January 28, 2005

Skype's Free Telephony is Catching On

Last night, someone who is NOT a techie said to me, do you use Skype?

With shock I said I didn't use it but of course knew about it. More and more business people are leveraging Skype, the telephone-call-via-the-internet phone service that has a free and fee based version.

Calls from one Skype user to another are free, calls from Skype to other users cost money.

Why is Skype so popular. Well for FREE you can be in a New York City deli with your notebook computer and broadband internet access and talk, for FREE, to another Skype user in London.

Need I say more?

Cnet writes Skype executives have already recognized there is opportunity in the business market. As a result, they plan to introduce a new set of business offerings later this year. The idea is to create a package similar to the free Skype, but with extra features, such as videoconferencing, user groupings and company directories, that business customers would be willing to pay for.

"The Skype for Business offering will address ways to better serve the business community and targeted toward individuals and workgroups, not CIOs for enterprise wide deployments," said Niklas Zennstrom, CEO and co-founder of Skype, during a keynote address at the Internet Telephony Expo in October.

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