Month: August 2013
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10 Years Of Skype – Massive Disruption… But Will Skype Remain Relevant?
Continue Reading: 10 Years Of Skype – Massive Disruption… But Will Skype Remain Relevant?Ten years ago today, on August 29, 2003, a group of entrepreneurs and developers from Denmark, Sweden and Estonia unleashed a small software program that would fundamentally and irrevocably disrupt telecommunications and just communications in general. Everything would change. Skype has a 10th anniversary blog post out today that highlights some of those changes that have been brought about by Skype, although I personally find their 9th anniversary infographic a bit more interesting because it traced back the history of Skype.Massive Disruption
There is a GREAT amount for Skype to celebrate on it’s 10th birthday. The disruption that has occurred within telecom is truly massive:
- The cost per-minute of international phone calls has been commoditized to near zero. (Indeed, how many people actually make real “phone calls” internationally anymore?)
- Telcos – and governments! – who depended upon those per-minute fees have seen almost that entire revenue stream evaporate, or at least show that it is rapidly fading away. Economic disruption on a massive scale!
- Skype came to be a prime example of how “over-the-top (OTT)” apps could exist on top of the existing telecom networks – and take both marketshare and revenue from those networks.
- Skype introduced the masses…
- The cost per-minute of international phone calls has been commoditized to near zero. (Indeed, how many people actually make real “phone calls” internationally anymore?)