By now you may have heard about how Skype uses a proprietary protocol and as such can be dangerous on your network as you aren't exactly sure what its doing. Recently a more pressing fear has popped onto the scene. Skype's developer program allows anyone to develop applications that piggyback on the Skype network. On the surface this is wonderful but when you peel the onion back one layer you see why this may not be so good.
Skype is an incredible program because it can punch though any firewall and send traffic. When you couple this feature with open APIs you have the ultimate virus/Trojan horse/worm propagation tool.
Is this a bad thing? Well it depends on your perspective. Skype could come up with a management tool that allows an enterprise to manage all of the Skype users on the network and thus ensure security and compliance with corporate policies. How many enterprises have Skype users and aren't even aware of it? If you can't measure the traffic how do you monitor it? Simple, you buy a $100/month site license from Skype to manage all Skype usage.
Imagine 5 million companies around the world paying $100/month.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Ahh now go back to the 2+ billion dollar price eBay paid for Skype. Does it make sense now?
Skype Fear
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Skype Fear TrackBack URL : http://blog.tmcnet.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/21433
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Related Entries
- Should Skype Get Sold to its Founders?
- Skype Experiments with Ads, Finally
- eBay Unloads StumbleUpon, Skype Next?
- Skype Does SIP Trunking
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Well... I do not agree with that 100/month.
I rather see businesses banning skype alltoghether in favor of a compatible, open-api application that can be integrated seamlessly in an existing voip infrastructure (somebody said GoogleTalk? Or perhaps Gizmo?) and without requiring any software install on most workstations.
Skype can live in the ebay auctions but why pay 100/mo when ther's a free, compatible and open-standards alternative?
salut les amis
All well and good.
But Skype has serious problems with customer service and with voice quality.Before they count all their money, they need to fix the calls that sound funny.Skype compares unfavorably to VoIP providers such as VOIPo, CallCentric, PhonePower, VoicePulse, and the cable company phone providers such as Cox, Comcast, and others.