Skype will license its superwideband codec for free

SILK is making Skype sound great. Literally sound good to human ears. Today Jonathan Christensen announced Skype will license their SILK audio codec binaries freely, broadly, without royalty, and without ties to Skype products.

I was wrong. The codec license will not be open source. Audio codecs only.

It's early. Details are firming up on which platforms will be available first. Skype is still determining the signal processing partners who will release SILK optimizations for those platforms. License is still with lawyers.

Skype spent millions buying the talent and building the technology behind SILK. Why would Skype give up a competitive edge? I can think of a short term reason and longer term one.

Short term, Skype needs gear built to support the high fidelity of the Skype network. When SILK is comes on mobile phone chips, for example, Skype won't have to consume as many CPU cycles, chew up as much power, or run as hot. When SILK comes as an ASIC core, companies that make webcams, headsets, microphones, speakerphones, skypephones, webcamphones, and all the other ways we get our voices in and out of Skype will reproduce our voices in high fidelity.

Longer term, Skype's platform strategy calls for interop. To make that work, Skype will need to make available some of the components you find in a Skype client. Audio codecs, like SILK. Video codecs, like the ones Skype licenses from On2. Security components. When Skype is ready to offer developers the ability to build Skype into web apps, look for more sharing and licensing.

Get in the queue for early release: email SILKSupport@skype.net with subject "SILK Binary SDK Request".

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