If anything, it would have to find a role as an adjunct to those technologies, which is what I guess eBay thought: maybe sellers and bidders on eBay could use the Skype interface to talk about auctions, shipping, etc. Skype neither owns nor has any control over how its calls are routed across the ether of the Internet, and it can't ensure or support the myriad connections possible between the net and local routers, LAN lines, wireless thingamabobs, computers, or telephony accessories.Ĭall quality is uneven, unpredictable, and at times unavailable, so nobody can rely on the service as a replacement for land-lines and/or cell phones.

Skype has instead become a poster-child example of how otherwise smart people can misread a technology and its likely impact on society and, in doing so, make utterly dumb decisions about how to manage a business. Skype, in establishing the first friendly interface - replete with cuddly typeface and happy I'm-talking-to-you-as-a-fellow-human-being language on its app and web site - was poised to be the brand that would lead this new wave of communicating.ĮBay paid $2.6 billion in 2005 in a bold move to capture this momentum, and promised another $1.7 billion payout based on the company's forecasted growth. Not only should VOIP have changed the way we use and pay for phone conversations, but in doing so should have flushed teleco stocks down the toilet.

The innovation of plugging a phone or headset into each terminal rivals the revolution prompted by Bell's declaration 'e here.I want you.' VOIP makes it possible to route conversations over the Internet, which means the transmission costs from computer-to-computer are zero. In case you're not aware of it, Skype was the first branded effort to bring VOIP telephony (for Voice Over Internet Protocol) to the masses of us who aren't necessarily early adopters of technology. Rarely does a business do its utmost to offend, alienate, and outright reject the patronage of even the most tolerant customers.

Skype logo guess the company