A New Version of Skype
Skype may not get the media coverage it had a year or so ago but the P2P telephony software maker appears to be steadily moving ahead, highlighted today by the launch of version 1.0 products for Mac OS X and Linux. Skype said it now has 23.9 million registered users, and signing up more than 130,000 new ones a day. The company said its Skype-Out, a pre-paid service that lets users make calls people on PSTN telephones, has 735,000 customers.
According to CNet, a recent report by Evalueserve said traditional local phone operators “could lose up to 30% of their revenues from people who are replacing them with Skype software.
Skype's an intriguing player in the telephony market because I'm still not sure whether it's a viable business or a company waging guerilla warfare with the help of millions of soldiers who like the idea of free calls. Is Skype destined to be niche player used to be long-distance calls by tech-savvy people, or a real business?
One of the keys may be Skype's ability to embed its software within telephony hardware - thereby eliminating the need for a personal computer to make calls. Whether it's cell phones, handheld devices or handsets, Skype could be very successful if - for lack of a better word - it becomes the telephony OS.
