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Microsoft to Launch "Skype Killer"
TheChillPill writes "Microsoft is due to announce the launch of a service to rival Skype following the acquision of VoIP provider Teleo.
While a crude version of VoIP is already included in most Instant Messaging programs, Skype is currently the only provider to allow calls to landlines and cellphones.
Microsoft intends to launch the service by the end of the year. "
Skype is currently the only provider to allow calls to landlines and cellphones
/.
What about the Gizmo project, which I believe I first saw mentioned right here on
Arnar
This looks to be another great example of a Microsoft product dominating because users don't know or care enough to stray from the software that comes with their computer.
Will people choose Skype when they already have an MS VoIP icon on their desktop? I'm curious.
On the upside MS could at least be "legitimizing" VoIP for the common user, and maybe Skype et al can benefit from some positive association with an MS product and its heavy marketing.
The president has been kidnapped by ninjas!
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
We'll see what happens when they include it with Vista and make it a default for VOIP or whatever.
I'm curious how tightly/predominantly this is going to be bundled into Longhorn. I suspect that Microsoft VoIP on the desktop is one of the features that will ship on time.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
True, and sometimes it doesn't go away, but simply changes. Last week, Google was going to take over all of VoIP as we know it and everyone else would pale by compare. Sometimes, I think it's just titles like this that annoy me more than anything else when someone is proclaiming a product killer when in this case, American VoIP is already in partial danger (last time I checked) due to having issues with 911 calls. I read that the shutoff was extended, but in either case, if someone could let me know whether or not that was reversed, I'd be most appreciative.
Until then, I'm not going to worry about somebody trying to dominate all VoIP when it can't even serve as an (American, at least) alternative to landline or cellular telephone.
And, yes I am aware that the world is more than just the United States, but I don't doubt that other countries could (keyword: could) find similar problems with the technology.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
True. Microsoft has the brand advantage and the built-in market reach via Windows. However, this is not to say that Skype is out of the picture without recourse, which is my point. While Microsoft is not very innovative (in the sense of coming up with brand new ideas), they are very good at copying and improving. Skype has to compete or they will disappear. In the old days, however, they would not have stood a chance. Today, they can remain a competitor if they earn that right. And clueless consumers (e.g. you and me) may end up with better technology because of real competition instead of being forced to take whatever Microsoft chose to market.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
MS already had a chance with netmeeting, but they blew it when they decided to hide netmeeting (activated by running "conf" at the run prompt) in attempts to push their non-standard protocol in msn messenger.
-Alex. http://bit.ly/1iVPtfA
I read this story this morning (London time) in the FT on my way into work.
When I read a classic Slashdot story like this in a print publication 8 hours before it appears on Slashdot, then it says to me that Slashdot's going seriously downhill...
I don't want to have my PC running to make calls. And no Windows PC for certain.
I want a VOIP appliance I can plug into my NAT/firewall and link up to my existing phone cabling.
That's one reason not to have Skype. But two reasons not to have a Windows solution.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
What will realy kill somebody is Google talk once they will introduce the transport system so that people can chat with anybody using any other IM, thanks to jabber :)
:)
C'M'on MS instead of trying to "kill" people opponents, try to innovate and not buy startups
windows 98 *snip* had a built in feature to place calls through your modem line, *snip* to be able to make long distance calls.....this was rectified in the second edition of windows 98.... *snip* call my friends in new york from canada for free
Windows 98 did not contain some magic software to allow you to call your friends for free.
I'm not sure what you're describing - but I suspect you dialed New York at standard intl rates & the company you worked for footed the bill.
My pics.
If you run Asterisk, you should also check out fwdOUT http://www.fwdout.com/, through which you can get FREE worldwide long distance calling. The only catch is that you have to allow others to make local calls out on your phone line through Asterisk. As the site's motto says: " The Love You Take Is Equal To The Love You Make", so the more calls you allow out, the more calls you have available to make. It's about a 5:1 ratio, so even allowing a few calls out gives you alot of free calls.
http://bike.stu.ph/rides - free GPS routes available for Garmin, Magellan, GPX and Google Earth
I just thought about a wrinkle to the VoIP plan for Microsoft. The issue is all the Baby Bells and their relative local monopolies. Right now there is a law that allows consumers to have local phone with one company and have DSL with another. BellSouth easily got an injunction because the argued that it couldn't be the same everywhere. So therefore, it was somehow a better idea to take more money out of consumers pockets. The problem is that DSL is all but dead because you get the choice of the Local Monopoly service, or "take your chance" service with everyone else. Since I could only get DSL through BellSouth--I have now after 6 months decided to Choose BellSouth instead of no DSL.
What is the whole point of VOIP then, it I have to get local access through BellSouth or, not get local access but pay extra for the DSL so that I might as well just get local access. If that doesn't make sense, then you are like me before I tried this route. The juggling the average consumer needs to do to get rid of long distance and local access with whatever DSL or Cable they get is going to be a tough and confusing battle.
It may be good that Microsoft has entered this market, so that they can do the heavy lifting in the courts and the market that VoIP is going to require. Skype may already have the "low hanging fruit" -- the geeks and businesses that can actually take advantage of VoIP. But the home user is going to have to be led to VoIP. For once, Microsoft will be in the position of trail blazing and spending mucho denero to fight all the local phone monopolies to make VoIP actually save money and seamless. Don't expect companies like BellSouth to lay there and not get anti-competitive laws in place. The only people who are going to make money with VoIP for the next two years are lawyers, lobbyists and politicians.
***
Anyone who doesn't think BellSouth and other Baby Bells are not monopolies only needs to consider that BellSouth does not market DSL in New York. They get the SouthEast and they don't even try to do any business outside the SouthEast in the United States. The same goes for all the other Bells. They don't compete with eachother -- only in places where they own the infrastructure.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Doesn't work in Linux But for $1.27 you can use Voipbuster to call a dozen countries unlimited minutes for free.
Quality is fairly good. A friend of mine has dumped his local phone service and is using this for all his calls.
I seriously don't understand why MS is moving away from where it should be focused.
The moment they announced the takeover, they moved the website and fucked it, check out http://teleo.msn.com/ As usual MS will release the product with tons of bugs.
Now Google with it's half scrambled egg-products can't kill MSN messenger or Yahoo(the better amongst all, yet remaining silent). Google is nothing more than a hype. Ask them to add better features and I am sure they will have as many bugs as MS has because the same programmers are writing code.
Anyway, the heat for time to release will only help Yahoo I think because their products seem to be resonably stable and reliable.
Chris
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
for $20/mo. you have unlimited calls not just US and Canada but also a total of 21 countries. Including UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Norway, Oz...
pretty sweet if call quality is decent.
Why should Microsoft care whether it's deemed "legal" or not? They'll go ahead and do it, at the "risk" of paying a small pittance after a decade-long Justice Dept. investigation (provided the Administration at the time is even interested in pursuing them). Meanwhile, this "Skype" becomes a smoldering corpse.
Come on, we've seen the "re-runs" of this show time and time again. Does the ending *ever* change?
-a.d.-
I'm Erwin Schrodinger and I approve of this message, and I do not approve of this message!