As Stuart notes, Skype iPhone multitasking is borked

Being able to have Skype on the iPhone run in the background is cool.  However, as Stuart notes in his post Skype iPhone Multitasking Not Ready for Prime Time, there are problems in practice.

The biggest problem is your battery.  Once you run Skype, it will keep running, and sucking up your battery.  Instead of 5-6 hours of usage on my 3G S, with Skype in the background, I was getting more like 2-3 hours.  As Stuart notes, the only way to stop it is manually from the iOS 4 multitasking (double-click) feature.

Skype should have a way to turn on/off multitasking from within the app itself. And as Stuart notes, when it is running in the background, you get barraged with notifications for everything and you have no controls over those notifications, short of quitting the Skype app from the multitasking bar.

The short of it is, if you start the Skype app, you probably want to double-click to kill it so it doesn’t kill your iPhone’s battery.

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Skype grossly over hyped, even with the Verizon deal

Ok, short and sweet here.

The recent hype about Skype, and in particular surrounding the Verizon deal has been blown WAY out of proportion, IMHO. It’s time to set perspective here.

First, Skype was supposed to have killed off traditional telecom by now. Last I checked, that hasn’t happened (still a trillion dollar business).  In fact, Skype actually PAYS traditional telecoms a significant amount per month, thus helping them stay in business.

Second, Skype was supposed to revolutionize everything. Ok, they’ve done some cool stuff, especially if you like video.  And they introduced the world to HD Voice.  On the other hand, if you look at where Skype gets revenue, oh gee, it’s from traditional telecoms services – like phone calls, and phone numbers, and voicemail!  Where is the new and revolutionary business model? At the end of the day, Skype is not all that different than other Chat applications with Voice and video.

Third, lets not forget that Skype still is a black eye for E-bay and (now candidate for Governor of California) Meg Whitman. Meg paid (at least) $3 billion US in 2005, then wrote off $900 million. And of course now E-bay sold 65% of Skype to a PE group at a valuation of roughly $3 billion. That’s zero percent growth in valuation over 5 years. Not quite the wonderful story it’s perceived to be.  What’s more, not only did it not appreciate in value, but Skype added no strategic benefit for Ebay either – it was simply a distraction- a bad deal all around.

So before we go rewriting history, and (once again) claiming how Skype will tear down the telecoms world, maybe a little grounding in fact is in order.

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Vonage World versus Skype Unlimited World

Below is a run down of what’s different between the Skype “Unlimited World” plan compared to the new “Vonage World” plan.

This table only lists the countries where there are differences between the plans (specifically, where the Skype plan lacks coverage, since there are no countries included in the Skype plan that are not also included in the Vonage plan). For instance, the “Vonage World” plan includes landlines and mobiles in Puerto Rico whereas the Skype “Unlimited World” plan only includes landlines in Puerto Rico. Likewise, the Vonage plan supposedly includes all landlines in Mexico, while the Skype plan includes only landlines in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.

Both plans include the following countries with (apparently) equal coverage: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada*, Chile, China*, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong*, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore*, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand*, United Kingdom, United States*

Both plans have hidden limits. For the Vonage plan, the limit is 5,000 minutes per month (section 5.4 of the TOS http://www.vonage.com/tos/index.php). For Skype,  the limits on this so-called “unlimited” plan are “10,000 minutes per user per month, with a maximum of 6 hours per day. Also, no more than 50 different numbers in total can be called per day” (see http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/fair_usage/).

The Vonage World plan is $24.95/mo while the Skype plan is $12.95/mo. They are apples and oranges to a degree, as the Vonage service includes a phone number and hardware box and is used with a regular phone (no need to leave your computer on all the time to receive calls and no need to use your computer to place calls). The Skype service requires that you place calls using your computer and it does not include a number for receiving calls. Vonage is meant to replace a standard landline and work with a regular telephone while Skype is just for use on your computer. But that’s not the topic of this post, which simply compares the countries included in the two plans for outbound calling.

If you’re calling the countries listed above, you probably know how much those countries cost to know whether this plan would benefit you. I would guess that India and Mexico would be the big draws, as there are few flat-rate plans offered to these countries and per-minute rates are significant.

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Wishlist for hypothetical replacement P2P Skype core

SkypeJournal speaks about the JoltID conflict. The post has lot a lot of good analysis of the legal battle and I encourage you to read the original post.

Phil also suggests it’s an opportunity for a new P2P core for Skype, listing a number of possible improvements. I second that list, but let me also add a few things I’d like to see in a new Skype P2P core:

1. Published protocol specs, whether a open-standard or proprietary protocol, supporting network-layer interoperability (whether free or licensed).
2. Less obfuscation, especially in terms of security.
3. Ideally, open-source or or at least published peer-reviewed source.

Frankly, having the original founders of Skype out of the picture is probably ultimately a good thing for the Skype community and the Internet at large. It’s unbelievable that Ebay made a multi-billion dollar deal and still didn’t obtain control of the technology. I expect that will go down in textbooks some day as one of the dumbest (or smartest, depending on which side of the table you sat on) negotiations of all time.

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Rejected by Skype

I didn’t make the grade.  They’re not going to let me play with “Skype for SIP”.

I guess I’ll find a way to make it through another day, somehow.

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Skype for iPhone challenged by limitations

Apple’s decision to not allow “background” apps and AT&T’s decison to not allow voice calls over their network, severely limit the utility of Skype’s iPhone application.

No calls unless you can get Wifi.

In general, incoming calls are impractical, even if you’re on wifi, since the Skype app has to be the one and only active app in order to receive calls.  If you’re doing something else on the phone, like browsing or checking email (or twitter), you cannot receive calls.

In test calls, I found the app unreliable even when all the conditions are met.  Trying to call the iPhone Skype from a PC, the calling side just continued to ring, even after I answered the call on the iPhone.  The Skype for iPhone app then seemed “frozen” where I couldn’t end the call or do anything except hit the big button.

When calls did connect (requires the iPhone to be connected via Wi-fi), the call quality was fine.

Not being able to make Skype calls except when connected to wi-fi is a pretty big limitation for me. Ironically, when a friend had to call their wife on Skype in Costa Rica recently, I had to let them use PhoneGnome and OpenSky on my iPhone to do so, because that was the only combination that worked on iPhone without wifi.

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Amen to Michael Robertson in note to Skype

Andy refers us to a letter Michael Robertson (CEO of Gizmo) sent to Chris Libertelli at Skype.  In part, it says:

[in regards to Skype demanding that wireless companies open their networks], Skype’s actions do not mirror their words to the commission which diminishes credibility for Skype to demand openness.

…

It appears that when it is convenient for Skype’s business objectives Skype waves the flag of openness, at the same time conveniently ignoring competitors requests for openness.

Here, here.  You can read the entire letter over at Andy’s site.

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Skype’s future

The Financial Times has stirred up the blogs with their story regarding statements by Ebay CEO John Donahoe hinting that Skype may be sold off if they can’t find “synergies”. Gigaom suggests that a divestment is the right thing to do.

You may recall that the original “synergy” argument used to justify the phenomenal valuation was geographical, that Ebay was dominant in the U.S., but not so outside the US, while Skype was strong outside the U.S. but not so much within the U.S. I think Ebay mostly cared about the impact Skype could have on eBay’s market share of its auction business outside the U.S. (but they did give lip service to how eBay would also help Skype become more popular in the U.S.) In 2005, the brass ring was China – but ultimately Skype didn’t help and Ebay had to shut down in China and partner with a competitor. Valleywag said of this “Skype’s failure to strengthen eBay in China, more than anything, is why the company had to take a writeoff.”

I reviewed the progress towards Ebay’s goals for Skype fifteen months ago in the post “Skype luster fading” and concluded then:

At some point, for this deal to pay off, 2+2 has to equal a lot more then 4, and at this point, that’s not happening.

I stand by that statement today. Even with Skype’s healthy growth and real revenue, the “synergies” are not there and I think the CEO’s comments are preping Wall Street for a future sell-off of the Skype division.

The question then becomes, who will be interested, and at what price? Skype is a healthy business. By “normal” valuation, it is a half-billion dollar company, but I’m sure someone will pay a lot more than that for it. Everyone is pointing at Google, but I’m not sure it is a good fit for them – they would have to swallow some Gtalk pride and they may not be willing to do that. A telco could buy it to shut it down. Nokia could buy it – that would be interesting. Stuart suggested Apple, but that isn’t going to happen (too much NIH at Apple). Who do you think should buy Skype and what will the price be?

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