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Skype Axes Asterisk Integration: Looking for Answers

There's been a lot of Sturm und Drang over Skype's decision to discontinue Skype for Asterisk. Some say Microsoft is to blame, the argument being that the Asterisk integration is competitive with Lync and Lync Online, Microsoft's respective on-premise and in-cloud UC offerings, so Redmond's software behemoth has bellyflopped on the project. Others (myself and Dave Michels among them) point out that Microsoft doesn't yet own Skype and won't until the acquisition is approved by regulators, something that's not likely to happen until the end of the year. It's just too early for Microsoft to be monkeying around with specific Skype products, especially something as obscure as the Asterisk integration. To which the Anti-Redmond League responds that while Microsoft does not yet reign supreme over Skype, its distaste for anything smacking of open source coupled with the axing of Skype for Asterisk "looks too corporate to be entirely unrelated to the Microsoft acquisition."

Digium has called the offering "extremely popular" among its customers and partners (Altitude, Indosoft, and Zaplee among them). Further, Digium said it is "extremely disappointed" that Skype has not chosen to continue it, but deflects specific questions about why it's curtains for Skype for Asterisk by pointing to some kind of gag order where "neither party can comment on the relationship without the consent of the other."

Skype, for its part, has issued a statement that explains it "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." I'm sure the "made the decision...several months ago" part is to dispel the idea that the proposed Microsoft acquisition has anything to do it. That’s all well and good. Anything to bust up these conspiracy theories that big, bad Microsoft is riding roughshod over poor, little Skype.

But I find the rest of the statement far from satisfying. SIP enjoys the broadest support of any signaling alternatives including Digium? What does that even mean? Digium is a developer of PBX software, not a "signaling alternative" somehow competitive with SIP, as the Skype statement seems to be saying. Moreover, Digium software and systems support SIP. Though Asterisk does not appear on the list of PBXs certified to work with Skype Connect, there are published guidelines that explain how to link Skype Connect to an Asterisk-based system. My point: Offering Skype Connect and Skype for Asterisk is not an either/or proposition, and Skype has not yet provided a clear explanation for why it is embracing the former and snuffing out the latter.

Perhaps the key lies in the "prioritizing our focus around...SIP" statement. Skype--and I've now entered the realm of interpretation--is not so much prioritizing its development and marketing efforts around SIP as it is focusing them around its SIP-centric Skype Connect offering. This has, in fact, been the case for years, with Skype for Asterisk taking a back seat the much more prominent Skype Connect marketing efforts. In fact, when Skype Connect (then called Skype for SIP) first came out, the Skype for Asterisk community needed to yell "I'm not dead yet" to prevent people from thinking it was being carted off to the graveyard. Since then, Skype for SIP received a marketing-friendly name change, expanded the number of PBXs and gateways it can support, and generally stayed in the news to such a degree that it all but eclipsed Skype for Asterisk.

This wasn't overly concerning since, unlike the Skype statement implies, Skype Connect and Skype for Asterisk are not directly competitive with one another. The one (Skype Connect) offers a fairly simple and straightforward SIP trunk alternative. End users picking up a desk phone connected to their PBX could have calls routed over the Skype network rather than over the PSTN or a regular SIP trunk. Why? To save the company a ton of dough since Skype calls are free or cheap. The other (Skype for Asterisk) is much more nuanced. It not only adds the Skype network to a PBX's call routing tables, it also lets users place calls to Skype clients, detect and display Skype presence info, send and receive instant messages, manage Skype buddy lists, and view the Skype user profile (on select desk phones) on incoming Skype calls. Skype for Asterisk also encrypts the voice path, supports multiple voice codecs, communicates Skype presence state to the PBX, and integrates with Asterisk-based voicemail, ACD and conferencing software. None of this functionality is available on Skype Connect. Put more colorfully, when it comes to PBX integration Skype for Asterisk is multi-talented, whereas Skype Connect is an idiot savant that only knows how to do one thing but does it very well.

It is perhaps this multifaceted-ness that ultimately led to Skype for Asterisk's demise. To pull it off, Digium developed a software driver that lets Skype for Asterisk act as a client to the Skype network. Skype is notoriously tetchy about third-party clients, in the past year banning both fring and Nimbuzz clients from accessing its network. (Hat tip to Lawrence Latif for pointing this out...though it doesn’t explain why imo, IM+, Yuuguu and many others continue to interface with Skype just fine.) So add Skype for Asterisk to the boneyard of alternative Skype interfaces.

On the other hand, Skype for Asterisk could have got the hook because other PBX developers didn't line up to provide similarly deep integrations between Skype and their own systems. If Skype was not going to also get access to the vast installed base of Aastra, Avaya, Cisco, NEC, ShoreTel, and Siemens Enterprise customers it would maybe not have been worth its while to pursue the project. Or perhaps it all boiled down to money. How many Skype for Asterisk customers are there anyway? And how much revenue have they generated for Skype and Digium? I've not seen any numbers, but if there was only modest adoption of Skype for Asterisk, again, it may not have been worth Skype’s while to pursue the project.

All of this, of course, is just speculation. But speculate is all we can do without a more straightforward statement from Skype on why this particular plug was pulled.

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