Martin writes, the strategic differentiator is their sales and distribution method. Excerpts with edits:
Few people understand how to market and sell them.Skype is about convenience, and putting new features within easy reach; leading users through small incremental advances in how they communicate.A recent Analysys report talks about the class of "Private Voice Applications", like Skype. This is a node-centric view of the world — Skype the PC software application. At the other end of the telescope, you can view Skype as a virtual network — just at the application layer, divorced from transport. A decade ago the Web burst upon us. HTTP as the protocol; Netscape as the user interface; the Web as the network of public HTTP-speaking nodes. SIP is an analog to HTTP. Softphones are similar to Netscape.If Mosaic and Netscape spawned the hypertext Web, the equivalent today would be the voice “Vob”.
SIP is history as far as the future of voice is concerned. The Vob is dead.Skype isn’t this decade’s Netscape either, because it isn’t substitutable; they own their private Vob — they’ve achieved what Microsoft failed to do with MSN and the Web. Yet they retain the strategic power Netscape had to reverse themselves from the client into various centralised server functions.It would be a tragic mistake to underestimate the potential market power Skype is accumulating. This means warning bells for majors. Very insightful analysis indeed!
Category : VoIP
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