Category: Skype
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The ubiquity of Skype…
Continue Reading: The ubiquity of Skype…In preparation for a Voxeo announcement next week, I’ve been recording video interviews with several different companies participating in the announcement. Since they are scattered around the world, I asked about doing the video recording over Skype. My reason was primarily that I am personally a huge Skype user and so I’ve got the recording method down well… and perhaps more importantly because we can get wideband audio as part of the video recording. Anyone who has worked with video knows that having high quality audio is actually a large part of having a successful video… so I like Skype for that.
The interesting part to me was… using Skype was perfectly fine for all of the companies.
I had expected some pushback or the need to find some alternatives, but there was none. So far two of the interviews are recorded and two more are being recorded today.
Having been a Skype user for… what? … maybe 5 or 6 years now… that’s an interesting testament to me to the acceptance of Skype. It also speaks to the ubiquity of webcams and the ease with which we can now include video as one of our communication modes.
Cool stuff!…
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Skype Finally Completes the “Undo” on the eBay Acquisition
Continue Reading: Skype Finally Completes the “Undo” on the eBay AcquisitionCongrats to the folks at Skype for completing the sale of Skype from eBay to a group of investors. As Skype president Josh Silverman says in his post “Say hello to the future“:The investor group is led by Silver Lake, and includes Andreessen Horowitz, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Joltid Limited and our founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. The deal valued Skype at $2.75B US, with eBay retaining approximately 30% of Skype, and the investor group led by Silver Lake controlling the remaining 70%
Back when eBay purchased Skype in September 2005 (Was it really four years ago?!?), I and many others thought it was a strange move, and certainly the synergies that someone thought would be there never really seemed to materialize.
I’m delighted for the many friends I have at Skype that they are now “free” from the shackles of a large public company. I wish them all the best and, as I said back in my post in September…
Onward the disruption…
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Tim Panton’s VERY cool demo: Google Wave + Skype + Asterisk + Ibook
Continue Reading: Tim Panton’s VERY cool demo: Google Wave + Skype + Asterisk + IbookOver on Skype Journal, Phil Wolf posted about Tim Panton’s VERY cool demo which he gave at Astricon and then apparently just yesterday at eComm Europe. Tim from phonefromhere.com mashes up Google Wave, Skype, Asterisk (with Skype for Asterisk) and Ibook to make Skype calls from within a Wave, complete with recordings of utterances and, naturally, the ability to have an annotated collaboration session in Wave:Phil quotes Jason Goecke (a colleague of mine at Voxeo) describing how it works:
“it is a Google Wave Gadget with his PhoneFromHere.com IAX2 Java softphone as the client. Then, the IAX2 Java phone connects to Asterisk with Skype for Asterisk installed. Then, there is a server-side element, Ibook, that is breaking apart utterances into individual files. So that as each person speaks, it captures it into its own file. Then, as that happens, a text frame is sent from Asterisk to the softphone with the file details. The gadget then uses some Javascript to embed a link. IAX2 supports text frames.”
Read Phil’s full post for more info and for Phil’s views on what this all means.
VERY cool demo!
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Of Skype, SIP, P2P and P2PSIP…
Continue Reading: Of Skype, SIP, P2P and P2PSIP…Over on Voxeo’s Speaking of Standards blog, I put up a post today on:Could Skype realistically replace its P2P algorithm with P2PSIP?
I decided to write it after reading the comments on Phil Wolff’s post last week over on Skype Journal… mostly to talk a bit more about what P2PSIP is and how it compares to what Skype is using now.
While it’s interesting to talk about on a technical level – and I admit to a complete fascination with the technology behind P2P networks – the reality is that none of us really know anything about what Skype is up to. 🙂
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Skype takes a SIP of Cisco with UC500 Skype For SIP certification
Continue Reading: Skype takes a SIP of Cisco with UC500 Skype For SIP certificationIt’s been a busy month for the folks in the Skype For SIP project. First, back on September 9, Skype announced ShoreTel interoperability. Then last week on September 17, Skype announced interop with the open source SIPFoundry sipXecs product.Today, though, is Skype’s biggest announcement yet – they are announcing the certification of Cisco’s Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business as interoperable with Skype For SIP.
Beyond simply the interop, what’s perhaps more interesting is to note the direct Cisco involvement with this news release (through a quote). Looking at the overall industry, it’s interesting to see Cisco and Skype connecting. I admit that I haven’t studied Cisco’s UC500 product much at all, although per the news release it sounds like they are doing some interesting things with it:
The Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series platform is part of Cisco’s Smart Business Communications System which continues to expand having just added a new set of IP phones with high definition audio, a unified threat management device as well as support for third party application integration, including products from healthcare, automotive and insurance industries.
Congrats to both Skype and Cisco on this announcement. I expect we’ll be seeing more of…
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Onward the disruption – Skype’s sale to private investors is a great step
Continue Reading: Onward the disruption – Skype’s sale to private investors is a great stepBack on Tuesday, the online news and blogs sites were buzzing insanely with the word that eBay was selling Skype. Somewhat bizarrely, Skype was also issuing a news release the same day about Skype For Asterisk now being available to all. As if that even remotely had a chance of being written about…In the midst of all that, I was in transit to ITEXPO in Los Angeles where I was speaking and had no time to add my own commentary. So let me just point to some others. First, the “official” statements:
- eBay news release (Business Wire)
- Investor group news release (Reuters) – also direct from Silverlink
- Skype blog post by CEO Josh Silverman: A new chapter
There were obviously MANY blog posts written, but here were a few that caught my eye:
- Om Malik: “Who Invested How Much To Buy Skype”
- Jim Courtney: “17 Million Canadians Will Have an Interest in Skype’s Success”
- Phil Wolff: “Skype sale: 20 Things We Don’t Know”
Phil also created a great chart based on Om’s data:
From my perspective, the sale is a great step forward for Skype. The acquisition by eBay always seemed a bit odd and…
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After 2 years, Skype finally brings the Linux client closer to parity…
Continue Reading: After 2 years, Skype finally brings the Linux client closer to parity…After pretty much giving the public view that the Linux version of Skype was basically dead for the last two years, Skype announced yesterday the first beta of a Linux version 2.1 client. The blog post notes that the Linux 2.1 client includes a number of features found in the clients on other operating systems, such as the SILK codec:- Skype’s SILK codec for outstanding quality with negligible bandwidth usage,
- HQ video support,
- PulseAudio support,
- SMS send support (*Sending SMS requires available Skype Credit),
- Contact groups,
- Contact labels, or tags, for easier contact organization,
- Chat window improvements (typing notification, message editing, s/geeky text/replacement/, new emoticons),
- Nicer contact list with mood messages and video capability icons,
- Nicer tray icon.
It’s good to see movement on the Linux client front, although it continues to be frustrating as a user of Skype to see Skype’s continued fragmented product strategy (which I’ve ranted about previously here and here). Still, at least this brings the Linux client closer to the others, and that is a good thing.
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Technorati Tags: skype,
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Skype announces “Skype for Business Competition” winners
Continue Reading: Skype announces “Skype for Business Competition” winnersOver on their Skype for Business blog, Skype announced this week the winners of their “Skype for Business Competition”. They announced three winners each for EMEA, the Americas and Asia. Not much in the way of details, yet, but some of the abstracts sound interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing the case studies that come out of this. Overall it’s just good to see Skype looking at pulling out the innovative ways companies are using Skype. … let’s see what the detailed stories show.Congrats to all the winners!
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Skype launches version 4.1… (yawn)… still only Windows… still a fragmented product strategy
Continue Reading: Skype launches version 4.1… (yawn)… still only Windows… still a fragmented product strategySkype today announced Skype 4.1 for Windows. As Raul Liive outlined in a post about the 4.1 beta (see also Jim Courtney’s take), this version brings to Windows users the “screen sharing” feature that we’ve had in the Mac version of Skype for a bit. It also restores several of the features that were in the previous Skype 3.8 for Windows but that got left behind when Skype rushed 4.0 for Windows out the door. And it adds the SILK codec and some other odds and ends.Per Raul’s Skype blog post today, the final 4.1 version fixes a whack-load of bugs as well.
If I were on Windows, I’d definitely head over and download 4.1. The bug fixes alone are probably worth it.
Of course, I’m not on Windows (I’m a Mac user) and so today’s announcement is pretty much irrelevant to me. Just as whenever Skype comes out with a new Mac version or beta, it’s irrelevant to Windows users. And if by some miracle Skype should actually come out with a new Linux version (no update to their blog in 6 months), that would be irrelevant to both Mac and Windows users.
It’s hard to get excited…
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For a brief bit – Skype video calls from 30,000+ feet on Southwest Air WiFi!
Continue Reading: For a brief bit – Skype video calls from 30,000+ feet on Southwest Air WiFi!Upon entering the Southwest Airlines plane this morning on my flight to Orlando to visit Voxeo’s headquarters, I immediately noticed a “WiFi zone” sign on a column by the entry door. Naturally, I had to pull out my Macbook Pro and give it a whirl… and, given the issue of Skype-blocking last summer… try out Skype.To my great surprise and pleasure, it worked great. (For a little while – see below.) Here’s Bruce Lowekamp:
As you may or may not be able to see in the graphic, our call had been up for 3 minutes and 33 seconds when I snapped the picture.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have easy access to my headset, so I couldn’t really have a great conversation. The ambient background noise in the plane was really too much for my voice to be heard unless I bent down toward the microphone… and likewise even with the MacBook Pro volume up all the way it was a bit hard to hear Bruce unless I bent down toward the laptop.
And, of course, I didn’t really want to annoy my fellow passengers. 🙂
You can see on the right the technical stats for the call. Packet loss was…