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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. "
In the old days, an announcement like this would have been an instant death blow to the competing company. I am happy to note these days it is a relative non-event. This is not to say Microsoft's entry into a market cannot have a significant impact. But gone are the good old days where Microsoft simply had to announce some vaporware to stop a competitor in their tracks. From that perspective, things are better today than they used to be.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Microsoft intends to launch the service by the end of the year.
Why not wait until the end of the year to make an announcement when it will be news? Anything more than that is free advertising for something that doesn't exist. *sigh*
Speak truth to power.
Thats not entirely accurate. British Telecom have an add-on to Yahoo messenger that allows calls to landlines and cellphones.
Does anyone have any review info on Teleo? I would expect the service to be of simial quality to what Teleo did with a Microsoft look.
Evolution or ID?
Wasn't there a web site that let you place calls from a VOIP client to a landline, free, about 4 or 5 years ago? I remember it had a short queue, and showed some ads in the dialer application (presumably to fund the service), but it was a fairly clear signal and sounded fine even with my crummy $20 headset mic rig. I can't remember what it was called though... I saved a ton of long distance money through it in college.
... when it runs on Mac's and Linux boxes. Or, runs on anything other than soon-to-be-released-honest MS operating systems.
Oh, really? What happened to all the H.323 and SIP based services? Did they all vanish?
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
You're thinking like a geek. $10 bucks says most people's mothers who use MSN already (like those that use Yahoo, ICQ, AOL, etc) will use the service that pops up and says "Would you like to make a voice call to 'Your son in Italy' for only $10/mo". Probably saying to themselves: "A monkey is asking for my credit card number... That seems fair."
This is the world we live in. We talk about marketing being just FUD, but it's really not. People buy whatever people sell. I've seen funny stuff on infomercials that people obviously buy (a vacuum that sucks up your hair and cuts it with a blade inside the vacuum attachment- this was in the 'cut your hair at home' stage of the late 80's).
People will buy what seems reasonable and what you tell them to buy. Ask any marketing student. 99% of the market is uneducated as to what Skype is. Vonage has only made such headway through significant marketing, which M$ could outdo anyday... and who wouldn't switch to a M$ product that already runs their office, home, and play communications needs?
M$ integrates an ad and the feature into MSN Messenger, and they'll instantly have a LOT of people. No having to download additional software, no setup, no confusing additional software that may or may not hurt your computer... just works.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Skyp eis not the only one that allows landlines. Gizmo does too.
I hope Skype doesn't make the same mistake as every other company that tried to beat Microsoft at their own game. The best strategy for skype in a battle like this is play by their own rules. Specifically, they should completely open their protocol. If they try to pit one proprietary solution against a Microsoft proprietary solution, they will lose.
I'm tired of using "killer" for this stuff in general. It never really is a "killer" application, no matter what it is. Once an application is so wide spread that rivals need to be called "killer" it's rather obvious that that's not going to happen. Unless the dominant company is asleep at the switch that is. Otherwise, it's just marketing buzz. Skype is not going to be killed any time soon, all thats going to happen is Microsoft spends money.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
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
I seem to remember getting my first edition of windows 98 packaged, installing it, and seeing that the had a built in feature to place calls through your modem line, which somehow they had left enabled by default to be able to make long distance calls.....this was rectified in the second edition of windows 98....
I used to be able to call my friends in new york from canada for free....what ever happened to those good old days? I have been using skype religiously although without the skype in / out features...as they cost money, but i much prefer thinking that i dont need proxy servers to use my connection seeing as skype on a basic level is a p2p software....
I tend to think if microsoft where to really want to kick butt....they would have to go along ways like google to offer anything worthwhile.... atleast google is making an effort to roll everything into one virtual distribution....google dark fiber for free internet...then free telephones...then free library eBooks....then....hey wait....who has the monopoly again???
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 can't believe no-one's suggested this yet. Maybe because it's a really weak joke.
skype isnt the only one, at least one more major program can do it also:
voipbuster also allow net2phone connections (and even free for some european countries!!)
there is also a manual to work with linux
but there are more, at least around here (portugal/europe) http://voip.necty.com/ its also testing a voip to phone and it use kaix as its oficial client (so both windows and linux works fine)
Higuita
That's all I've got.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
My sister recently bought a new PC and that already had a Skype icon on the desktop so it would seem at least one retailer is automatically installing Skype as standard. Unless the MS Solution is really better I don't see why they would change their current policy.
"Skype is currently the only provider to allow calls to landlines and cellphones."
I currently call landlines on stanaphone (via both softphone and hardware-based SIP), iconnecthere (both softphone and hardware-based), and packet 8 (hardware based). Skype is certainly not the only one allowing calls to the PSTN, and they're certainly not the most flexible.
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
This brings me back to when Microsoft decided that search engines were cool and launched their search engine/Google killer.
I wonder what ever happened to that Google company after that.
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!!!"
monopoly aside microsoft does make a kick ass mouse!
This is really about Microsoft staking its claim in an emerging market. It doesn't mean they're going to strike oil. WebTV hasn't really led to a rush to adopt a Microsoft-dominated media/PC convergence model. And neither has Windows MCE. Microsoft's ventures outside its traditional Windows and Office franchises have not been particularly successful.
Nobody would think of phoning people through their PC if there wasn't temporarily a tariff anomaly - that's simply not going to persist in the long term.
The kind of thing that will persist is a rather different kind of innovative integration that delivers services that can be used on familiar devices (phones, televisions, etc) as well as PCs - an example of which might be HomeChoice.
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.
If Microsoft provided a IP service that could ring *all* phone numbers would certainly kill Skype.
...
There are a huge range of numbers that aren't accessable from Skype. This of coarse depends on which the country. In Spain for example, Skype cannot ring the special service numbers used by banks and other companies. These turn out to be very important for normal users, so in fact this what prevents people from replacing their phone compleatly and using Skype.
These are the so-called "special numbers"
This would be a killer blow to Skype if they could equal the quality of Skype and provide some extra features:
* Ability to ring *all* numbers, including "special"
Before anyone goes on about how MS will end up running everything with a proprietary protocol that noone else can interoperate with you should ask about Skype itself. You do realise that Skype is simply a propietary hacked version of SIP? We looked at what it does here (since we are in a similar line of business) and it is scary how convoluted they have tried to make it so that nobody else can provide service/equipment that interoperates with them. They are becoming a closed exclusive network that no other provider can operate with. Yes you can go out to the public network but what if you want to call someone on Skype? You have to use Skype. Why should I be forced to use a certain VoIP provider just to call another subscriber on that network? Anyway just my 2c given where I work have looked at a lot of the details of how these work. Also FYI MS messenger uses SIP to do it's VoIP side communication before you ask, i.e. non-proprietary.
Pick-up phone: Windows Xp will set you free...
...
...
please dial number you want to reach after the tone...
I never though I would overcome my intimate problem but Zentaz made me happy...
sound of you dialing...
your cal will be forwarded in a moment please stay on the phone to maintain your calling priority...
Enlarge you Manhood!...
dring... dring... dring...
The person at the end of the line as pick-up the phone, what do you want to do now? press 1 to ask this person name, press 2 to identify yourself and state the reason of your call, press 3 to talk immediately to the people that answered...
Drink Pepsi
You are now in communication, thank you for using Microsoft, WindowsXP will set you free...
I guess we'll finally find out what the color blue sounds like.
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
Over the last year MS introduced/announced:
/me puts on tinfoil hat
A 'google search killer'
An 'ipod killer'
A 'bittorrent killer'
A load of X killers that I can't be bothered to remember
now a Skype killer
How about, well I don't know, eh, ACTUALLY MAKING A DECENT OS THAT'S FINISHED ON TIME?
I guess that's asking too much.
Come on MS finish what you start before you do something else.
we NEED a slower operating system on our computers. It's the only thing that will lead to faster processors.
Or do you think it's a mere coincidence that since the introduction of WinXP and the long wait for it's successor, processor speed suddenly stopped doubling every 18 months?
It'll just be the next version of Windows. Ensure Skype doesn't run properly, and that'll kill them off long before it can come out in the courts that Microsoft was engaging in anti-competitive practices.
Ahhh... history... why do you repeat yourself?
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
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.
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.
Bad example. Apple goes out of their way these days to make sure people realize that you can plug ANY mouse into a Mac (as long as the plug fits) and it will work.