Skype Today, MSSkype Tomorrow?

Luxembourg-based Skype and its 663 million global users has been bought by Microsoft for a rumoured $8.5bn. Some would suggest that’s a high ticket for an eight-year-old company and a very high ticket for one that has yet to make substantial money.
eBay bought Skype in 2006 for what was then a lot of money $2.6bn and then sold it in 2009 for just $2bn. So what has changed and why is Microsoft allegedly paying over 4 times what Skype was sold for only two years ago?

Does Microsoft see Skype as a means of getting into the living room and marrying Xbox Kinect and HD television. Are they thinking about home education, remote learning, remote patient home care? Are they buying it to take on the teleconferencing business market? Do they see it as a way back into the mobile world with an alignment Windows Phone 7?

Whichever is the driving motive it’s a lot of investment that will need to deliver real return. Microsoft investors are certainly going to want answers and will ask how an open platform such as Skype is going to deliver exclusive revenues.

Businesses such as ours depend heavily on Skype today to perform global business communication. If Microsoft were to install a toll both and wrench up the payment side, people will just go elsewhere. So the difficulty maybe, will be the integration of Skype into paid services that can then build the revenue.

The big question is whether you need to spend $8.5bn to achieve that?

Google Sets Its Sights On World Domination

We haven’t had time to digest the latest maneuvering in the Google Book Settlement, but will do so soon. Meanwhile Google continues to stretch its tentacles in the technology world.

The world of VOIP is best known to many through Skype and its services which offer free telephony to a huge community over the Internet. Now Google has acquired VOIP startup Gizmo5 and the assumption is that they will roll into its telephony application Google Voice, which in turn it acquired in 2007 from GrandCentral. The combination of Google Voice’s telephony and Gizmo5’s VOIP offers some potentially sea changing opportunities. Gizmo5, unlike Skype, is based on the same open standards that underpin that other offer Google Wave.

So do Google want to offer free calls and take on the big telecom companies such as AT&T? The $30 million Google paid for Gizmo5 starts to look like chump change that potentially offers a huge return. So will Google become the next telecom company, or ‘the’ telecom company?

Then there is the increasing penetration of Android in the mobile world. Anyone who has missed the Android creep must be asleep as we now see many new devices adopting it almost every week. LG has just announced its Android GW620, Motorola launched its DEXT,Sony Erikson has adopted it for its Xperia X10 family of products and of course we have the HTC’s offers.

However you have to also add this to their $750m acquisition of mobile advertising outfit AdMob.

Finally, just when you may believe that its focus is all mobile you must also note that TechCrunch claim that Google aim to about to release its Chrome operating system for download. The Chrome OS was announced last July and unfortunately adopted the same brand name as their free browser. The confusion increases and is not just between the use of the Chrome branding but their other Android operating system.

The Chrome OS is an open source operating system that will sit on top of a Linux kernel and will use a new windowing system. What this potentially does do, is provide the Linux world with a consolidated offer that may win consumer confidence with it being backed by the Behemoth - Google. Will the netbook players choose Windows 7, or will they stay with Linux and now adopt Chrome OS?

Finally,just when you think about indigestion Google has also announced 'Noop', a new testable programming language.

Amazing that a company so young is poised to dominate so much; search, advertising, operating systems, office applications, mobile communications,email, maps and surveillance (Earth downwards), video (YouTube), news, media, books (Search, Editions and Settlement), libraries…

Enough to make you Google-eyed!

Skype On Th Block?

Where would many of us who make lots of international calls be without Skype. Since its launch it has changed the way many communicate. The change could be even greater if more mobile operators were brave enough to follow the lead by 3 and allow VOIP. The iphone app is their but the carrier will to switch it on today isn’t.

Now after 4 years Skype’s owners EBay are claimed to be about to sell Skype to a group of private investors, which include Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.

EBay bought Skype for $2.6bn in October 2005 and now appear to be offloading it for $2bn. When they bought it Skype had 53 million users it now has 405 million, but although this growth is significant the service is still understandably dominated by free user to user calls. So the challenge to any new owner is to find the money whilst continuing to expand the service.

Skype Broadens Its Reach

Skype has already established itself as the popular consumer VoIP service offering an Internet calling service that has more than 400 million users around the world. The service is now reportedly moving into both the corporate and mobile world and potentially covering all the bases.

Earlier this month they announced a beta version of its business-user-oriented Skype for SIP (session initiation protocol), which will run on an enterprise PBX (private branch exchange) systems. Imagine picking up the office phone and using Skype on your office system? It now potentially offers organizations new ways to use the VoIP service and manage calls.

The beta version of Skype for SIP will connect the company's Web site to the PBX system through a click-to-call feature and let users receive and manage inbound calls from Skype users worldwide on SIP-enabled PBX systems. Organisations will also be able to manage Skype calls using their existing hardware and system applications such as call routing, conferencing, phone menus and voice mail.

How Skype will compete against VoIP offerings from more traditional and experienced service providers is the question but lowered telephony costs could be a major incentive.

On the mobile front we were one of many in the UK who were drawn to service provider ‘3’ on the offer of free Skype service and for the last two years have enjoyed Skype on the move over our Nokia N95.

Earlier this year, Skype announced more versions of its software for more mobiles and mobile operating systems such as Android and Windows and today they have announce support from May for the iPhone, iTouch and a number of Blackberry phones. Apple will limit Skype’s use on the iPhone not allowing calls over the data networks of its carrier partners.

So we are starting to see a marriage of VoIP and mobile and Skype and the office PXB. It will now be interesting to watch the obvious take up and how the service will change how we all pay for services in the future.

Skype moves ever closer

Some may argue that we write a lot about VOIP services such as Skype and that this is not relivant to publishing. Maybe they are right and maybe …

Sykpe 3.5 now allows users to add videos from Social networking sites embedding them into both voice and text chats and intimate the caller’s ‘mood’ and express this in the form of an entertaining video. The new software also users to capture a still image from a Skype video chat and several ‘phone’ features such as auto redail and line transfer of inbound calls to a user, group, landline or mobile phone.

The point is the VIOP is staing to become functionally rich and an effective way to talk, chat and now exchange video and stills. We need to think about this in terms of viral marketing and promotions and recognise this community is not outside the phone system but increasingly inside it. It is also increasingly moving from a PC tool to becoming platform independent and moving to the mobile platform.

VOIP takes to the Skies?

eMarketer reports figures from the Yankee Group which estimates that 9% of all US households subscribed to VoIP (voice over internet) services in 2006, up from 4% in 2005. The number of VoIP subscribers in the US grew 125% in 2006 and now is around 9m. The report forecasts that the VoIP market will continue to grow significantly over the next few years.

This in turn leads us to question the roll of the mobile phone and the carrier services. Today I use Skype over my mobile phone and although there are limitations over the PC application phoning and receiving calls to international numbers has never been cheaper.

Its no longer a case of why we should be on Skype by why anyone shouldn’t be on it?

Now comes news that American Airlines Inc. will test in-flight Wi-Fi services across the U.S. starting next year. Other airlines including Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Southwest Airlines and Qantas are all reported to be planning to test similar in-flight technology. Passengers on American flights would soon be able to e-mail and surf the Web from laptops and handheld devices while primarily on transcontinental routes.

Two questions remain unanswered - the cost, we all know that airlines are not good at costing such services to their captive customers and whether they would allow VOIP services as voice calls in-flight may ‘disturb other passengers nearby’.

It appears we will be connected whereever we are.