Skype Dials New Owner… And Open Source
Now that eBay has sold most of Skype to private investors, some pundits may wonder what markets Skype should tackle next. Actually, the answer has already emerged — and it involves Skype plugging into Asterisk, the open source IP PBX. Here’s the scoop and the implications for solutions providers.
The first piece of news involves eBay selling most of Skype to private investors, as reported by The New York Times. But a separate, smaller piece of news could also have big implications for Skype and its channel partners. Skype for Digium Asterisk — the open source IP PBX — is officially available for download.
The VAR Guy thinks Skype for Asterisk could be a killer combo for all parties involved — including channel partners.
According to a press release hitting the wires today:
“Now businesses [running Asterisk] can take advantage of Skype’s low-cost calling to landlines and mobile phones and free calling to more than 400 million registered Skype users around the world.”
Skype and Digium say Skype for Asterisk is available to download now for $66 USD per concurrent call. It comes with 90 days of installation support from the time of purchase, the duo says.
Skype’s Past and Future
Skype seemed to get lost in the Web 2.0 world during eBay’s ownership. As The New York Times points out: “Many analysts thought eBay grossly overpaid when it acquired Skype in 2005 for $2.1 billion.” But today’s sale values Skype at $2.75 billion, higher than many analysts had expected, adds The Times.
Let’s toss valuations aside for the moment and focus on Skype and Asterisk. In recent months, Digium and other Asterisk proponents have been rapidly recruiting channel partners. At the same time, entrepreneurs (including The VAR Guy) have been embracing Skype as a way to hold the line on telecom costs amid the recession.
Seems like Asterisk and Skype are a match made in heaven. Starting today we’ll see if Digium’s channel partners agree.
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“Now that eBay has sold most of Skype to private investigators, some pundits may wonder what markets Skype should tackle next.”
Sold to P.I.’s huh? I didn’t know private investigators had that kind of money 🙂
Rob: You should be a P.I., because you caught The VAR Guy abusing the English language. Thanks for the tip.
Asterisk is built on open standards, Skype is not. Skype is feeling the heat from the proliferation of VoIP services, all based on and able to interoperate via SIP, which Skype is not.
After years of ignoring open standards, this sudden embracing of them by Skype is clearly just a reflex action to stem its inexorable decline into irrelevance.
Besides, isn’t it a violation of the GPL to distribute binary-only code that links against GPL code?
Lawrence: Fair points… but Skype is also a $600 million business (estimated annual revenues) that has a $2.75 billion valuation. That’s a pretty impressive decline into irrelevance…
Lawrence, it is a violation to distribute GPL code as binary-only if it includes proprietary code. However, if the proprietary code is external to it (via a DLL or shared object), then no violation has occurred.
While it’s nice for the Asterisk community that they can buy a $66/user Skype plugin, FreeSWITCH also supports Skype, costs $0 and is included in version 1.0.4 which was released in August. Read more at http://www.freeswitch.org/node/184
Patrick: The VAR Guy always welcomes market competition…
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“… but Skype is also a $600 million business (estimated annual revenues) that… ”
are you sure about those figures? I thought I read $600 million to be the estimated turnover… huge difference. If it was $600 million in anual revenues an owner would get their money back in 4 years if they bought the whole thing… sounds like a fantastic deal! It’s like having an interest of ~22% at the bank.
If there is a turnover of $600 million you can still be declining, e.g. massive costs and no revenues?
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Fredrik: $600 million in revenue doesn’t mean $600 million in profit so that’s not a valid estimation. The best data I could find is for Q4 2008 which showed they had $143m in revenue and $45m in profit..so $600m seems about right with a profit in the $200 range. Seems pretty strong to me.
Marx: arrggh… yeah I read it as profit, you’re right of course! Interesting seeing the figures, thanks!
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[…] Skype Dials New Owner… And Open Source The first piece of news involves eBay selling most of Skype to private investors, as reported by The New York Times. But a separate, smaller piece of news could also have big implications for Skype and its channel partners. Skype for Digium Asterisk — the open source IP PBX — is officially available for download. […]
There are already numerous gateways for Skype including our own 3CX Gateway for Skype which is free of charge and runs on Microsoft Windows.
However i hope that the new owners will make the service truly open by supporting the SIP standard so that gateways will no longer be required. They have started with the Skype for SIP beta but its a limited in features and not clear when and if it will be released!
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