Comments on: Happy birthday Skype. In 9 years you changed telecom

By: Inspirational Sayings About Life

Inspirational Sayings About Life — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 18:04:24 +0000

I can’t believe Skype is only 9 years old. I completely take it for granted- using it every day at work, etc.

By: motherofdragons

motherofdragons — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 19:09:45 +0000

I can’t believe Skype is already 9 years running strong. I love Skype. Thanks to Skype, I can contact my family anytime I want. Great article, Om Malik!

By: Ulf

Ulf — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 07:40:08 +0000

isn’t that what IMO is doing (including skype and a few others)? so why would that be so hard to replicate that federation in a skype client? I think its more of a business strategy than technology which prevents this..

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 02:28:15 +0000

Well said Ian. You and I have often talked about these very same issues for a long time, though not lately.

By: Ian Andrew Bell

Ian Andrew Bell — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:27:58 +0000

Skype will continue to struggle to evolve the platform and expand the product. Why? They are limited to a client-side SDK. With Skype’s present architecture, federating with other networks (there is no precedent for this being successful in any of the IM players) is impossible. But that’s only part of the story.

Similarly, Skype’s totally decentralized architecture makes it virtually impossible to expand the service offering — everything must be done in the client. Skype’s Product Team have promised a cloud API (once called ‘SkyHost’) since at least 2005, and have never actually delivered. And they don’t just need that to enable partners.. they need it in order to be able to build service-level features that don’t depend on the client.

So while Skype has lots of room to grow, the thing holding them back is the very thing that made them successful. I wouldn’t look to them to do anything particularly innovative apart from deploying the SDK onto more and more platforms and expanding their device reach. Everything to the north of those efforts is both difficult and risky.

By: Jim Haughwout

Jim Haughwout — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:32:16 +0000

One big thing holding Skype pack was lack of over-arching enterprise services (e.g., consolidated billing, fraud support, centrally managed accounts). This should change with integration into the Microsoft ecosystem.

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:41:07 +0000

Off-topic much?

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Bubblegum tech — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:15:31 +0000

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By: trade_man4

trade_man4 — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:02:31 +0000

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By: Kevin Mitchell

Kevin Mitchell — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:47:02 +0000

What’s next for Skype: break beyond the walled garden and federate with other VoIP providers (via IP, not PSTN). Beyond collecting users, Skype wants to grow via traffic and interconnecting should satisfy that end.