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.

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At CES 2009 COO Scott Durchslag spoke about “liquid communications” and “Skype Wherever, Whenever”. InnerPass has developed a business-class hosted document management system; they have been marketing it via private label to over 3000 businesses or project teams on several continents.Over the past year the InnerPass team has developed a Skype Extra application that introduces real time communications, and serves as an interface, into this system.  From their website:

InnerPass helps companies control their business critical files from anywhere and anytime. Our applications are delivered thru various Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings that are entirely web-based. InnerPass primarily offers its applications to end users through a network of partners who can private label and embed the software service into their own solutions or provide as a stand alone service.

InnerPass Share and Collaborate Home Page

InnerPass starts out its communications enhanced service, called InnerPass Share and Collaborate, by building persistent document “meeting rooms” that store mission critical documents such as FDA filings, engineering and architectural drawings, legal agreements, real estate papers and other business documents which require:

• access across a geographically dispersed team of project stakeholders
• persistent storage for asynchronous 24/7/365 access
• version management

amongst other features. InnerPass has taken their document management service experience and gone a step further to support file sharing, collaboration and real time communications. They embed, within their own Skype Extra client, the ability to launch and hold real time voice and/or chat conversations, whether informal ad hoc sessions or scheduled conference calls, to discuss the underlying projects, sales meetings or other business team activity.

Using InnerPass Share and Collaborate, a user can set up a “meeting room”, store documents, launch conversations and share a designated screen for presentations or demonstrations. The room’s host can designate and invite team members from amongst his/her Skype contact list, grant permission to their team members to contribute or modify room content. From anywhere in the client, any team member has the ability to schedule and launch conference calls or group chats using the integrated Skype services.

InnerPass offers three levels of their collaboration service. A free service supports up to 3 meeting rooms with a maximum of 3 participants and 1GB of file storage (max 25MB per file). Offering perpetual file storage, the Professional Plan at $4.95/month supports 10 meeting rooms and up to 10 participants in each. The Business plan, at $12.95/month, allows up to 40 rooms and 40 people per room. Their last plan, launching in March,  is designed for the SMB (Small to Medium Size Business) will offer additional features including access to their hosted full document management service. Update (May 2009): Inner Pass also offers a “Custom” service with the potential to host a webinar with hundreds of attendees, record calls and other features.

Over the past few weeks I have experienced a few sessions using InnerPass; the InnerPass  team has been very responsive to suggestions made for improvements, especially with respect to some speed issues that are now resolved. It now works reliably with both Skype 3.8 (still Skype’s latest release for general use) and Skype 4.0 Beta 3.

Since obtaining Skype Certification and its subsequent launch last fall, InnerPass has registered over 270,000 users (as shown in the graphic) growing virally amongst Skype users with little publicity. You can download via Tools | Do More | Get Skype Extras using Skype 3.8 or Tools | Extras | Get Skype Extras under Skype 4.0 for Windows beta 3. Normally it should show up as “InnerPass Share and Collaborate” under the “Sharing” category but until a bug is resolved by the Skype Extras team, you may find it as “Share, Collaborate, Communicate”.

InnerPass CEO Steve Parsloe has written a more detailed post for Skype’s Autumn 2008 Developer Newsletter. And in early December Steve along with his colleague Bill Trail, Vice-President, Business Development discussed InnerPass as a guest on SquawkBox.

As mentioned at the beginning, InnerPass’s Share and Collaborate service is a representative example of making Skype available anywhere there is an opportunity to benefit from real time conversations. Skype has enabled InnerPass to offer real time conversations to virtual meeting rooms incorporating file and desktop (or screen) sharing. And it brings large enterprise services down to a cost level such that any individual, mobile professional or small business can afford to benefit from a collaborative document management service.

Tags: InnerPass, Skype Extras, collaboration, file sharing, Skype, Steve Parsloe

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