Digium has an excellent post today titled The Rumors of Our Death discussing Skype for Asterisk (SFA) and the recently launched (beta) SkypeforSIP (SFS). There has been much discussion on the blogosphere, twitter, and elsewhere if SFS means the death of SFA. Some were even seen carting Skype for Asterisk away into the trashbin of other failed software endeavors, as seen here:It's not a pretty sight when people write you off for dead when you're really not. But wait just a second. Digium's Steve Sokol explains late today that SFA is not dead. He writes:
Steve lists more differences, but I don't want to steal his thunder. Go read his post. I knew there were key advantages in SFA over SFS and there was so much confusion out there, I was tempted to write a comparative chart, but was too busy. In any event, it's nice to see Digium clarifying the advantages of Skype for Asterisk. Any questions?With Skype's recent announcement of Skype For SIP there has been a great deal of pontification on the impending death of the not-yet-released Skype For Asterisk. I'd like to take a moment to explain why Skype For SIP (SFS) does not spell the end for Skype For Asterisk (SFA), and why Skype For Asterisk is still in beta.
First, the key differences between Skype For SIP and Skype For Asterisk:
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Skype has confirmed there are two benefits stated by Digium on SFA that are not correct:
- "SFA supports incoming calls directly from SkypeIn DID numbers. SFS does not."
- "SFA can handle incoming Skype calls from any user on the Skype network. SFS can receive incoming calls from Skype users only by statically mapping a Skype name to a SIP account."
Exaggerating benefits is not a good sign. I still believe that to truly differentiate SFA will need to:
- Add the SILK codec now and push it into some softphones for use with Asterisk
- Allow two way chat messages via SFA/Asterisk Manager API
- Allows presence status to be queried, as opposed to event driven only
I never said Skype was DOA, only posed the question. The real purpose is to highlight the reduced benefits of SFA post SFS announcement and trying to push for deeper differentiation.
I have updated my blog post on this subject here, since Digium has changed the list on their post:
http://blog.goecke.net/2009/03/27/skype-for-asterisk-doa-long-live-skype-for-asterisk/