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Microsoft Buying Skype for $8.5B
Approximately one trillion readers wrote in to tell us that there is a big rumor that Microsoft is buying Skype. This follows an earlier rumor that the
suitor was Facebook. Unsurprisingly many people are already wondering what it would mean for Linux users of the popular VoIP platform. Many major publications are running versions of the story.
Google Voice is pretty nice, gmail has an integrated client.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Aaaand this is why you never go proprietary. They can stop an application in it's entirety without anyone being able to pick it up and continue the work.
Wikipedia says:
The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an IETF-defined signaling protocol, widely used for controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol (IP). The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party (unicast) or multiparty (multicast) sessions consisting of one or several media streams. The modification can involve changing addresses or ports, inviting more participants, and adding or deleting media streams. Other feasible application examples include video conferencing, streaming multimedia distribution, instant messaging, presence information, file transfer and online games.
*That's* the alternative.
There are dozens of decent VoIP apps out there
But your grandma only has one one of them: Skype. Due to the network effect, Skype has an effective monopoly on free phone service. While the barrier to entry in this market is technically low, in the real world filled with real users it's probably insurmountable. It looks like Microsoft thinks that the barrier would take at least $8.5B to overcome; otherwise they'd go with their normal instinct to just copy other vendors' technologies.
Grandma isn't going to want to unlearn Skype and learn how to use a sluggish Flash-based solution, either.
There are dozens of decent VoIP apps out there
Due to the network effect, Skype has an effective monopoly on free phone service. While the barrier to entry in this market is technically low, in the real world filled with real users it's probably insurmountable.
Yeah. It's lilke MySpace. I sure wish something would come along to improve on MySpace. But hey, what ya gonna do? They're entrenched.