday about the need for business transactions related to crossing a SIP interface, both these SIP interfaces will associate with existing business agreements.

Skype has been hinting at major announcements during the fall; this certainly has to be a significant new revenue channel for Skype while bringing new services to Asterisk end users and new sales opportunities for Asterisk resllers.

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

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

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

Ha!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Powered by Qumana

OnState Communications have been evolving their Skype-based on-demand call center offering over the past year. Launched a year ago to provide basic voice contact, they added an “open” chat capability last summer. As a result call center agents could communicate with prospective or current customers via Skype, PSTN and/or chat sessions (and could escalate chat sessions to a voice session). However, as they built their customer base, they found three new requirements:

• a need to provide customers a full service call center launch in terms of setting up Skype accounts and acquiring any Skype-related hardware such as Skype phones and/or headsets
• toll-free number call-in for customers responding to OnState’s clients’ broadcast or print media campaigns, and
• local dial-in numbers for Canadian clients who could not obtain SkypeIn numbers

Yesterday OnState launched their total solution for OnState clients that provides one-stop shopping to not only acquire the core call center services but also offer:

• Skype account setup and management
• toll-free US and international coverage in over 30 countries;
• Skype-compatible hardware (phones, headsets, etc.)
• PayPal™ easy-payment plans for all call center needs
• accessibility to advanced customer contact management solutions;
• voice, video, and business chat capabilities;
• reduced operational costs at industry redefining prices;

• Web integration including click-to-call, automatic call-back, and online chat

• streamlined customer communications; and

• improved customer management.

From their press release:

“Our new storefront actually creates a new business model – the on-demand, pay-as-you go call center,” explained Pat Kelly, CEO and cofounder of OnState Communications. “We offer one-stop shopping that spans toll-free telephone numbers, advanced call center capabilities and accessories, and Skype-compatible products,” continued Kelly. “Within minutes rather than days or weeks, businesses can launch a call center or customer contact management solution that delivers end-to-end customer service – all from a single site.”

………

The integration of Skype services and offerings with the OnState CallCenter for Skype gives businesses a single, unified source for customer service at an industry-redefining price. Unlike traditional call center solutions where businesses contract and manage any number of vendors including network, hardware, system, and software providers, OnState CallCenter customers have a single point of contact for all call center and contact management. “OnState customers eliminate the complexities and costs of dealing with multiple technology providers,” said Pat Kelly, CEO and cofounder of OnState Communications.

OnState’s evolution represents another entrepreneurial, co-operative effort between Skype and its partners to provide a disruptive offering that results in both a less expensive and more effective business process incorporating Skype infrastructure and Skype API’s. Whereas previously call centers typically required a minimum six figure investment for the required hardware, OnState’s solution provides the same or even additional functionality for $30 per agent per month with no subscription required. By providing this end-to-end one-stop offering, they simply make implementation of their solution a quicker exercise that also saves their clients associated implementation overhead costs.

Previous posts:

• Memo to Skype CEO Candidates: An Interview That Nails What Skype Can Be. OnState CEO Pat Kelly interviewed by AuctionBytes Ina Steiner.
• A Primer for Skype’s Direction – Skype’s Extras Gallery and Developer Partner Program
• Getting the Story Right: Whose Call Center for Skype Was Introduced?

Tags: OnState Communications, OnState Call Center, Skype, Skype Developer Program, Skype Extras, Pat Kelly

Having reflected on Skype’s accomplishments in 2007 and some of the more interesting devices and technologies that have crossed my way, now for my projections for 2008. (In the interest of enhanced objectivity — not that I can be totally objective — I have yet to read Phil’s 37 Sketchy 2008 Skype Predictions or Andy’s The Road in 2008 (links below after you have read this <gr>).

1. eBay will appoint a new Skype CEO in the first quarter. Andy has his insights into the search.

2. The new CEO will focus on “Delight the User”

• Introduce customer support plans (limited free and premium paid)
• Provide <24 hour response time on customer support requests
• Hire a Chief Marketing Officer who understands the role of, and process for, marketing a technology platform to both consumers and small businesses.
• Provide guidelines on optimizing end user configurations for highest quality voice and video.
• Set challenging goals for increasing SkypeIn and SkypeOut minutes used.
• Change Skype business and management structure to support the development and marketing of platforms as opposed to services
• Build a “Skype Inside” marketing program for Skype hardware
• Build a blogger relations program
• Improve dialogues with Developer Partners

3. Skype will introduce multi-party video conferencing (may initially only be three party)

4. Skype will focus on licensing two platforms:

• Skype real time conversation infrastructure (to additional social networking platforms beyond MySpace)
• Skype Developer API Toolkit: to include web services support

5. Skype users will rush out to replace their PC’s with Dual Core processors and their webcams with Logitech Carl-Zeiss optics webcams to take full advantage of Skype High Quality Video.

6. Skype will revitalize the Skype hardware program, improving hardware partner relationships, building a more effective hardware distribution channel (especially in North America) and building consumer awareness of Skype as a premium real time conversation offering.

• Skype will figure out how to open a Skype store for the 3.5 million Canadians.who have registered on Skype.

7. Skype will have to support emergency services for customers with SkypeIn numbers in countries requiring this.

• SkypeIn numbers for Canada will become available within three months of providing emergency services access for UK SkypeIn numbers.

8. The Skype Partner program’s business solutions providers will start to gain significant traction amongst the small and professional services business community.

9. Skype will execute on some form of significantly enhanced business relationship with Google.

10. Skypephone will become available in the U.S. via T-Mobile (and the Skypephone will be modified to support the required additional 850 MHz GSM band.)

11. Skype will upgrade its presence engine to deal with the fact that we may have multiple concurrent logins, especially on at least one PC and one mobile device.

12. Skype will gain significant placement on mobile devices.

• How extensively this goes depends on the (low cost) availability of “public” WiFi and./or 3G network access.
• note that I did not necessarily say there will be a mobile device Skype VoIP client.
• Should more (GSM) carriers invoke UMA/GAN we will see Skype continue the current “mobile” trend of IM over the data network with voice connectivity over the carrier’s inherent voice network.

13. Skype will conclude deals for local termination services in many more countries to improve SkypeIn and SkypeOut call quality.

14. Someone at Skype will review all the SkypeIn provider contracts to ensure we can keep our SkypeIn numbers permanently. (And Londoners will learn that their area code is simply “020″, not “020n”.)

15.eBay will begin reporting Skype usage numbers that are meaningful, such as number of users who actually made at least one Skype call in the previous quarter.

Will be interesting to see how much of these predictions actually play out but one can always hope for the best.

Happy New Year and Happy Skyping in 2008!

And for other predictions:

• Phil Wolff’s 37 Sketchy 2008 Skype Predictions
• Andy Abramson: The Road in 2008
• Ken Camp articulates his perspectives on Mobility, VoIP, Video, SOAP/SaaS and Social Media/Social Networking in his Unified Communications Watch List 2008. Well worth a read, especially for his comments on the decline of Windows Mobile — a trend I have also noticed.

Powered by Qumana

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

Getting to the Present

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

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

The Voice 2.0 Challenge

The Voice 2.0 Manifesto talks about three flavors of applications:

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

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

Skype Publisher Studio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reference posts:

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

Business Solutions Extras:

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

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

Other posts in this Skype Primer Series

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

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

Powered by Qumana

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks, Ken. Enough said….

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

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

Two weeks ago, it was announced that PamFax, with its ability not only to fax a document but also work through the Skype Extras Publishing Platform to collect revenues, was the winner of the European Mashup competition as well as the worldwide winner.

Thursday afternoon at a Skype Developer Event in San Jose, a mashup that I had been using during my trip to locate WiFi hotspots in the south Bay Area, JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype, was the recipient of the North American Mashup Cup. After receiving the cup JiWire COO Nidhad Hafiz (right) gave a brief demonstration and I had an opportunity to discuss its development with Nihad and CEO Kevin McKenzie (left). Not only does the JiWire Hotspot Finder locate nearby locations with WiFi access but it also provides local information of interest to the road warrior such as driving directions, weather, road conditions and several catagories of nearby retail, lodging and services locations. From the Skype Press Release:

The JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype allows users to search for and to find WiFi hotspots anywhere in the world through Skype. It allows one to view surrounding access points and then connect to them in just one click. The JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype includes easy keyword search capability; just type in “café” or “hotel” or the name of a specific location to find a nearby hotspot. You can also get local weather or traffic reports, news and directions by simply clicking on the map.

The download of the JiWire Hotspot Finder adds a contact to your Skype Contacts; typing “?” provides a complete set of instructions for using its Natural Language search engine. But not only does entering “restaurants in Sunnyvale, CA” into the chat window bring up a list of five “closest” WiFi-enabled restaurants (with a “next” command to bring up additional restaurants), it also brings up the JiWire WiFi companion that provides the meat of this mashup.

Initially the map will show interactive buttons indicating the locations of the hotspots found in the search; running your cursor over individual hotspots provides more details about the location.. The Location Tools tab includes five left sidebar buttons starting with a “Find Near By” button from which you can ask for, say, any Starbucks or Marriott Hotels, located within the map. Need the local weather forecast for the next five days? Click on Weather. Driving Directions and Local Traffic Conditions are also available via their interactive map. A local newswire runs across the bottom of the window. Run your cursor over identified locations for any of the services and a detail window pops up with more information, such as phone number, for the particular retailer or service or traffic condition.

The WiFi Tools tab provides details about your current WiFi connection and access to a tool which will check the security of your WiFi connection. Note that JiWire considers WEP keys as insecure whereas it defines WPA keys as secure. You also have the ability to register new Hotspots; JiWire will find the technical information; you only need to load the address and name for the location. It does also promote JiWire’s Hotspot Helper (which I had subscribed to at some point prior to availability of the JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype). The JiWire WiFi Hotspot Helper does enhanced the security of your WiFi connection, if necessary (for instance changes WEP to WPA) and also provides a “SMTP” facility to send out your email, should the WiFi connection be blocked from your regular email SMTP server.

For the technical details: JiWire is written in C# and of course uses the Skype API’s along with API’s from Microsoft Virtual Earth, Microsoft Live Search, Weather Channel, Yahoo (Directions, Traffic, News) and additional geocoding information from MapQuest, Yahoo and Google. Nihad mentioned also that the Windows API itself along with .Net framework were also key elements in making this product happen. While the full utility runs under Windows, adding it to your Skype Contacts on a Mac or Linux platform will only bring up the search results but there is no WiFi companion window available at this time.

In my discussion with Nihad he not only mentioned how easily he had developed this application using the Skype API’s but he also drew particular attention to how the Skype API documentation provided sufficient information to execute the development project much more effectively and efficiently.

Speaking with Kevin he mentioned that, while there is no business model associated with JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype, he does see it as providing awareness generation for their services that may lead to both purchase of their WiFi security tool and to use of their ad-supported desktop services. Kevin also mentioned that Nihad had developed the JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype as a “work of passion” outside his normal responsibilities at JiWire. And that passion certainly came through in my discussion with Nihad.

WiFi access is a key infrastructure requirement for road warriors using Skype. Over the past week I found WiFi access to be of varying reliability with the easiest ease-of-access to be a friend’s (secured) home WiFi networks. I found this tool useful in locating WiFi hotspots; however, the biggest issue is for the WiFi service providers and Internet security software publishers to make a determined effort to make connecting to these WiFi hotspots a simple process. (I could not even get the registration web browser to come up at Starbucks on the T-Mobile service yet it worked beautifully at one hotel location over lunch.)

Congratulations again to Nihad, Kevin and the JiWire developer team.

Tags: Skype, Skype Mashup Competition, JiWire, JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype, Skype Developer Program, Skype API, PamFax, Nihad Hafiz, Kevin McKenzie

Just over a month ago a two-day Skype outage caused great consternation with predictions of gloom and doom for Skype. Early yesterday here in California (around 1600GMT) I noticed almost 9.7 million users online — back to about the same number as peak loads immediately prior to the outage. Somebody out there is continuing to use it; for someone Skype is offering value-add.

Meanwhile Andy Abramson over at VoIP Watch wants Yahoo executives to admit “Yahoo isn’t talking.” And whither AOL’s AIM Phone Line? Om reports on Vonage: How Low Can You Go? And Matt Asay, over at CNet, writes: Swapping Vonage for Skype: One man’s search for VoIP that actually works where he starts out with:

Yes, you read the headline right. I have long been a critic of Skype, suggesting that eBay was foolish to buy the VoIP toy and generally ridiculing it as a serious business tool.

Today I’m eating crow, and it tastes great. Why? Because Vonage has been complete rubbish for me, whereas Skype is increasingly approaching perfection. I dropped my traditional phone service for Vonage. I’m now about to drop my traditionally awful Vonage for Skype.

Read Matt’s full story about how deterioration of service levels is driving away Vonage customers. (Hat tip to Andy for pointing out this story.) This morning Alec Saunders writes Walks like a telco, talks like a telco…. must be a telco where he discusses why many VoIP companies are dying when they simple try to offer lower cost versions of traditional legacy telco services. And he concludes with (my bold emphasis):

To get to free phone calls requires a fundamental change in architecture which Vonage et al have not embraced. It requires pushing the core calling functionality to the edge of the network, which implies turning off the “minute meter”. Voice, in this scenario, is nothing more than an undifferentiated stream of bits, charged at the bandwidth rate of the network operator. The profits must be made from the services surrounding the call – before and after – not during.

The SIP standard anticipates this model by allowing for both peer-to-peer calling models, and calling models which pass through a centralized proxy. While no VoIP “operator” has ever embraced the peer SIP model, Skype has delivered peer calling on their proprietary protocol. Skype understands that the money isn’t in transporting the bits, but rather [is] in all of the ancillary pieces that can be offered around that bit transport — ring tones, voice mail, phone numbers, and protocol licensing to third parties who wish to attach equipment to the Skype peer network. Similarly, by embedding conference calling in Facebook, at iotum we’re trying to create a better experience before and after the call, rather than during simply focusing on the cost of the call (although free is pretty compelling, I would argue…)

That’s the fundamental difference between the success of Skype and the failure of Vonage and SunRocket. Skype doesn’t look like a telco. Vonage, however, walks like a telco and talks like a telco…. without a telco’s deep pockets.

Not only does Skype offer an unequaled range of real time conversations services — chat, presence, video, 10-party conference calls, voice mail, SMS messaging, call transfer and file transfer; but we are also now witnessing the emergence of Skype’s Developer Partner program fully demonstrate the value of having service-oriented, ancillary offerings. Offerings that embed Skype into (business) processes such as call centers, collaboration tools, audio hosting tools, faxing, conversation archiving and CRM tools. To recall my post Skype Partners Answer Jeff’s Call for Innovation in Voice Services:

In the Skype ecosystem we can see the recipe for a foundation for innovative IP-based services.

• Start with a full real time conversation platform that combines voice, presence and text messaging.
• Start with a real time conversation platform that is enhanced with video, call transfer, call forwarding, voice messaging and file transfer.
• Start with an IP-based ecosystem that has a set of API’s to facilitate application development and mashups
• Start with a platform for which hardware has been developed to take advantage of many features of the platform.
• Start with a platform that can be accessed via not only Windows, Mac and Linux PC’s but also USB phones, PC-free phone sets, mobile phones, Blackberries (here and here) and the Nokia N800 Internet tablets.

The post goes on to list some of these Partner-generated services. And as Skype’s Partner program holds its various Developer events this month, we are seeing the beginnings of the evolution of Alec’s Voice 2.0 Manifesto. Over the past two years as Skype’s Partner services have evolved we have witnessed a withering of voice services at Yahoo, AOL and others. We have not see others recruit over 200 million account registrations (or disclose how many users are online in real time). Yet the Skype ecosystem is emerging from its cocoon, ready to fly as a major contributor to low cost worldwide real time communications services.

And the telcos don’t have the strategic horsepower to compete with Skype; their most valid strategy for competing with Skype is to partner with Skype for the services and just ship the bits.

Now if we could just figure out what’s going to evolve for Skype from the Google-eBay agreement announced just over a year ago that included this statement: “The companies will also explore interoperability between Skype and Google Talk via open standards to enable text chat and online presence.”

Tags: Skype, Yahoo, AOL AIM Phone Line, Alec Saunders, GigaOm, CNET, Matt Asay, Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch, Voice 2.0 Manifesto, Google, eBay, Skype Developer Partners

Powered by Qumana

Over the past three weeks I have had the opportunity to attend the Skype sessions at the eBay-Skype Developers Conference, to meet with and/or interview several Skype Software Business Solution Partners (product reviews forthcoming), and to spend a day at eBay Live – especially in the exhibit area.

Out in the blogosphere, especially via posts from the mesh 2007 and Enterprise 2.0 conferences, we have also seen a few observations about how social networking tools and, in particular, Skype, are penetrating the small enterprise market. The combination of these activities has helped bring into clearer focus what it takes to be a successful Skype Business Solution Partner, not from a technology perspective, but rather an approach to building a sustainable business.

First and foremost – bring along some experience in a vertical market or solution:

• Unyte has been providing desktop sharing services for several years;
• Real Allusion brings expertise in graphic enhancement and animation to Crazy Talk
• The OnState team brings over twenty years’ experience in developing successful Call Center solutions to its OnState ACD product,
• VAPPS brings carrier grade conferencing technology and experience to HighSpeedConferencing.com
• The Convenos team brings several years’ experience in building virtual meeting solutions
• Evoca had been developing a call recording, messaging and transcription web service business around any telephony service for academics, media companies and political campaigns

Second: Be prepared to be a persistent, patient pioneer.

• The Unyte story, initially presented here in an interview with Unyte’s CTO, Gershon Goren , but also articulated so well by Unyte’s CEO Lou Guercia at the Skype “Concepts to Cash” presentation, describes how the Unyte developer team had to work with Skype personnel as both the API set and the developer program evolved over the past two plus years.
• But I also heard about how incorporating Skype into Evoca’s product offering required supportive assistance from Skype personnel to bring on board the first web service involving Skype.
• The OnState ACD solution required patience until Skype could offer full call transfer capability; in the interim they built a Skype chat solution accessible from any website.

The evolution to the current Skype Software Developer Program removes some of the obstacles encountered by these pioneers; on the other hand they have been trail blazers contributing towards what is offered today.

• But the most important advice comes from Dick Schiferli at Pamela: “Nurture your Skype relationship and maintain an appropriate level of engagement by building good lines of two-way communication with Skype”.
• And don’t forget about Skype Software certification whose goal is to provide standards for quality assuance. As of July 2, Skype Software Certification will be required to become a Skype Partner.

Third: Ensure you have a value add product or service, not simply a feature

As an example consider Call Recording: Three partner products involve Call Recording: Pamela, Skylook and Evoca. In addition, Skype offers its own voice mail service but it’s simply that – voice mail with no PC access via MP3 files or other enhancements.

However, when you dig deeper you will find that call recording is a feature within each of these products/services. It is the value add proposition incorporating the call recording feature that differentiates each of the offerings. For instance:

• Pamela offers (MP3) call recording/voice mail as one feature of a set of personal assistant utilities that enhance your overall Skype experience;
• Skylook logs call recordings/voice mails into Outlook for individual PC archival purposes, integrated along with archiving of chat messages and call history within Outlook. In fact, with Skylook, you can manage all your Skype real time communications activity from Outlook and leave the Skype client in the System Tray
• Evoca offers online archiving with web access and RSS feeds for website, weblog and podcast reference along with transcription and translation services but no voice mail service.

And if you investigate the respective pricing models for each, you will find they represent various approaches to providing business-driven value-add.

Fourth: follow Lou’s Rules. From Lou Guercia’s presentation at the “Concepts to Cash” seminar:

• Rule #1: Develop a product that you’d like to use with Skype .. Something that enhances the user experience.
• Rule #2: Don’t forget Rule #1 (when you get into the actual development cycle)
• Rule #3: Keep It Simple Stupid (make implementation and operation intuitive)
• Rule #4: Offer free and paid solutions
• Rule #5: (not stated but implicit in his presentation) Bring your solution to Skype’s global user base in a way that requires no (or minimal) real-time tech support

Fifth: Use Web 2.0 tools and social networking to build your customer base:

While traditional SMB marketing programs will certainly bring results, a profitable business model for selling Skype Partner software involves leveraging Web 2.0 tools wherever feasible. Social networking has become a key business tool:

• From Alec Saunders’ Enterprise 2.0 Reflections: We’re onto something BIG!:

… the business of being an enterprise solution provider just got a lot harder. Over and over we heard repeated that the young bring their own networks and applications to business. And because these are mostly web based applications, not much can be done to contain them. Within a short period of time, we should expect millions upon millions of GMail, Facebook, and Skype users within every enterprise globally.

• Unyte grew its registered user base from 250,000 to 500,000 in six months simply through the visibility provided by Skype Extras
• “Staff increasingly dictating the corporate IT agenda”. This forum entry is consistent with a story I heard while having lunch at eBay Live about a Fortune 500 company that blocked Skype internally but all their field agents use Skype to communicate externally.
• Obtain third party reviews, especially in the blogosphere.

And from several comments heard at the developer conference:

• Employees start using Skype and bring it into the business
• Skype becomes a key communications tool for building business presence worldwide for small to medium businesses
• Business investigates Skype Business Partner Solution and adopts one or more solutions
• According to Unyte, each license drives four more Skype user registrations as the product infiltrates the business’s best practices

Skype’s introduction into (initially small-medium) businesses via products such as Convenos, Unyte and OnState is demonstrating that Skype Partner Solutions will be a primary driver for building the Skype user base going forward. When you hear of 100 license sales for Unyte and 200 to 400 license deals for Convenos, and leverage those into additional Skype user registrations, you start to recognize that business solutions incorporating Skype will become a key differentiator for Skype from other VoIP players and a key driver of new user adoption in what is becoming an otherwise very competitive market space.

Tags: Skype, Skype Software Developer Program, Pamela, Skylook, Unyte, Convenos, OnState, HighSpeedConferencing.com, VAPPS, Skype Extras, Evoca, Real Allusion, Crazy Talk, mesh07, Enterprise 2.0, SaundersLog, Alec Saunders

Powered by Qumana