VOIP Industry

VOIP Industry

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  • John Lindsay
    John Lindsay    Premium Member   Group moderator
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    Is there room for local competitors to Skype? How could this succeed?
    I was recently asked by a group of young entrepreneurs in a country of the EU if I thought it was possible to build a strong market position in the VoIP space.... i.e. a baby Skype (like baby Bells).

    What do you think?

    Issues relate to interoperability, unique value offering, community.

    What could be offered by a Skype competitor that would be compelling?
    What is Skype NOT willing to do, that perhaps a young up-start could do?

    Any thoughts on this?

    Best regards,
    John
    • 22 Sep 2005, 10:06 am
  • Gilles Capelluto
    Gilles Capelluto    Group moderator
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    Re: Is there room for local competitors to Skype? How could this succeed?
    Hi John,

    Skype is not really VoIP as the market will use it. it's a beautiful marketing success but it is P2P. The logic of P2P is community building and as long as the community find a reason to be in relation it works (ex. Kaaza - share your files, Skype - call me for free, when I will be next to my computer, so send me an IM message and...)

    But Telco is not P2P, it's about calling any kind of hanset anywhere in the world and from any handset possible (Mobile, Fixed, Satellite, etc.)

    So what Skype forgot to do?
    To become a global telco solution... It's a community.

    Am I sûre?
    Yes, think who did buy Skype? Vonage? AT&T? France Telecom? no ebay.
    Why? Because Telcos would not find in Skype Technology (very well done) a Telco solution for the future.

    is ther any hope for local competitors? Yes and No, as a P2P-IM software, look at Gizmo Project, Jabbah and the others, they are great and it works even better, less expensive, Oh! I forgot Yahoo and Google!!! But why leave Skype then? "Because of too many interruption when working" told me one of my clients ! "I choose Goolgle Talk, so I just share my username with few friends"... What a irony! The success of a community is number and number is also the reason to leave it!!!

    More, in another context, Let's say that ebay will have to find a commercial way to run Skype! And how? That's the next step to understand P2P évolution.

    For me the Future is local, ethnic, specific telco solutions. So why not set up a Chinese Telco based in Belgium for Chinese who want's very good prices when talking to relatives over there? That will be the next step.

    OK, I will finish here, but the subject is huge and application could be greater with SIP instead of P2P (for the pro, Skype has been built on a SIP kernel on which they add a P2P glueing, so Skype could become SIP very rapidly, but then? How to becaome a WorldWide Teleco? Is ther any WW Telco? AT&T, MCI are they selling their service everywhere?

    Regards,

    Gilles Capelluto
    <http://www.phonext.be/> a Toneec brand.


    John Lindsay wrote:
    I was recently asked by a group of young entrepreneurs in a country of the EU if I thought it was possible to build a strong market position in the VoIP space.... i.e. a baby Skype (like baby Bells).
     
    What do you think?
     
    Issues relate to interoperability, unique value offering, community.
     
    What could be offered by a Skype competitor that would be compelling?
    What is Skype NOT willing to do, that perhaps a young up-start could do?
     
    Any thoughts on this?
     
    Best regards,
    John
    • 22 Sep 2005, 9:51 pm