[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk compare with Skype

[Brian Capouch]

Stephen wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I face some problems when I try to introduce Asterisk to my customers / 
> friends.
> 
> They are not convince as they are currently using Skype and asking me 
> what is/are the different between this two.
> 
> Does anyone in the community can provide such a comparison chart?
> 
> What's your opinion ?
> 

It comes down to one thing in the final analysis: open versus closed 
(proprietary) models.

It's no big secret that the "Skype way" is a lot like the "Microsoft 
way" in that they want everyone using their proprietary system, because 
to the degree they "own" the market they can totally dictate to their 
customers what is going to be done, how much it's going to cost, etc.

Beyond that, what kind of records do they keep internally of their 
users' behavior?  What kinds of other things on their users' machines do 
they track?  Of course the answer is "No one knows," because it's all 
closed and secret.   They even keep secret the methods they use to allow 
peers to find one another. I'm sure you know that Kazaa users were 
recently surprised to learn, as it came out in court over in Europe, 
that centralized records have been kept of everyone's Kazaa usage from 
the get-go.  Nice to know in case the RIAA ever comes looking for 
people.  What kinds of similar things does Skype do?  No one knows.

Finally, when you go the open route you have choice.  If I don't like my 
softphone for whatever reason, there are a dozen others to choose from. 
  If my ITSP has service problems, or customer service problems, then 
it's a trivial task for me to sign up with another one.   I can also 
shop rates.

We learned in the legacy telephone world how bad monopolies are when it 
comes to price, features, innovation, etc.  Why would consumers then 
move to a similar model when they migrate to VoIP?  Answer: slick 
marketing on Skype's part, as well as herd mindset.

There are many reasons to stay clear of Skype.

B.