Skype Quarterly Results
via skypejournal.com
Combine this with data from CKIPE to get a more complete picture. http://ckipe.com/borderless
CKIPE |
Borderless Communicator - http://ckipe.com |
Combine this with data from CKIPE to get a more complete picture. http://ckipe.com/borderless
Skype is hoping for irked consumers to demand AT&T to open up its 3G network to Skype calling on iPhone. They point to this article in USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-04-01-att-skype-iphone_N.htm
It is a really bad idea. Their hope is misplaced. The solution is NOT for AT&T to simply void its contract with Apple. Neither would it be helpful to re-regulate. Rather, the solution will be found in more competition and more capacity in the wireless data business. The fact is that no carrier has enough of the right combination of capacity, build-out and technology to handle the exploding demand for wireless data. If there were no contract between Apple and AT&T, it would not solve a problem but rather just replace it with a different one. Nothing will work if existing networks are too suddenly confronted with new customers and new applications... and you can't ask the competitors to add capacity faster than their capital will allow them. You could of course nationalize the carriers and just print the money with which the networks can be built, but that would be monumentally stupid and make a mockery of all the good things that have come from deregulation. The contract between Apple and AT&T ends in 2012. By then LTE and WIMAX networks (4G) should be mostly built, 3G networks should have much more capacity, and EDGE will be a faint memory. In the meantime, Apple has already started offering an iPhone without an AT&T contract.... at a price of like $699. http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/19/atandt-confirms-contract-free-599-699-iphone-3gs-for-next-week. In other words, iPhone users (on new phones) are getting choices even while the AT&T contract is still in force. Moreover, AT&T is not blocking Skype on its WIFI networks. The restrictions apply only to its cellular networks that can't accept the new traffic anyway. The dream of "fat dumb pipes" to handle data indiscriminately is great, and it will eventually be a reality if free-market capitalism is allowed to do its job, but to hope for "fat pipes" to happen overnight is misplaced enthusiasm. Skype should know better than to stir up false hope and antagonism for a system that is coping with Skype's success as well as it can.
Things never change. Looking at things from a conservative perspective, the American Revolution was fought for individual liberty, constitutional limits on government and the judiciary.
It is the growth of central government that has now created our situation where we are threatened by them. Government needs surveillance to maintain and grow its power, so if you want no surveillance, you need to advocate in favor of small government with limited powers. Ironically, those who scream the loudest about government surveillance are often those who want it to grow, who favor a state that is everyone's sugar-daddy. It is simply not reasonable to ask for a larger government while at the same time ask for it to not do surveillance.
As for quotes, I could give you dozens, but here's one from Jefferson that just popped up: "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. ... [A] wise and frugal government...shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement"
They want to take away (or infiltrate) our encryption (Skype) because it is one of the weapons wherewith we maintain our freedom.
Skype has been challenged again. Predictably, bloggers are saying things like "Skype is (half) dead"* I yawn.
Here is what Google Voice claims to be able to do when it is released... together with my responses.
1. "Get a single phone number that routes calls to your cell, work and home phones simultaneously."
With Skype, you can have a PSTN number that rings in Skype, and if you don't answer it then it forwards directly to whatever other number I want such as my cell number (I can change it easily).
2. "Call numbers in the U.S. for free. And call internationally for ridiculously low rates -- I'm talking 2 cents a minute to China."
Skypeout rates are very competitive. While it's possible that Google rates will be lower in some cases especially while they are trying to attract call volume, it is not reasonable, given Skype's huge buying power and cost advantage with p2p architecture, to expect Google will maintain an overall price advantage for very long.
3. "Get your voicemail transcribed into e-mail or text messages."
While it is true that Skype does not do this cheap trick, it is certainly possible. A third party might readily begin offering this service if Google proves there is a market for it (which I doubt).
4. "Make free conference calls."
Skype also offers free conference calls
5. "Get your voicemail on the Web."
Voicemail has already proven itself to be a service of low value. There is little reason to think it will be of higher value if you can retrieve it on the web rather than on the device where you receive calls. Again, if Google were to prove there is some value to voicemeil on the web, then there is no reason why Skype or a 3rd party using Skype's API could not do the same. The VOIP industry tries to package "features" like this in what it often calls "Web 2.0 Messaging Services", but it rarely amounts to more than cheap tricks.
In addition to these 5 now hopefully disproven reasons*...
http://www.skype-gadgets.com/webtown/2009/03/if-google-succeeds-with-their-google-voice-then-skype-is-half-dead-call-your-voice-mail-on-google-voice-get-transferr.html, ; let's look at some other facts:
a. Skype has its own set of cheap tricks. Some are included. Some come with special pricing packages. Some come from 3rd parties. Suffice it to say that Skype's feature list is long when you consider the entire ecosystem, and it's growing quickly thanks to a quality API, efforts to put Skype on every platform and graft outside ecosystems into its own.
b. Skype's core features go well beyond what anybody else has; voice, video, chat, file sharing, SMS and PSTN interconnection, and conferencing.
c. The quality of Skype's core features exceeds the comparable competition (if any) by wide margins. Notably, Skype's voice and video quality is plainly superior, and its privacy features are incomparable.
At the end of 2008, IP visionaries admitted that "VOIP is dead". http://ckipe.posterous.com/how-depressed-are-voips-vision. ; Since then some have been backpedaling, trying to create the impression that all is well in VOIP land, posturing mighty ecosystems of IP communication that can destroy the mighty Skype. One thing is for sure; it will take far more than Google Voice to accomplish that objective.
Meanwhile, in the hour it's taken me to write this blog post, Skype has added, with zero acquisition cost, about 1300 new "real users" http://glimfeather.com/borderless (15 thousand new nominal users). What's VOIP going to do about that?
The way I see it, Skype's VOIP challengers are just running out of bullets. No wonder they are depressed and fearful. Skype's free SILK codec licensing and the overall "Skype everywhere" effort is the last straw for at least some of them. Frankly, I'm bored with VOIP's concentration on voice, and (with some exceptions) they're not even winning in that arena. Even PSTN is "dead man walking".
Can someone please challenge Skype!... not with lawsuits and boycotts, but with technology. Before too long there won't be any point to maintaining connectivity with anything but the Skype cloud. I'm a big fan of Skype, but we have to realize that Skype needs not just ecosystem partners but real challengers.
eComm Review of Reviews
Although I did not attend eComm, I've been reading the reviews of others. The most detailed ones are:
And here is my quick review of the reviews. eComm had:
Now there is one matter covered at eComm that intrigues me
Jim Courtney at Voice-on-the-Web hinted at it in his follow-up analysis (http://voiceontheweb.biz/2009/03/global-ip-solutions-positioning-codecs-including-silk/). ; It pertained to the matter of Skype releasing the SILK voice codec for free, and how that might affect other companies in the field of IP communications. Specifically, he made a case for "co-opetition".
Apparently, at least one of the eComm sponsors, Global IP Solutions (GIPS) isn't buying what Skype is offering and has no intent to cooperate. Indeed, I think they'd like to fight SILK to the bitter end. I know this because I received an email the other day from Comunicano.com, publicist for eComm and its sponsors, including GIPS. It was addressed to "Dear Editor" which is what I presume they think I am. It purported to be speaking for GIPS, and said:
"...VoIP equipment manufacturers and solutions providers need to be aware of the limitations, market implications and potential liabilities that come along with a free codec like SILK, as well as the true technical significance of this announcement."
The email then presented a number of arguments as to why they don't like SILK and why they think it presents an actual danger for anyone that might take up the Skype deal.
While there is a degree of truth in each of these accusations, the interesting thing is how much fear exists in the VOIP community that a free SILK now alters the playing field of IP communication. The letter's concluding statement was stunning for it reveals something about the intent of its authors:
"If you’d like to strengthen your coverage of this story with more background on wideband codecs, other VoIP core components and market dynamics, please give us a call. We’d be happy to set you up with GIPs executives and/or industry analysts who can fill you in on technology and history."
Inescapable Conclusions
I won't speculate further about why GIPS and Comunicano wrote the letter, but I will pose some rhetorical questions:
Follow me at http://twitter.com/ckipe
Hudson Barton
Skype is breaking all kinds of growth records. Breathlessly, I predict that on Monday, March 16th it will break another, a new record for the number of concurrent users online.... 17 Million!!, which it will have achieved just 41 days after 16 million, which itself is just 21 days after reaching 15 Million. Following the pattern of prior years, the weekday peaks will soon start to grow smaller (to around 16.5 Million) by mid August, and then the climb will resume.
I learned something recently, the hard way, about being a good Twitter citizen (or Facebook or any other social platform, even email).
I concluded wrongly that in my one and only twitter feed, because it was MY twitter feed, that I could post on multi-various topics as long as they were about me... that everything about ME would be regarded as on-topic and as non-spam. Big mistake.
The situation is that my personal interests range over some wide and fairly incompatible subjects. On the one hand, I have a group of twitter followers that focuses on Skype, VOIP, and associated technologies. On the other hand I have a large group of friends and followers that chats comfortably in defined areas of politics and religion. These are the two sides of my online personality, and I live comfortably in both worlds. But for some people in my audience, these themes are completely incompatible.
Some of the tech folks didn't like it that I posted so frequently and vociferously on politics... and my political followers were less than juiced if I yammered on and on about Skype. I bet lots of other people are in similar situations. It shows itself most commonly when a person wants to twitter about disparate professional, personal and trivial interests.
I now know that a twitter feed is like any other blog or even email. It must stick to a theme and be written in a style that matches the expectation of the audience. Twitter followers are like any other audience. People decide to follow because they are looking for enlightenment in defined areas. A writer must know his audience and he should not be surprised to lose followers if he mixes themes and writing styles together.
Exception to the Rule: For a person that is following a huge crowd, whose stream of incoming tweets is huge, it doesn't matter when an author is off-topic, but for a person that is following just a few people with a narrow range of interests, it is terribly annoying to receive lots of off-topic postings in the midst of those that are on-topic. This is a minor exception because most people follow a small number of Twitterers, and the rest really don't care.
My advice, learned the hard way, is to separate your twittering life into separate streams; perhaps one for family and friends, one for work, and one for each of your special interests. Unless it is email, which can be configured with filters at the receiving end, most social media cannot be filtered. People who write must consider this problem and censor themselves accordingly.
As for Twitter, most software available today (eg. "Twhirl") allows you to maintain multiple accounts with varying profiles easily, and one of the reasons I failed to establish good habits early on in my Twitter life is that I was using the wrong software; "Twitter4Skype" and my browser, both of which make managing multiple personalities very hard.
Live and learn... stay spam free. Follow my rantings at http://twitter.com/aaytch (politics, religion) or http://twitter.com/ckipe (Skype, VOIP, and related technology).
Hudson
It would be just too cool to have touch display netbook that could run both iPhone and OSX applications. Why should this not be possible? Indeed, why couldn't a device like this be a cellphone as well.
It would not need a mouse pad, so the form factor could be much more efficiently managed. Like you, I'd like to see something like 9.5" x 5" (about 4x the size of an iPhone but half the size of a small Macbook. It would accommodate a larger keyboard than you find on Windows and Linux netbooks and yet it would be small enough to fit into the vest pocket of a man's jacket or a woman's purse... something a netbook cannot do.
From Apple's point of view, all this would justify a much higher price than the typical netbook. The problem I suppose is that its popularity would cannibalize the sales of both iPhone and Mac.
Cyberkinetic IP Engineer
Freedom Fighter
Curmudgeon
http://ckipe.com
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