Also see Brian Riggs' post on the Skype-Asterisk move.
Last week, Digium announced that Skype had terminated support for its Skype For Asterisk product. Skype for Asterisk (SFA) will no longer be available after July 26. This was a clumsy mistake by Skype that needs to be re-evaluated.
First, a little background on SFA and why it is unique. SFA was announced in 2008 at Astricon. It was a pretty revolutionary concept to directly interface Skype to a business phone system. SFA was more than basic voice; it provided bi-directional presence and the ability to dial SkypeNames. No other solution had or has done this with Skype.
It was a coup for Digium--that Skype and Digium fostered a partnership that eluded the traditional PBX players, two revolutionaries uniting to change communications. For Skype, it was a new market to penetrate--the business phone system. Presence was just starting its office adoption in 2008; it was progressive and visionary.
SFA is frequently confused with Skype's other attempt at PBX integration, namely Skype Connect. Skype Connect is effectively SIP trunking; it allows an organization to use Skype as a SIP trunk provider. Skype Connect cannot dial SkypeNames and does not convey presence, support video, or anything other than basic voice services. It is primarily adopted for long distance savings, not to enable unified communications.
There was considerable speculation that Skype's decision to end SFA came from Redmond. On May 10, 2011, Microsoft announced that Skype accepted its unsolicited offer to acquire, so the timing seemed suspicious. However, that deal is not yet completed and Skype insists that it had actually decided to terminate SFA months ago. Skype released the following statement:
Skype made the decision to retire Skype for Asterisk several months ago, as we have prioritized our focus around implementing the IETF SIP standard in our Skype Connect solution. SIP enjoys the broadest support of any of the available signaling alternatives by business communications equipment vendors, including Digium. By supporting SIP in favor of alternatives, we maximize our resources and continue to reinforce our commitment to delivering Skype on key platforms where we can meet the broadest customer demand.
Skype is a very proprietary solution. It uses its own client, its own signaling, and in some cases its own codecs. Skype Connect interfaces voice services only. Its partners need to support a walled Skype client. For example, LifeSize recently announced Skype support, but the device has to be in Skype mode--it does not network with its own products and Skype's concurrently. Conversely, Microsoft has a decent track record with partners despite its proprietary practices--Intel, Polycom, Logitech, even Apple and many more have done well with Microsoft. Skype may be in for some changes.
Also see Brian Riggs' post on the Skype-Asterisk move.
Skype fetched an acquisition value of $8.5 billion--an impressive figure by any measure. The primary reason that figure got so high is Skype's huge user base. It was not Skype's revenue (less than $1 billion), because Skype actually posted a loss of nearly $7 million in 2010. It was not its technology; Skype licenses some of its technology and Microsoft already owns comparable technology used in Lync and Messenger. With the Skype deal, Microsoft bought 170 million "connected users". This is why Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stressed in the announcement press conference that Microsoft won't discontinue Skype's non-Windows clients.
Skype's impressive valuation is an illustration of Metcalfe's Law: The value of a device or service increases with the size of its network. One phone or one fax machine has no value, but as the network of devices grows, each one becomes slightly more useful and valuable. Microsoft will want to increase the size of Skype's user network. In its own arsenal, it has X-Box Live and Messenger as natural fits, but Mac, tablets, and smart phones all represent more users.
Skype delivers a lot of what most unified communications vendors promise--presence/IM, video, voice, collaboration, mobile clients, and an application ecosystem. The key difference is the quantity of interconnected users. There has been wide speculation that Microsoft intends to integrate these services and users into its other solutions such as Lync and Office 365.
Back to business phone systems: Business users are rapidly shifting from voice to unified communications. It is pretty clear that Microsoft has the potential to integrate Lync with Skype and offer rich communications beyond the enterprise. It's Jetsons vs. PSTN--why are customers, suppliers, and partners calling the enterprise over the PSTN when they could be doing video calls? Lack of interoperability means we're far from delivering Jetson-like video calling, but MS Skype richly integrated to enterprise systems is a far quicker, realistic option.
Microsoft could do this just with Lync and give its own solution an edge--that's reasonable. But Microsoft could also offer it up to other UC solutions to ensure Skype keeps Metcalfe proud. Skype is already available globally, already on every major smartphone, already on every major device platform--the enterprise is the opportunity. Microsoft could position Skype over the PSTN, SIP carriers, and other presence/IM networks as the future of how people richly communicate.
What Microsoft intends or does with Skype is yet to be seen. But with its move on SFA, Skype is ending the one richly integrated business platform, one that doesn't really even compete with Lync. That seems pretty short sighted. In fact, they should be working to expand SFA to support video. Luckily, the code doesn't disappear because the agreement did. This may not be the final chapter of SFA.
Dave Michels is a frequent contributor and maintains a blog at www.PinDropSoup.com.
