One Shot Design

In line with my own July 2008 speculations about the potential of Linux in the net book market, Matt Asay of cnet.com writes about The Quiet Ubuntu Netbook Revolution.

Founded in the Baltic area in 2003, Skype released a cross-platform software allowing to carry out chat, VOIP and later, video-calls, over a theoretically encrypted¹ network. The startup was acquired by eBay in 2005 and it steadily grew in popularity to become the World’s #1 chat and VOIP software, boasting over 300 million users. Skype doesn’t charge calls to other Skype users, but the charge for calls to landlines is hard to beat, sometimes amounting to a meager thousandth ($ 0.001) of dollar per minute.

The software has been ported to Microsoft desktop Windows, Windows Mobile, Apple Inc. OSX, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and AmigaOS. A version for Google’s android platform is available since January 2009 and the company announced today that a release of the application will be available on the iPhone application store.

I had reported on a SMC Skype WiFi phone used to make € 0.003 a-minute-calls to landlines in Western countries. Last week I decided to subscribe for unlimited calls to Europe and a real phone number for receiving calls. I can make calls either with my SMC WiFi handset, my Windows Mobile WiFi-enabled PDA or one of my GNU/Linux laptops with appropriate headset. All in all, it costs much less than a traditional phone line from my ISP. The Skype network is still unstable, with a few seconds of communication mash-up every 30 minutes and a communication drop every 2 hours, but the appeal of huge savings makes me bear with the flaws.

Skype for the iPhone (and the iPod Touch) is great news for Apple Inc. product owners, who will now be able to make some phone calls for free using WiFi or their subscription’s unlimited internet traffic. Needless to say, it will leave network carriers who planned to cash in on mobile phone traffic with a bitter taste. they might not let Apple Inc. get away with it.

¹: Reports do suggest that in 2006 Skype agreed to implement keyword filters to be allowed by authorities to run services in China. Several Western governments are talking about attempts to crack down the encryption or simply putting pressure to allow wiretapping; and the proprietary nature of Skype software does fuel suspicion over some sort of backdoor access.