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Skype Announces Skype For Business

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ready-for-the-bigtime dept.

conq writes "Skype has launched a new offensive to go after small business dollars. From the BusinessWeek article: 'The company is unveiling Skype for Business, aimed at small companies with fewer than 10 employees, on Mar. 9. Skype for Business will include a new Web site, Skype.biz, as well as a host of features and hardware. While Skype has introduced features appealing to business users one by one for the past six months, the new announcement marks the beginning of a concerted effort.'"

29 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Non Intel based businesses? by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 4, Funny

    If a company uses Apple or AMD systems, does that mean they have to fire 5 employees?

  2. No More Phones? by DarkNemesis618 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I guess actual phones are becoming obsolete. There's something to be said though about the reliability of phone lines. Should the network go down, Skype would become useless. Most business networks are pretty reliable but still aren't perfect.

    --
    What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
    1. Re:No More Phones? by AIX-Hood · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well that's the real problem right there. How do you call your ISP for network outage support when your phone lines (skype controlled) are down also. Suddenly people start reaching for cell phones.

    2. Re:No More Phones? by just_von · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How do you call your phone company when your phones are down to tell them you have a problem?

    3. Re:No More Phones? by XorNand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's more than just phones that's going to prevent adoption. Sure, there's a good amount of tech savvy businesses out there who would be willing to use something like this. However, there are 100x times as many businesses who would be saving a ton on their phone services if they could spell VoIP. Small business phone service is ungodly expensive. In many cases, they're spending more on their telecom services per month than they do rent. I've been working with a subscriber with a small, six-person office, with five phone lines and who makes a decent chunk of long distance calls. Their phone bill is over $600/mo! And they dropped $4k the phone system hardware four years ago.

      The only way 95% of small businesses out there will ever adopt VoIP is if they are handheld through the process. Even if they know they'll save a ton of dough, working phones are just too critical to companies for them to throw caution to the wind. At the risk of giving away trade secrets ;-) that's the angle the VoIP company I work for is taking. We seek out partnerships with independant computer techies, VARs, and consultants who have small businesses as clients. These are the people that have the ear of business owners when it comes to making technology decisions. In return, we pay the partner a monthly stipend/retainer to support the subscriber. Businesses are *much* more likley to adopt something like this if they know they have a local expert that they contact in case of problems.

      While Skype is cool and can save them ton a cash what's even more important to businesses is a level of trust. I don't know a business owner in their right mind who would put their phone service in eBay's (the owner of Skype) hands. Their level of customer service is worse than Verizon.

      --
      Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
  3. "Sounds" good to me ! by Mr.+Funky · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Especially the caller-log-thingie is very interesting.
    Here's a link to the biz-section : http://www.skype.com/business/

    --
    Damnit Jim, I'm [root@localhost w00t]#, not an AD-Adminstrator(tm) !
  4. skype 2 for MacOS... by oriol · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When are they ging to port skype 2 for Mac OS.
    I'd really like to have visio-conferences from my powerbook...

  5. So when your DSL goes down.... by frinkacheese · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You go to the pub :-) Cus you won't be able ot diddly squat as you'll have skype for telephony, gmail for email, and the new google web office suite for your applications.

    1. Re:So when your DSL goes down.... by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For some of us, losing your Internet connection is the worst part of that. Unless I'm updating my accounting or writing a proposal that doesn't need any additional research, there's almost nothing I can do. I take advantage of those times to play around in Ruby on Rails or read a book.

      Not all businesses are as dependent on Internet as mine (web development)... But many businesses still keep their cell phones around. And with some VoIP providers, you can have your calls forwarded to your cell phone.

  6. So what will the big phone companies do now? by digitaldc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They will have to lower their prices for their services, otherwise they will start losing millions. So this a win-win situation for the consumer?

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    1. Re:So what will the big phone companies do now? by aussie_a · · Score: 2, Funny

      Except for the idiots who migrate completely to Skype, it is a win-win for consumers. But then, the business world isn't intended for idiots to survive.

    2. Re:So what will the big phone companies do now? by IflyRC · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The news of AT&T buying Bellsouth this week has prompted a lot of new speculation on how the phone companies plan on competing. Most of it has to do with media. With high speed DSL lines, phone companies could offer many of the same services cable providers offer today. Especially view on demand type services.

      So, it's possible that we will see great diversification on the telco side with other companies like Skype coming in to fill in the gaps.

      Most small businesses though would probably choose to bundle their internet access, landline and mobile phone charges therefore the telcos still win. It would be hard to convince me as a business owner to continue to pay my telco or cable provider for an internet connection in addition to the cost of one of these setups. Just choose a telco bundled service offering and save.

    3. Re:So what will the big phone companies do now? by oirtemed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is one theory. The other theory involves lobbying and new laws.

    4. Re:So what will the big phone companies do now? by garcia · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They will have to lower their prices for their services, otherwise they will start losing millions. So this a win-win situation for the consumer?

      They are going to charge for the bandwith to go over their lines, attempt to pay off legislators to block its adoption, make sure it becomes "unreliable" when reaching customers that use their lines, put millions into advertising against it, etc.

      With the (again, bleh) continued consolidation of the telcos, they are only getting stronger. You think that they are going to stand by while some grassroots/cheaper option takes over? Give me a break.

  7. Congratulations, Skype! by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Funny

    I believe you're the first non-spammer to use a .biz domain!
    There should be an award for these things to improve .biz adoption. ;-)

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  8. Re:Skype for Linux by ajs318 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And while we're at it, the source code would be nice.

    Failing that, just use a commonly-available hardware SIP phone which will work with the Asterisk software PABX.

    --
    Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
  9. With VOIP becoming more attarctive by the day.. by mysterious_w · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will governments (especially those who still have state-run telephone systems) try to figure out a way to tax this somehow? Seems a bit too good to be true.

    1. Re:With VOIP becoming more attarctive by the day.. by ajs318 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Encrypted VOIP will be damn nigh impossible to tax or regulate. Encrypted traffic is just encrypted data; and there is no way to know what it is without decrypting it. Which, depending on the encryption algorithm, may well take a long, long time and is not even certain to produce anything useful {since any given cyphertext could be the result of any one of a large number of plaintext/key pairs}.

      Skype is reckoned to be encrypted, but this claim cannot be verified, as the source code is not available for perusal; it must be assumed that at least Skype themselves, and possibly The Authorities, have the power to listen to Skype calls.

      SIP or IAX over SSL/TLS would be much more secure, since these are open protocols and the only secret is the encryption key.

      --
      Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
  10. They better improve their support! by madman101 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Over two weeks to straighten out a problem. If that happened at work, we would have dumped them...

  11. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Skype is really not the way to go with VOIP. It's entirely proprietary and doesn't allow you to communicate with other VOIP networks unlike SIP based providers. Imagine if your mobile could only call other phones on the same network...?

  12. Skype didn't work for us by silverbax · · Score: 3, Informative

    We signed up with Skype to test it out - it took WEEKS to get set up, although our payment cleared immediately. We never recieved real response in the way of customer service, so we moved to NetZero's VOIP - it was set up within minutes, has always worked and calls anywhere.

    Skype = Hype.

    1. Re:Skype didn't work for us by moniker_21 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I had that exact same problem. Well, almost exactly the same. It took about 24 hours and a strongly worded email from me to get my account acvitated, even though my payment had cleared already. They told me they are having intermitent problems with their payment system wherein some accounts take longer to be activated then others. It was a frusterating start, but once I did get setup I've found Skype to be pretty awesome.

      --
      I posted to /. and all I got was this stupid sig
  13. Skype vs Vonage vs ...? by SEWilco · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So why use Skype rather than Vonage? Vonage has fax service, I see. Any other competitors?

    1. Re:Skype vs Vonage vs ...? by Lokni · · Score: 2, Informative

      The question is... does Vonage's fax service work? In my experience... no it does not. I tried hard with several fax machines to get a fax to go over Vonage. Couldn't do it.

  14. Toronto Wifi Network by Old+Number+7 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With the Toronto downtown core going WIFI we might consider purchasing WIFI VOIP phones for employees. I do not know how the wireless companies plan to compete in this new market.

  15. Skype can be turned into a botnet ... by tonk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... is what some smart people demonstrated at BlackHat Europe: Silver Needle in the Skype

  16. Stiff competition by grasshoppa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They have some stiff competition from Asterisk, which is just starting to gain some serious momentum.

    Would you rather have;

    1) A completely open system, based on commodity hardware

    or

    2) Locked in system?

    Most people I talk with love asterisk BECAUSE it's based on standards. These are business owners I'm talking about. They dislike avaya's and co attempts to lock them in, and appreciate asterisk's openness.

    Well, that, and asterisk can do *ANYTHING*.

    Add in the fact they setup arbitrary limitations, and I don't think they are taking the business sector seriously.

    --
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  17. They're already trying... by kaniaro · · Score: 2, Interesting

    US government has already tried it, and the FCC is on our side. For now. But when South Dakota makes abortion virtually illegal, do you really trust our government to do what's in our best interests? They'll do anythign they can to get their paws on it somehow. They (the illusive "man/men for proper conjugation") are trying to get us to pay for email, for fuck's sake! It's up to us and how much BS we're willing to deal with. Sony's DRM didn't last long, now did it? The market will even itself out, or that's the going theory...

  18. "when phones are down" by God'sDuck · · Score: 2, Insightful

    phones go down?