[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk compare with Skype

[snacktime]

> 
> 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.

Skype is brilliant in some areas.  They have done in a matter of a few
months what the whole voip industry couldn't do in several years. 
That is, to make a product that is easy to use, free, and works
without problems most of the time.

I completely understand your points, I agree in fact.  But ignoring
why millions of people use skype and brushing it aside as herd
mentality is a mistake and missing the other side of the picture.

You know to this day I have yet to find a sip or iax softphone that
doesn't crash, lockup, or come with incorrect or no documentation? 
And I won't even get into how difficult it is for the average user to
configure softphones.

My wife uses skype a lot to call her family in Russia.  She would love
to be able to use a real phone via a sipura 2000 I have here, but the
fact is, I can't find a softphone for her family to use that isn't so
difficult to configure and error prone that I would recommend using it
over skype.

The fact is, there is not ONE sip or iax softphone that is as easy to
use as skype for the average user.  The sad thing is it doesn't have
to be that way.

Also, just say for a second that there was an easy to configure/use
softphone.  Now the average user has to find out way more than they
ever wanted to about voip before they become aware of services like
FWD.  Then once they overcome that obstacle,.  Guess what?  The FWD
documentation is so outdated for how to configure other softphones
that it's virtualy worthless for the average user.

I'll bet you anything what will happen is that skype will eventually
interoperate with SIP.  After they have a ton of market share and
interoperation becomes more of an issue.  In the meantime they are
giving the average person what they really want, while everyone else
is busy pointing fingers.

I guess I'm a bit frustrated because it is very difficult to find
reasons why people who use skype should switch to something else.  For
the average person, there really aren't any compelling reasons I can
find when you take everything into account.

Chris