[IP] more on Skype secures $18.8m funding

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+@ux13.sp.cs.cmu.edu
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 10:21:50 +0100
From: "Remco B. Brink" <remco@rc6.org>
Subject: Re: [IP] Skype secures $18.8m funding
To: dave@farber.net

<quote who="Dave Farber">

> I seem to miss the business model until they get POTS access? djf

During the beta period you can only call other Skype users [1]. They plan to
make it possible to call normal fixed telephones and mobile phones in the
future.

Eventually, some features and services of Skype will require a paid 
subscription
or prepayment. Skype says they've got the ambition to keep PC to PC calls free
forever.

I suspect they're business model is largely based on the fact that Skype 
runs on
a proprietary, closed-source P2P protocol [2].

Licensing that to other parties could generate quite some income, especially
since they've had the ability to prove that Skype "just works" [3] by having it
tested for free by a huge number of users.

regards,
Remco

[1] http://www.skype.com/help_faq.html
[2] http://www.skype.com/skype_p2pexplained.html
[3] http://www.skype.com/help_faq.html#General

--
        Remco B. Brink -- QA / BW GS / CDTT -- Opera Software ASA
             eating bandwith for breakfast at http://rc6.org

"Me and the caller ID window have a very positive working
 relationship." -- Mike Sphar 

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