A SIP/Skype Gateway Is NOT In The Forecast
Guest Post: Hudson Barton is a communications consultant whose Borderless Communicator blog not only talks about Skype and related IP communications activity but also attempts to track Skype's "real usage". According to his analysis, Skype has just cracked the 30 million real or "currently active" user number (based on tracking Users Online vs time-of-day). What follows is his post earlier this week summarizing some issues that were raised and discussed on the Skype 3.x discussion Public Chat forum following Dan York's recent guest post on SIP/Skype interconnectivity.
Skype's competitors and critics continually point out that Skype's VOIP architecture is closed and that its API is not adequate for creating a direct connection between the Skype "cloud" and the SIP "cloud". This of course is true, but there are good reasons for it.
- The security and reliability of the Skype cloud would be seriously compromised if SIP hackers were given the tools to create direct VOIP connections between Skype and the outside world.
- A SIP gateway to Skype might work if it were handled like SkypeIn/Out. However, I don't think there's a large enough population of SIP users out there to justify the cost of SIPIn/Out. Skype is growing at a rate of 500k-1000k "real users" per month, which is probably 10x faster than the rest of the VOIP world combined. A third party could build these gateways with the presently available API, but nobody is trying it to my knowledge... presumably because there is no demand for it. In any case, the developer (even if it were Skype) would have to justify the cost of such a gateway.
- An IM (text-only) gateway is very possible and would not compromise Skype's security or strategic position. Look for future interconnections with major players like AIM, gTalk, Yahoo, and MSN.
- The Skype cloud is far more complex and has far more features than the clouds of any of its competitors. It is not rational to expect any of them to create a feature-for-feature mirror of Skype even if this were something that would be good for Skype (which it is NOT). A partial list of these features: video, SMS, encryption, and file transfer.
- Relationships between Skype and social networks like MySpace are already possible if there is a partnership agreement. It does not require a change to the Skype API. Note that MySpace is a social network... not a VOIP carrier.
- Skype may double its revenues this year and it's already profitable. No other VOIP carrier is profitable (unless you want to count a few of the hosted VOIP services from the Telecoms and cable companies). A gateway to Skype will help Skype's competitors far more than it will help Skype, so from a strategic perspective it makes no sense to help the competitors survive. Without Skype's help, they (SunRocket and Vonage for example) are failing at a rapid rate. Meanwhile, "successful" competitors like Packet8 are monetizing themselves by selling off intellectual property. Obviously they "see the writing on the wall."
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Comments
Very convincing argumentation. But still it sucks to not receive Skype calls on my ATA like normal fixed line and VoIP phone calls.
Posted by: Markus Goebel's Tech News Comments | February 1, 2008 10:46 AM
This post is full of FUD in my humble opinion.
1. This take is typically FUD. Dare I say that some government agencies in Europe consider that Skype is a security threat byitself ?
2. People at I6net have developped a Skype channel for Asterisk using some terrible hacks, because of the closed and proprietary approach of Skype. They have been criticized for their licensing model, but look at Asterisk's mailing lists, blog posts... The demand exists.
3. Yes, it is available through some kind of webservice... By the way, didn't Skype stop at the middle of the bridge only releasing one of the 2 external API's they announced ?
4. None of the "special" feature mentionned in this item is impossible to implement using SIP or standard VoIP protocols. In a way, it's hopeful as most telecom operators work on the so called IMS architecture, using SIP as its signalling protocol, and I can't really imagine why they would work on a future proof network architecture that ignore trivial things like MMS, file transfer or video call.
Posted by: Antoine Fressancourt | February 1, 2008 11:49 AM
Upon what do you base the statement "Skype is already profitable?" I didn't think Ebay broke out the numbers that way. They report revenue but not margin, profit,or costs of operating the services, iirc.
And I'd suggest that your statement "A third party could build these gateways with the presently available API" is not true at all - there is no "data center" API. One has to start with the standard GUI client intended to be used by a human, unless I am mistaken. There is no good way to make a high-volume practical "gateway" out of that.
Posted by: David Beckemeyer | February 1, 2008 10:23 PM
In the last four quarterly analyst conference calls, Meg Whitman has stated that Skype as a business unit was profitable (although it is not included in the actual investor releases). In fact, if you check back in my report on the 3rd quarter call in October, Meg spent some time saying that one of the reasons for not "delighting the user" was that Skype took too much to the bottom line and did not spend enough on issues that would "delight the user" such as support.
While I am not a developer, I did see one of those who is quite familiar with the Skype API's (and has developed some of the Skype Extras) point out in the Skype 3.x Discussion Public Chat (in a rather intense discussion of Dan's post) that "a third party could develop these gateways with the presently available API's".
Posted by: Jim Courtney | February 2, 2008 04:36 PM