Comments on: Skype – A recession proof business?

By: whirly

whirly — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:08:22 +0000

Gotta agree with Norf, if I ring my mate up on his Skype phone number by mistake I tell him to hang up and I call him back on the landline.

Everyone’s experience will be different of course.

By: northumbrian

northumbrian — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:52:02 +0000

my son lives and works in Rome
and if skype worked it would be used, but it drops out and fades.
ok for misers, or students ,
but I would rather pay a few quid for a decent phoneline and save the stress and frustration

By: Super Max

Super Max — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:13:50 +0000

#1 It’s one of those IM clients that just “works”

Hell of a lot of bloat in there for a IM client. IRC was around decades earlier and all IM systems since pale in comparison in my opinion.

By: Gina

Gina — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:20:02 +0000

Skype has an incredibly bright 2-3 years ahead of it. It’s not so much the it’s a recession-proof business but that it is actually recession-friendly. The recession fits Skype’s busines model like a glove.

Skype are already looking at $700 million+ revenue in 2009 and if they have another couple of years of 40%+ top-line growth, it will come to be viewed as yet another great acquisition by eBay (despite there being zero synergies).

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:23:26 +0000

Well, they did pay $2.6 billion for Skype.

By: board_surfer

board_surfer — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:27:35 +0000

I think ebay have been pretty cute in regards to skype.

They managed to make it underperform enough that they ended up not paying full price for it.

Now look? its a nice little earner!

A cynic would say that ebay played that acquisition very well.

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:12:08 +0000

Skype is definitely getting traction. It’s one of those IM clients that just “works”. I was in a coffee shop the other day here in the US, and I was watching a gal hold a video chat/conference, and it was as easy as pie. She was on a Macbook.

Just the other day I was pulled into a multi-person chat on Skype.. again, no problem (not that I anticipated one, but historically, using ICQ and others, there were definitely moments of teeth pulling).

Even with their SMS outbound prices being a little high (compared to MBlox, Red Oxygen, etc.) it’s still a good system that allows you to send messages to anyone world wide, and you can even spoof/edit the “From:” phone number. Handy..

Speaking of which, on the development side, I’m a little disappointed that they haven’t opened up a raw (or as they call “naked”) API yet.. allowing developers like myself to write a client that stands alone. Instead, the existing API must reside on a machine that has an instance of the GUI Skype client running, and proxy those API commands through that client. Kinda weird, eh?

In any case, I am developing more applications in the mobile space, and I am not ignoring the Skype channel of communications.. and in fact, it’s currently being integrated into a couple of our software systems now.

–Neil