Skype should be declared World Heritage
I am glad eBay has decided to spin off Skype. This was also my first choice a year ago. The logic is quite straightforward: there is no reason to beat the dead horse looking for some supernatural synergy with Googles and eBays. Let us give it a rest and recognize Skype in its own right. Besides, Skype should not remain one company’s asset anymore. It belongs to 400 million of us worldwide. It should be declared a World Heritage.
Imagine someone like Google or BT acquiring the asset and then killing it like they usually do! Skype is THE company that took VoIP to consumers. While tonnes of VoIP equipment are deployed in carrier networks worldwide, the predominant consumer VoIP interface continues to be Skype. There are no doubt certain weaknesses in the business model of the company. A year ago I would have pointed out the lack of SME offering and bad mobile VoIP strategy. But I think Skype is progressing well along both those fronts. And these offerings should help it generate better margin revenues and not rely on the PSTN termination alone. There also seems to be some lull in the developer activity. Perhaps web friendly APIs and better developer promotion strategies would come in handy.
I am copying below a link to one of my papers that contains a section on Skype arguing why Skype should be one of the 10 most influential VoIP companies ever:
