Tag Archives | Skype competition

How can Skype avoid becoming obsolete?

By on March 7, 2013

[More about Phil Wolff and this guest post below.] Skype’s been disappointing some of my friends. They bemoan missing features available in more enterprisey tools, a real Skype for the web app, a platform for coding Skype into our own web services, and a passion for design simplicity that makes Skype clients feel dumbed down. [...]

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Skype’s 9th Birthday: Whither Skype?

By on August 29, 2012

Nine years ago today, with the necessary pieces of the Internet infrastructure in place, Skype launched as a Windows software application supporting free Skype-to-Skype voice and instant messaging conversations between Windows PC’s.  Within a month there had been over 500,000 downloads. This slide from a Skype presentation in 2008 sums up the situation at its [...]

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CounterPath Bria Becomes a Carrier Differentiator: Rogers One Number Shows the Way

By on February 13, 2012

Over the past few months CounterPath’s Bria softphone clients have become an industry standard softphone client for connections to SIP-based services whether from a hosted service or a local PBX. Bria offers chat, voice calling and, as first demonstrated at CES 2012, video calling between Bria clients or out to the PSTN. It’s available on [...]

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Microsoft Acquires Skype: EU Approval Confirmed

By on October 7, 2011

Earlier this week I reported an update on the status of the EU Commission approval, indicating that it appeared there would be no conditions placed on Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype. Today the final ruling came out with details behind the EU decision. In their decision it is interesting to note they split out the consumer [...]

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HookFlash: Elevating the Business Video Calling Experience?

By on September 13, 2011

In previous posts I have mentioned how the iPad is an ideal form factor for a “Desktop phone” experience, whether using CounterPath’s Bria, as a business phone extension, or Skype for iPad, targeted largely to the consumer and small business market. This is especially true for video calling where the 10” screen combined with the [...]

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Skype Usage Infographic: Insightful July 2011 Statistics

By on September 7, 2011

Yesterday on the Skype Big Blog Skype’s Jennifer Caulkin published an infographic, A day in the life of Skype, with some illuminating usage information: 65 million people sign into Skype daily (certainly a confirmation that the order of magnitude of Hudson Barton’s “real user” count is in the ball park) 30 million SkypeOut minutes per [...]

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Microsoft Acquires Skype– Commentary on a Skype Infographic

By on May 17, 2011

Yesterday Phil Wolff at Skype Journal brought our attention to an “infographic” (link removed due no access to Skype Journal) from the financial due diligence-minded Credit Score Blog for Focus.com. It attempts to provide a history of Skype both from the technology and financial performance perspectives. But, in addition to Phil’s Quibbles, I have found some [...]

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Skype for iPhone 2.0: The Commentary and The Reality

By on June 2, 2010

Since its release late Saturday, Skype for iPhone 2.0, with its support of calling over 3G carriers and superwideband audio using Skype’s SILK codec, has set the blogosphere awash with two genres of commentary: those who seem to think the end of free Skype calling is approaching as an Armageddon and those who recognize the [...]

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GIPS, Google and All That Co-opetition Jazz!

By on May 19, 2010

Ok so I’m the last to write about Google’s announcement this morning on its acquisition of Global IP Solutions, a major provider of IP-based communications infrastructure with not only its voice and video codecs but also voice and video engines that mean simply “supply me with an Internet connection, a microphone and a set of [...]

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The Skype Spinout Version 2.0

By on November 9, 2009

So it’s finally resolved. The Skype spinout from eBay will involve Skype’s founders as investors and board members while contributing a cash investment. Skype finally owns the core intellectual property required for Skype to operate at its current cost levels. eBay gets the cash they were looking for but 5% less of the new Skype. [...]

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