[asterisk-biz] How is Skype pulling this off ?

[SIP]

Skype's still in the "we're losing money" stage.  But they're doing 
everything they can to grab customers right and left. The original idea 
was for there to be a synergy between Skype and eBay, but eBay's never 
been able to leverage that, and they're having second-thoughts about the 
acquisition last I read, especially since it's been an expensive venture 
that hasn't made any money for them.

Skype's current plan seems to be to do the VoIP equivalent of dumping -- 
selling services for a MASSIVE loss in order to drive everyone and 
everyone over to the Skype side and push out every last bit of 
competition they can. I imagine if they thought they were fueling 
competition with this move, they'd kill it in a heartbeat.

They'll never really compete in the landline replacement area -- their 
service simply isn't designed for that, and they're not interested in 
it. But they can grab up every bit of random VoIP business they can from 
the casual consumers with moves like this. Consumers of VoIP these days 
are RARELY interested in anything other than the cheapest price. They 
assume VoIP sucks for quality and are pleasantly surprised when they 
discover it's not really any worse than a cell phone call. But they're 
looking to spend as close to nothing as they can because they believe 
that somehow, zero cents a minute is still competitive. People like that 
flock to Skype in droves because Skype DOES offer something that seems 
too good to be true. But they have the financial backing to offer it and 
not care how much it loses them for now.

I keep hearing about the 'businesses that use Skype,'  but I've never 
actually run into one that uses it for anything other than the 
occasional "salesmen can check in from the road" kind of perspective. It 
just lacks the flexibility and mission-critical nature that companies 
expect from both VoIP and their phone systems. Does anyone else know of 
any companies that actually buy into Skype for business?

N.

Nitzan Kon wrote:
> They're assuming the average usage will be more like 500 minutes.
>
> If you really used 10000 minutes (or even close to that), I bet
> they'll boot you off their network faster than you can say "Skype".
> They say it's for "personal usage only" which is a license to kill
> anyone who even appears to be running any sort of business on it.
>
> Not to mention there's probably hidden fees, rate hike in the future,
> etc.
>
> Otherwise, it's not possible. If it's too good to be true- it isn't.
>
>   -- Nitzan
>
> --- On Thu, 5/29/08, Justin Case <nogoodnameswereavailable at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> From: Justin Case <nogoodnameswereavailable at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [asterisk-biz] How is Skype pulling this off ?
>> To: "Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion" <asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com>
>> Date: Thursday, May 29, 2008, 5:23 PM
>> Anyone know how Skype is pulling this off ?
>> http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/subscriptions/rowcountry/?country=US
>> Their fair usage is 10k minutes. If I used Chanskype and
>> blocked the CID
>> anyone can make a
>> mint._______________________________________________
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