Comments on: Is the Clock Ticking on Skype?

By: Atlanta Colocation

Atlanta Colocation — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:49:27 +0000

The Skype founders are ruthless businessmen who are going to make eBay pay for their stupidity.

By: powel

powel — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:09:07 +0000

“By the way, Meg Whitman, who signed off the biggest corporate mistake in the history of Silicon Valley, is running for the position of the governor of California.” …. scary indeed.

By: Inventor

Inventor — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:16:34 +0000

There is only one thing that will save SKYPE – US Patent 7,089,319
Skype can keep p2p architecture, but get rid of the legacy Kazaa augmentation and its antiquated delivery mechanism. This is the only feasible path forward. The Patent is available for them. Any third parties should contact anthony_remove_(at)adrodotcom

I hate to wage this guerilla war blog campaign, but I do not see any other option to make my voice heard

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,089,319.PN.&OS=PN/7,089,319&RS=PN/7,089,319

By: Portugal

Portugal — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:51:00 +0000

I think the p2p technology that Skype uses is much overrated. In the early days it might have helped the calling quality, but today bandwidth is really not an issue anymore. In fact, even though Skype works quite well in Skype to Skype calls, when using SkypeOut the quality is really not half as good as SIP based competitors such as VoIPBuster.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:37:49 +0000

SIP

I am going to wait and see what happens next. I think this is going to be an interesting turn of events going forward. I do suspect the co-founders might be on a stronger footing for now.

By: SIP

SIP — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:59:01 +0000

I would not take anything away from Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom technically. Skype was an excellent achievement when it was done.

Om you have got this one right. If eBay will not sell Skype back to them they will try to destroy it. I would bet on eBay and US courts.

If eBay would sell it to them at this point, what will Skype become? I don’t get it. Janus and Niklas should keep their money.

By: lace wigs

lace wigs — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:09:40 +0000

skype was the most promising of this kind of technology. but it irks governments and world powers not to be able to monitor phone conversations, and that’s why skype is on the out.

By: prophet666

prophet666 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:07:49 +0000

whatever anyone says i like skype maybe i am used to it

By: Ron M

Ron M — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 02:36:21 +0000

I was always amazed how Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom (especially Niklas) were given such a “robinhood” “hero” reputation, that has held until recently. Where were all you guys (including you, Om) five years ago when you were telling us how great these guys were? Now, finally, we see talk of the the real Niklas – he is finally becoming known for his litigiousness, greed, and “dark side” that has always been there.

It always blew me away how his past never caught up with him. Perhaps it won’t again. It was weird how so many users, bloggers, and “experts” saw him (with Skype) as some kind of savior and protector from the big telecoms corporations, doing all this for the sake of the users. And then trusting their computers and network resources to his software, and agreeing to insanely one-sided TOS etc. and looking right past it all. I never got that. Microsoft could have never gotten away with the same things.

By: Eideard

Eideard — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:35:01 +0000

AFAIK, there isn’t a flavor of SIP that offers the security of Skype. At least, that is why Skype pisses off NSA and Interpol.

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:57:25 +0000

Good question – maybe ask “Michaelangelo” Volpi. He seems to be sucking at the teet of their innovations for a while, and is trying to go back to the well one last time.

What a mess. Zennstrom and Friis, not satisfied with the billions they got the first time around? Volpi, so bitter about your failure at Joost that in some operatic twist you had to screw the guys that brought you in? This is a den of thieves and you have to question everyone’s judgment. Silly humans.

By: SIP

SIP — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:32:14 +0000

This is getting very silly. There are several approaches that Skype could take that are superior to the “PTP approach” Skype currently uses. Skype had a tremendous first mover advantage but if this keeps up it will be lost? Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom are doing what all good “patent trolls” do. The suit is timed to delay the sale thinking this is eBay’s most vulnerable time.

Skype should change out their current technology to a SIP based multiple proxy architecture. An architecture that completely avoids Frilis and Zennstrom. The law suit contends that the Skype phone service and the PTP technology is inextricably tied. This is simply not true.

Why in the world would anyone do business with these two guys?

By: Jake

Jake — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:04:09 +0000

I think the buying consortium can make the argument that Skype is a brand with a large user base and that they can choose to re-implement a service on any technology – including cloning the Skype client UI and client to client codecs (all of which they would own). They could argue that they saw the value in exploiting that user base that eBay was unable to do and that is why they bought.

They could even argue that while the JoltID GI software was an asset for a small and growing startup 5 years ago, it has become an impediment to the methods that they choose to exploit the user base, interoperate with developers and telco networks, and gain legitimacy in world networks.

Volpi’s arc prior to Joost includes a lot of Voice over IP work at Cisco.

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:51:21 +0000

Hey Om, try not to turn an otherwise decent article into a political diatribe.

“By the way, Meg Whitman who signed off the biggest corporate mistake in the history of Silicon Valley is running for the position of the Governor of California.”

Are you serious? How about Xerox not commercializing the Alto and its GUI? How about Apple hiring John Sculley and firing Steve Jobs? How about Atari’s role in the video game crash of 1983? The management screwups at Fairchild in 1966/1967 that encouraged Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore to leave and start Intel?

I’m not defending them, but if you think Ebay failing to license or acquire some IP as part of an acquisition is the “biggest corporate mistake” in the history of the Valley, you just don’t know your history very well.

By: riffic

riffic — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:07:58 +0000

this should serve as a cautionary tale to not depend on a business model that you do not fully control.

may I suggest that skype look into the open option, such as xmpp + jingle. This would have the advantage of being fully interoperable with google talk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle_(protocol)

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:17:48 +0000

Meanwhile not many people will want to do business again with the two founders.