Comments on: Open up Skype?

By: Seth

Seth — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:07:31 +0000

Hi,

Thanks for the good article. There was one paragraph that raises an issue I have been wondering about:

“Another objection to Skype publishing the protocols for third parties to implement is that there would be a danger of the third parties implementing some parts of the protocol but not others. For example not the encryption part, or not the parts that enable clients to be super-nodes or relays. A proliferation of this kind of free-rider would stress the network, making it more prone to failure.”

I assume that mobile clients cannot or do not act as super-nodes, relying on the deskbound clients to do the leg work. With the off switch for supernodes installed to appease enterprises could the balance of supernodes and users become, well, unbalanced?

Also, wasn’t there a kerfuffle with Skype’s Chinese partner over encryption implying that variations of the protocol have been deployed?

By: Tsahi Levent-Levi

Tsahi Levent-Levi — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:18:17 +0000

Michael,
I am with you on the open APIs thingy - It does make a lot of sense, but in this case, as Skype is a SW and not a HW platform; the ability to use clients in front of their servers which are not fully controlled by Skype may also make sense as it can grow their audience from PC users to consumer electronics.
Wideband voice propagation is happenning with or without Skype - just check out Pulver’s latest stunt of HD Communication Summit.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:36:23 +0000

Thanks for pointing this out, Tsahi. You are right about Skype being a service while SIP is a protocol. Some of the references to “Skype” in this post should read “the Skype protocol,” and some of the references to “SIP” should read “SIP-based services.” I concede it is confusing to leave it to the reader to figure out which is which. I will be more careful with my terminology in the future.

I also agree with your point that proprietary implementations are faster to market, while standard implementations let you leverage the work of others. My point on this issue is that Skype can benefit from third party innovation through its published API, and that SIP has suffered from excessive “innovation” that serves mainly to complicate the protocol rather than improve it.

I still don’t know what the phrase “opening up Skype” means in practice, and I would still like to hear how it would benefit users. The primary benefit that I am currently interested in is propagation of wideband voice. Skype has already taken a step in this direction that could be viewed as opening up: the royalty-free licensing of the SILK codec.

By: Tsahi Levent-Levi

Tsahi Levent-Levi — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 05:30:51 +0000

While I agree with most of your arguments, and believe that openness is important, I think there’s one flaw in your comparison of SIP to Skype.
While Skype is a service, SIP is a protocol.
Protocols are not easy to use or install - they are just protocols.
Skype were the first to innovate in the sense of bringing a service that actually works through firewalls and gives pretty good voice quality, and they have done so while being easy to install and use.
No SIP or H.323 service at the time were able to do that.
The way I see it, innovation comes in two ways:
1. If you go proprietary and ignore standards, you can innovate faster. This is what Skype did.
2. If you go open, you can let others innovate for/with you.
Opening up Skype will let them enjoy the fruits of 3rd party innovation.
Tsahi

By: Daniel Berninger

Daniel Berninger — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:48:51 +0000

Skype HD made money for company founders in sale to eBay. Skype HD makes money in the sense of attracting users that the company can sell SD minutes. Skype makes money for companies that sell Skype enabled devices. I believe the telecom business models will start to look like infotech business models associated with the web. Lot’s of companies make money serving people interested in the world wide web. The rise of software as a service even provides an example of metered usage of web based apps. The metering will not likely involve minutes of use and tracking location of use as in the case of telecom. The big telco’s did a fair amount of transforming to survive the move from wireline to wireless. They will need to keep moving in order to survive the move from the PSTN to Internet based services.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:34:00 +0000

It is true that SIP may become more successful than Skype. In some ways it already is - All SkypeIn and SkypeOut minutes go over SIP, and SIP is the protocol of choice for the next generation of cellular technology as well as wireline technology (they all say they are moving to IMS). This post was really focusing on HD Communications, and Skype currently leads SIP overwhelmingly in minutes of wideband voice and video. But this lead will evaporate if the cellular companies adopt AMR-WB as planned, proving you right, Daniel.

The question is, what will cause broad adoption of wideband? Numerous forces influence innovation in the telecom industry, like regulation, standards and intellectual property. But as with all businesses, the primary driver is money. HD Voice yields a superior experience, so it has a greater value. The trouble is, nobody has figured out a way to translate that greater value into greater revenue. Even Skype makes no money on its wideband and video calls. Its entire revenue is from narrowband calls on SkypeIn and SkypeOut.

By: Daniel Berninger

Daniel Berninger — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:12:54 +0000

Differences between Skype and SIP make an effort to draw conclusions from their respective degrees of success problematic. Ease of use and reliability are more readily achievable with a vertically integrated and proprietary solution like Skype. Open platforms enjoy a more rapid pace of innovation. The game remains in play. Consider the example of AOL and the world wide web. Vertically interated and proprietary AOL enjoyed an early lead in the online business, but the openness of the world wide web won in the long run.