Warheads Stacked in the Kitchen
Jason Goecke has a long history in telephony. His unique perspective is built on extensive business experience around the world as well as technical depth. His passion for disruption manifests itself in his on-going support of open source telephony, with the latest phase being his commitment to the Adhearsion project.
TwitterFacebookLinkedInFriendfeedFlickrYoutubeTumblrmetaweblogExperience with the Skype for Asterisk Beta
Finally, Skype on the Block?
Those who know me are well aware that I have long been a detractor of Skype. I do respect and admire much of what they have done, but the end does not justify the means. While Skype did bring VoIP to the global masses, they did so by creating a walled garden reminiscent of the early days of AOL.
Of course Skype had to come up with an alternative to SIP to resolve NAT issues, but they did not have to keep it closed and proprietary. Google achieved the same thing with GTalk. Google then not only published their Jingle extension to XMPP, but even provided a library for everyone to use. Skype's commercial interest is clearly served by keeping their own protocol under lock and key, but this has stifled innovation. In fairness Skype did release a desktop API and allowed limited access to their SkypeIn/SkypeOut SIP Gateways for large vendors such as Tellme. This is not the same as allowing full peers in their network.
There was a glimmer of hope at Astricon in Glendale last September that I attended. Digium and Skype announced connectivity between the P2P Skype network and Asterisk. This would allow open source developers to begin providing solutions leveraging Skype and its large network of users. But that was September and four months later an imminent release does not appear to be on the horizon.
The other major issue that stifles Skype is their corporate parent, Ebay. Ebay's acquisition of Skype for billions in 2005 was one of the larger blunders in recent tech history. With the latest Ebay earnings call the long held rumors that eBay is about to sell Skype are increasing. The Times published an article today highlighting the reason for the uptick in speculation:
Industry insiders believe that eBay signalled its intent last week after John Donahue, its chief executive, described Skype as a “great stand-alone business”.
Ebay's shareholders would be well served by selling Skype now and putting the cash back in the bank. While Skype themselves, and their users, would be better served by new ownership and vision.
AT&T would do well by acquiring Skype, opening the network by publishing the protocols and instantaneously becoming the dominant player in the space. The synergy that never existed between Skype and Ebay, would be replaced by synergy that could drive real innovation.
