Disruptive Telephony

Nine years ago today, August 29, 2003, the first version of Skype was made publicly available. Now in 2012 Skype celebrates it's 9th birthday - and first birthday as part of Microsoft... and it's still disrupting telecommunications.

Four years ago on Skype's 5th birthday I wrote at great length about how Skype has changed telecommunications and last year I wrote a retrospective as well - both of those posts still stand... Skype has only added more capabilities over the time. Skype is still one of the only applications that I can say I personally use each and every day. It's critical to what I do.

As I look back on my last year of writing about Skype, I'd note that they've finally gotten the app to work more similarly across operating systems, introduced amazing video quality, crossed over 40 million simultaneous users, made yet another attempt at a developer program and continually improved the Skype-on-mobile-device experience. Skype has also added a deeper Facebook integration, embedded Skype into more TV and other consumer devices, rolled out Skype on Windows Phone and continued to improve their video offerings.

But what comes next?

What will we be writing about on Skype's 10th birthday next year?

Jim Courtney captures this well in a post today on the theme of "Whither Skype?" The whole post is worth a read, but I'll highlight one paragraph in particular:

Where does Skype play a role going forward? Beyond its inherent calling features within Skype clients, Skype definitely provides the infrastructure for free chat, voice and video conversations. In one sense we have seen that through their relationship with Facebook. Besides its ongoing development and innovation on mobile devices, Skype will introduce opportunities for experience sharing into several Microsoft products. Skype is incrementally improving its mobile offerings every few months on multiple vendors’ devices. Its primary focus will remain on real time communications; the question is where does one want to launch and receive a “sharing experience” in the course of our ongoing social networking activities?

The whole "social interaction" is a key one... but let me expand on a couple of points here.

Old-School Telecom Fights Back

Skype's greatest challenge going forward is one that comes from its success - by most any measure, Skype is destroying the revenue for international long-distance. Telegeography released a report back in January showing the incredible growth of Skype calling versus that of traditional carriers:

A study prior to that in January 2011 had estimated that 25% of all international calling was via Skype... and the growth in this more recent chart can only mean that number has gone even higher.

I can say that from personal experience - I never make international calls using the legacy phone network. I use Skype for all those calls... either from my laptop or increasingly from my mobile devices.

In fact, at this point in time if you are NOT using Skype for international calling, I would say that is probably only because you don't have the requisite access to bandwidth or equipment... or simply aren't aware of Skype. (Or yes, you could be using one of the other competing services appearing.)

The traditional telcos, of course, are not happy about this. Particularly the ones associated with national governments for whom all those international long distance charges constituted a MAJOR source of national revenue.

They would like to get back into the revenue stream and force Skype and all the other "Over-The-Top (OTT)" service providers to somehow start paying them again. They would like to put this whole Internet and VoIP genie back into the proverbial bottle and return to the "good old days" when all revenue went through their channels.

All this pent-up anger and frustration with declining revenue is heading toward the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in December in Dubai where many of the traditional carriers are attempting to use the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as a vehicle to reign in the OTT apps like Skype. They (through various governments) want to see the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) rewritten to force OTT apps to pay.

It's going to be a mess.

Just look at all the WCIT-related news stories. I certainly hope that sanity will prevail and that the Internet will remain much as it is today... but there are no guarantees and these next few months are going to be critical for the future of the Internet, for telecommunications and for companies like Skype.

The outcome of all of that may have a lot to do with what the future holds for Skype.

WebRTC/RTCWEB and Baking Voice Into The Fabric Of The Web

Another challenge for Skype will be the ongoing work of the "WebRTC/RTCWEB initiative" to essentially bake voice/video/chat communication into the fabric of the web. (Learn more about WebRTC/RTCWEB if you aren't aware of it.)

Skype hasn't really had a real challenger to its predominance as the major voice/video/chat provider for the Internet. Skype's super-simple installation and ability to "just work" has made it near ubiquitous. Add in the network effect of now having such a huge user base and it's clear why so many people use Skype.

BUT ... as much as there are many people using Skype, there are MANY more who use web browsers!

What if voice/video/chat gets moved into the web browser? What if you can go into Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer and initiate all your calls and chats from within your browser? What if you can do all this from your mobile web browsers, too?

What if you don't need to have a separate application any longer? What if you can just do all your "real-time communications" (RTC) through your web browsers?

Boom.

That is exactly what the WebRTC/RTCWEB initiative is all about - putting the building blocks for RTC down into web browsers so that any web developer can work on building RTC applications.

In theory, many of these applications could reduce the need for Skype. Now, in reality, you still have the "directory" issue in that you need to find the other party with whom you want to communicate. Skype provides that easy directory. But look what Google is doing with its central accounts... look what Apple is doing with their Apple ID... there are a lot of players out there also building directory infrastructures. (Plus social services like Twitter and Facebook are also getting in that game.)

Now, Skype has been involved with WebRTC/RTCWEB from the initial meetings. Skype employs a number of the people who have been contributors along the way. Many have seen this as a possible way for Skype to roll out its own web-based Skype client and make that even more ubiquitous.

But Skype/Microsoft is no longer following the majority path of the overall initiative. They recently released their "CU-RTC-Web" proposal which deviates in some key ways from the current WebRTC/RTCWEB plans and proposals.

Will the divergence be resolved? Will there be a common solution? Or will Skype/Microsoft go on their own path? Will we see incompatible implementations? Will WebRTC/RTCWEB open up the possibility of some true challengers to Skype's dominance? Or will it wind up not delivering on the full promise of browser-based RTC?

Time will tell... but this next year will be a fascinating one.

The Microsoft Effect

Skype also faces the good and bad news that it is now part of Microsoft. On the one hand, there is a huge potential for Skype expansion into enterprises (a market Microsoft knows extremely well) and certainly some interesting synergies with Microsoft Lync and other products.

On the other hand, Skype is no longer the scrappy little Estonian startup that we used to write about. It's now part of the mainstream corporate world. It has matured - but with that maturity comes the need to maintain legacy compatibility, to make sure new things don't break old things, etc., etc.

As several of us wrote about back at the beginning of 2012, Skype has the real chance of becoming "boring", i.e. not as exciting to write about. As I said in my post:

Instead of the little company taking on "the Man", Skype has now become "the Man".

Add to that the fact that in 2012 Microsoft is not really seen in the larger media as a bastion of innovation.

Skype's success may lead it to be less exciting to write about and talk about - or not... we'll have to see what they are able to do within the new world of Microsoft.

It All Comes Down To #$@%$! Batteries

It perhaps goes without saying that the future of so much of our communication is all about mobile and the use of smartphones, tablets, etc. As I wrote at the end of my recent post about Skype's photo sharing for iOS, Skype would love to see us just keep Skype running all the time on our mobile devices. They say as much in their blog post:

We've also improved the overall performance of Skype's mobile apps. We've made them less battery hungry when running in the background, so you'll now be able to answer Skype calls throughout the day when they come in. And, as you'll be able to keep Skype open, you can respond to or send IMs to friends and colleagues all day long.

This is their mobile challenge. I do NOT keep Skype running on my mobile devices for precisely this reason. Doing so has destroyed my battery life in the past. (In fairness, I've not yet tested this new version.)

I do, though, keep other apps running on my iOS devices and so I receive notifications and messages via those services.

Skype's mission is to get their mobile app to the point where people do keep it there running all the time.

The Social Impact

Finally, the "social" aspect is one challenge that Skype certainly faces. There is the ongoing reality that:

much of our "messaging" has moved to "social networks".

We use Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and a hundred other sites (and maybe App.net soon) to share our messaging. On our mobile devices we've also added in other OTT apps like WhatsApp, Viber, TuMe and again a hundred others.

We're interacting in communities of "friends".

And we're not "talking" as much as we used to - in either voice or video. Oh, sure, we definitely are talking... and Skype's video usage, in particular, is no doubt increasing as more people discover Skype and also as Skype gets embedded in more video devices.

But overall the trend I'm certainly seeing is for people to interact and exchange messages in more text-based mechanisms... and again primarily through "social" services.

The question for Skype is how they best play in that space.

I don't do half of the Skype chats I used to do because many of the people with whom I might have IM'd via Skype now contact me via Facebook or Twitter. With Skype's Photo Sharing for iOS, I would honestly never think to use Skype for sharing photos... not just because of the battery issue but also because that's what I do with Facebook or Instagram or even Twitter. Not Skype.

The Facebook integration with Skype was an interesting move and I could see it for enabling real time communication from within Facebook... but I personally don't see the Skype application as a place to read Facebook updates and interact with them. I do that through Facebook's website - or through Facebook's mobile apps or other apps like Flipboard or Tweetdeck.

Even as a platform for exchanging status updates, Skype's apps no longer work like they used to. In Skype versions prior to 5.x (on a Mac, anyway), it was easy to see where you could enter your "mood message" and so it was common to update that somewhat frequently. The 5.x client brought us a "stream" interface so that we could see the updates from others - but then in a rather bizarre move they made it harder for you to update your own message! As a result I know I hardly ever update my message now. (and usually it's when someone pings me to tell me that the existing message is out-of-date!)

Skype's challenge is to figure out how they fit into the social ecosystem. Do they attempt to become the real-time communications infrastructure for social networks? So that when you do want to move your interaction to a voice or video call you can do so over Skype? Do they try to open up their massive platform to be a social infrastructure? Do they join the rest of the players in trying to be "the place" where you read your social status updates?

It's not clear what Skype will choose, but if they don't choose some path the continued rise of social interaction may render them less of a player as other players emerge.

In The End...

... as Skype celebrates its 9th birthday, it's good to pause and think about all the incredible disruption they have caused. Few companies in recent history have done as much to shake the very foundations of the ways in which we communicate. Recently, my three-year-old daughter said to me:

Daddy, when I grow up I want to fly away on an airplane so that you can Skype me!

Earlier in her life when I called on the regular phone line she would look at the phone handset trying to understand why she couldn't see my video. She has grown up with video communications just being "normal" ... and with the idea that you would just talk to a computer screen.

Skype has done all of that, becoming a verb in the process.

Congrats - and happy birthday - to all the folks at Skype. As noted above, their tenth year is full of challenges... lots of crossroads and choices lie ahead, not all of them under Skype's control... but I look forward to seeing where we are next August as Skype crosses that 10-year milestone.

We do, indeed, live in interesting times.

UPDATE: Jennifer Caukin at Skype has published a post on Skype's blog with a timeline infographic outlining the growth of Skype over these past 9 years.

UPDATE #2: Phil Wolff is out with a humorous look at what the next 9 years of Skype could bring. Not sure about all of his predictions, but some are certainly fun to think about... :-)

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Today Skype launched an attack on sending photos via Apple's iMessage, via email or via traditional SMS/MMS with the release of photo sharing for the iPhone and iPad versions of Skype. The key point of the blog post to me is this:

There's no limit on the size of the file you can send, so you can send photos without reaching email size limits or paying expensive MMS charges.

This is yet another example of Skype seeking to disrupt the traditional telecom industry as an "over-the-top (OTT)" app - and make the user experience that much easier. (And yes, I am fully aware that Skype for Android has had file sharing since December 2011.)

Skype's blog post doesn't directly mention Apple's iMessage, but that's the reality of what else will be disrupted. Think about it... here is what you have for options inside the built-in "Photos" capability of an iPhone:

You can either email the photo or use the "Message" which goes either through the traditional SMS/MMS route - or via iMessage. This Skype functionality replaces both of those capabilities... although you need to be in the Skype application to use the sharing. Note that for a reason I'll explain later, Skype's photo sharing does NOT replace what you can share with Twitter.

Using Photo Sharing on an iPhone

I'll admit that I didn't find the sharing of the photo immediately intuitive on the iPhone, largely because Skype overloaded the "phone" icon in the upper right corner to do more than just initiate a call. In the new version, after you enter a chat with someone and tap the phone icon, you get a menu where you can share the photo:

After choosing to send a photo, you then can choose to take a new photo or share an existing photo:

The recipient then needs to accept the photo transfer, after which you see an indicator bar showing the progress - and then the fact that the photo was transferred:

From a recipient point of view, receiving the photo is simply a matter of watching the blue progress bar and then seeing the photo displayed:

I'll note that it displays nicely in a landscape view as well, although the photo is actually displayed larger in the portrait view:

All in all a fairly straightforward experience and I thank my friend Dean Elwood for helping me test this out. The re-use of the "phone" icon is a bit strange - and non-intuitive - but once you get used to that it's okay.

Using Photo Sharing on an iPad

Photo sharing on the iPad was very similar, with the added benefit that the icon in the upper right was the much more intuitive "+" symbol. Again, when in a chat with someone you just touch the "+" and choose "Send Photo":

You again have the choice to take a photo or use an existing photo:

After which the photo nicely appears within the Skype client:

Again, a rather straightforward and easy user experience.

The Desktop Disconnect

While this works great for sending photos between iOS devices (and I will assume to Android devices), the user of the traditional Skype desktop app does not have such a seamless experience. Here is what happened when I accepted a photo from Dean in the latest Skype for Mac version:

I then had to double-click the icon to open the image in the separate "Preview" application on my Mac. It would be great if in some future version of the desktop version of Skype the images would be displayed inline as they are on the mobile versions.

The Android Difference

It's also interesting to note that Skype for Android lets you share any kind of files, beyond just photos. As noted in the Skype for Android FAQ:

You can send and receive any type of file over Skype for Android and can view any file you receive as long as you have the necessary software or application installed. There are no limits on the size of the file you can send. As long as the person you’re sending the file to has enough memory on their phone, they can store the file.

Several mobile developer friends have indicated that this is due to the difference in the mobile operating systems and the fact that Android gives developers access to more file capabilities than does iOS. Still, it's just an interesting difference between the platforms.

Not Displacing Facebook / Instagram / Google+ / Twitter / etc.

My initial thought on seeing Skype's blog post was that Skype was going to try to take on photo sharing services like Facebook, Instagram, Google+ or even Twitter. It became rapidly clear that this photo sharing service is NOT attempting to do that (yet, anyway). A couple of reasons:

1. It only works with 1-to-1 chats. You can only get that "Send Photo" button when you are in a direct, 1-to-1 chat with another Skype user. When you are in a group chat, there is no way to share a photo. If there was, you could start using groups as a way to share photos... but that capability isn't there.

2. There is no web access for photos. When you share a photo there is no URL you could give someone else to see the photo. The photo does not appear to be stored on any server anywhere. Rather it is simply transferred from one local Skype client to another local Skype client.

3. Both Skype clients must be online. The sender and recipient both have to be online for the photo to be transferred. This is true of all Skype file transfers and photos are no different.

For the moment this seems all about sharing a photo with someone else with whom you are conversing.

So Who Will Use This Photo Sharing in Skype?

But will people actually use this new feature? After all, Skype's blog post today refers to this as "a frequently requested feature." (Although without any details about by whom it was requested.)

I'm going to guess that Skype's proverbial use case is that you were out during the day, took some photos, and then some time later are in a voice or video call with someone and want to share the photos of what you did earlier. It's the old "Look, Grandma, here are some great photos of us at the amusement park!"

Or maybe you came back from a trip and want to share some photos with someone you call... or maybe you are in the midst of a trip and want to call home and share the photos. ("Hey, Dan, just calling you from our hotel in Rome. Look at all the cool cathedrals we saw over the last few days!")

I could see that usage... subject to my caveat below.

The Battery Problem

Skype's blog post shows the case of a young woman sending a photo to a friend of some new shoes she found. As compelling as this might be...

... I would never use Skype this way!

Or at least... I haven't yet.

Why not?

Skype for iOS drains the battery rather quickly!

For that reason I never leave Skype running on either my iPad or iPhone. I do use Skype while traveling, but it's a case of firing up Skype, making the call and then killing off Skype on the iOS device so that the batteries will last longer.

Instead for sharing photos I would simply send off the photo via Apple's iMessage... or email the photo to someone.

Now, in Skype's post today, they indicate that this new release for iOS includes performance improvements that will help with battery life:

We've also improved the overall performance of Skype's mobile apps. We've made them less battery hungry when running in the background, so you'll now be able to answer Skype calls throughout the day when they come in. And, as you'll be able to keep Skype open, you can respond to or send IMs to friends and colleagues all day long.

That, to me, will be the key for the usage and adoption of this photo sharing. I need to be comfortable leaving Skype running on my iOS devices - and so do my recipients. If we all get to the point where Skype is just "always on" on our iOS (and Android) devices... then yes, we might start using this as a way to share photos.

Undoubtedly that is how Skype / Microsoft would like the scenario to play out... we'll have to see how indeed that does work out.

What do you think? Will you use this photo sharing within Skype for the iPhone or iPad? Or will you use one of the other ways to share photos within iOS?

UPDATE, 22 Aug 2012 - Jim Courtney published a piece with his views: Skype Photo Sharing: A Conversation Feature – Not an App

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My own immediate question, though, was more mundane:

How well will these Surface tablets work with Skype?

Given that Skype is now part of Microsoft, and that Skype CEO Tony Bates has said the company is focusing on Windows 8, you'd hope it would work well. Throughout all the media frenzy, though, I've seen very little on that... until I scrolled down the "About" page and found this bit (along with the image I'm including in this post):

Surface has not just one, but two cameras. Use the front LifeCam to chat with the people that you care about. The rear-facing LifeCam is angled to 22 degrees so you can flip out the Kickstand and record meetings and events hands-free. Stereo speakers and dual microphones tuned for Skype help you sound like you are right next door.

No further details on that page, nor in their spec sheet, but I'd have to assume that at least the rear-facing camera is an HD camera. Perhaps the front one will be as well. The "dual microphones tuned for Skype" also sounds promising and could in particular help with situations such as that shown in the picture where you are having a group call. The dual microphones could help create a richer audio texture to the call in reflecting where people are in the room.

It's great to see Skype being highlighted in some way, as the tablet form factor lends itself quite well to Skype usage. I've used my iPad for any number of video calls while on the road.

As to "Surface"... we'll have to see. No pricing or availability announced yet, and that will determine a great amount of the traction we'll see for it. As much as I am a great fan of Apple products, and don't expect I'll use one of these Surface tablets anytime soon, it's very good for us as consumers and for the industry in general to see a tablet like this coming out of Microsoft. Competition is good and will only spur the continued evolution that continues to deliver easier and more useful products.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to trying a Surface tablet out? Do you expect Skype will "just work" on the Surface?

More info about Surface:

• Microsoft's news release
• Microsoft's Surface web site
• Techmeme's listing of sites covering the initial launch

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That's a pretty amazing milestone, given that some of us can remember back to when the concurrent user count was in the upper 20s (early 2011) or even way back to the earlier days when it was down in the low millions (2007). This time of day has historically been one of the highest times, so I expect that we'll see the count drop off for the remainder of the day and then hit this number again tomorrow around early afternoon US Eastern time.

Hudson Barton has an interesting trend chart showing the growth of Skype users over time:

The jump in the last quarter has been particularly dramatic - and probably has much to do with the expanded availability of Skype on smartphones and other devices.

Regardless of the reason, it's a rather amazing milestone. Congrats to the folks at Skype!

P.S. Skype now has a blog post up about this milestone as well.

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I swear I could probably count every hair in Jim's mustache!

The video quality was truly amazing (and if you click on the image above, you'll get a slightly bigger version - I was not viewing it in full-screen when I made the capture). Looking at the technical specs for the call, Jim was sending 1280x720 using the H264 codec. I was apparently also sending that level of quality over to Jim (although using the VP80 codec).

The audio quality was also excellent and we had a great call. Obviously, Jim's upgraded Internet connection worked perfectly fine! ;-)

Kudos to Skype for making this amazing quality of video calling available - for free - to all of us!

For those curious, here is the detailed technical info for our call:

P.S. If you weren't aware that you can get this kind of info, you need to first enable it on the Advanced panel of the Skype for Mac Preferences. Then you can choose "Technical Call Info" from the Window menu (or just press Cmd+5).

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Congrats to the folks at Skype as they cross over the milestone of having 35 million users online at the same time, just a week after crossing over the 34 million mark! That's certain a great accomplishment and the recent growth is quite interesting.

It's not entirely clear to me the source of the growth, but perhaps it is most attributable to the Windows Phone beta version of Skype they released last week. Any Skype users with Windows Phones (and given that they are part of Microsoft now there are probably a good number just within Microsoft) are now going to have a way to stay online more. Perhaps it's also the new Skype-enabled TVs. Regardless, it's great to learn of the growth.

Of course, on the Mac 5.5 version of Skype I can't see the growth myself as there still seems to be no way to see the number of online users in the Mac client.

As I wrote about way back in November 2010, the Skype 2.8 client used to show the number of online users in the lower right corner of the client:

Now that number is nowhere to be seen. As I noted in that article, with the early 5.0 version for the Mac there was a "/mac users" command you could type in a chat window to get the number, but that command no longer works in the 5.5 client.

So I haven't a clue how we in the Mac world can know for ourselves the number of people online.

[3/6/12 8:24:01 AM] System: There are 32,145,771 Skype users online

Not that it really matters... I mean... I'd far rather see a Skype developer work on giving us the ability to see multiple chat windows simultaneously (like Skype for Windows users can) than to work on a way to display a number that is perhaps only of interest to techies like me. Still, it would be fun to have some way to see it. (And the lack of such a display is probably why I haven't written about milestones like this since back in January 2011 when Skype crossed over 27 million.)

I left a comment asking about this on Skype's blog post, but it hasn't yet been approved. We'll see if it gets posted and if there is an answer.

Regardless of all of that, I'll again say CONGRATULATIONS to the folks at Skype... and I'm looking forward to seeing Skype's continued growth in the months and years ahead.

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Is Skype now "boring" in 2011? That's the question Phil Wolff raises over at the Skype Journal in his post "Skype is boring".

Phil points out, quite correctly, that Skype is no longer the scrappy little startup intent on disrupting the entire global telecommunications industry.

They've done that.

Telecom has been disrupted.

As I wrote about back in August 2011, Skype has accomplished a great amount in its eight years of existence... completely destroying the expensive costs of international telephony, bringing video telephony to the masses, introducing people to wideband audio, demonstrating that you can have secure VoIP... and so much more...

But as we enter 2012, Phil offers a number of reasons why Skype is now "boring". His main points are:

• Skype is a top dog, not an underdog.
• Skype is one-sixtieth of the Microsoft behemoth
• Skype is less unique
• Skype didn’t look innovative in 2011. Or 2010. Or 2009. Or 2008.
• Skype staff don’t talk to the public.
• Skype abandoned its revolutionary People’s Product identity,

(read Phil's post for his full description)

And he notes the current status of Skype:

Skype should end 2011 with about a thousand employees, about a billion dollars in sales, a portfolio of more than a dozen clients and a few platform products, and hundreds of millions of users.

Most of Skype’s work in 2012 will be more of the same. Getting new users. Holding onto existing users. Inducing users to Skype more. Putting Skype on more devices. Keeping the network running. Boosting ARPU. Diversifying revenue.

Sadly, I must agree. I used to write about Skype all the time here. But I don't as much any more, in large part because, like Phil, I don't tend to find Skype as interesting to write about as it once was.

Instead of the little company taking on "the Man", Skype has now become "the Man". Heck, Skype is even now owned by Microsoft... who pretty much defines "the Man" in terms of the corporate enterprise.

I don't see this as a bad thing, actually. It shows the success of Skype to fundamentally disrupt and change the telecommunications industry. There is still MUCH more disruption that needs to happen, and it will definitely be interesting to see what role Skype plays in all that.

Will we see exciting and innovative things coming out of Skype in 2012? Will they be revolutionary? Or simply evolutionary?

Can Skype rekindle some of the passion that users had for the company now that they are as big as they are? (and part of Microsoft?) As Phil asks, should they even try?

Will the writing about Skype move now from the bloggers and media sites that focus on the leading edge to more of the "enterprise" sites such as those from industry analysts? (Has it already?)

What do you think? Is Skype now "boring"?

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Brilliant Dilbert comic on December 8th:

Well said... in this era of so many different communications and collaboration tools, the need to fly somewhere for a "quick meeting" should hopefully be reduced. I fully understand the need for face-to-face meetings... and find them to be extremely effective when done well. But the kind of travel for a "quick meeting" that used to be routine really shouldn't need to happen so much today.

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Yesterday I sat in such utter shock that I had to look out my window to see if, in fact, we were witnessing porcine aviation. My brain was having a hard time processing something I had just read online. I literally was speechless, which, if you know anything about me, is a very hard state for me to attain. :-)

What created this cognitive dissonance?

You see...

Skype just announced the simultaneous release of new versions of Skype for BOTH Windows and Mac OS X.

Even more, the two versions almost have feature parity.

Yes, indeed, you can now get the Skype 5.7 beta for Windows and the Skype 5.4 beta for Mac OS X, both of which introduce a "Facebook video calling" feature, and both of which bring the two releases closer to "feature parity".

Why is this a big deal?

If you have been reading this site for any length of time, you have probably seen some of these posts:

• December 2008 - Skype launches 4.0 Beta 3 ... still only on Windows... and still a fragmented product strategy..
  
  
• June 2009 - Skype launches version 4.1... (yawn)... still only Windows... still a fragmented product strategy
  
  
• May 2010 - Why I'm NOT excited about Skype 5.0 with group video calls
  
  
• October 2010 - Skype 5.0 brings Facebook integration, group video - but ONLY if you are on Windows

I - and others - have continually asked the question for years now of why Skype couldn't release its product simultaneously on at least Windows and Mac OS X. The answers always given were the lame corporate-speak about "delivering the best experience on each platform", blah, blah, blah...

But the truth is that the siloed development of each platform meant that Windows users would get some features, then Mac users would get some features, then Windows users some more, then Mac users some more... and the net result was that whenever a new feature was released, you couldn't try it with people who were on the other platform.

Meanwhile, many other products from web browsers even to softphones (from Counterpath) were all able to come out with a simultaneous product release across multiple operating systems.

I admit that I had come to expect that we'd probably see a full deployment of IPv6 on the public Internet before we'd see a simultaneous product release out of Skype...

(And with apologies to the users of Skype on Linux who pretty much have to accept at this point that their chance of getting feature parity with Windows and Mac OSX are right up there with the odds of the Pope converting to Judaism.)

The (Almost) Caveat

Of course, you'll notice that I keep using "almost" here... the fact is that this is NOT the same product brought out on two different operating systems, but rather the coordination of the release of two different products.

As Jim Courtney notes in his own post on these new releases the user interfaces are still different in ways that make it challenging to explain to someone on the other platform how to do something in Skype. There are still terminology differences ('categories' versus 'tags'). On the Mac version I still can't pop a chat out into a separate window as I'm told you can do in the Windows version (and we used to be able to do with Skype 2.8 for the Mac). Even in these announcements, the 5.7 beta for Windows mentions a "Push to Talk" feature which I don't see in the 5.4 beta for Mac. (Indeed I can't find any way to set "hot keys" on my Mac, which actually could be useful.)

Not that I personally really want the "Push to Talk" feature... but it's an example of the continued fragmentation of the two products.

So I celebrate the fact that Skype finally delivered a new feature simultaneously across both platforms - great work to all involved!

And yes, now I naturally want the rest of the parity between platforms... ;-)

Image credits: kiss kiss bang bang and eric_liu76 on Flickr

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In Aug 2004, we made the Skype Desktop API available to encourage third-party innovation and integration with Skype. The Skype Desktop API allows Partners to access Skype functionality through the Skype desktop client via a text-based command protocol. The intent is not to duplicate Skype functionality but to complement the Skype desktop client with additional features and/or capabilities (e.g., call recording).

This is the API that pretty much all developers have had to use until recently where you application interacts directly with a Skype client. This also means that you have to have a Skype client running to use the API, which has been an additional annoyance for many developers. Developers have long desired an ability to connect directly into the Skype cloud without needing to run a client. Many of us had hoped that "SkypeKit" would be that client-less connection... but it, too, requires a client.

We know, though, from conversations at conferences and events that Skype has been working on developing new APIs... and perhaps this renaming is a precursor to the release of those new APIs. We can only hope... as they have been a l..o..n..g.. time in coming.

The other bit of news was that Skype is now promoting the use of the "plugged into Skype" logo for products using the newly-renamed Desktop API. Previously this program was promoted for SkypeKit products when SkypeKit emerged from beta back in June 2011 . Again from the post:

Plugged into Skype lets Skype users know that the application is built by a partner to work on Skype but was not built by Skype.

There is naturally a page in Skype's developer site (login required) all about how you can use the logo, original image files, etc., etc.

All of this is good to see as Skype, like everyone, is trying to woo developers to build apps on their platform (and add them to Skype's new "App Directory"). Making their program clearer can only help. (And hey, this is only their, what? ... 6th attempt at a developer program? Eventually they may figure it out.)

Meanwhile... is this renaming setting the stage for the release of some new client-less APIs? Let's hope so...

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