back to article Microsoft: We bought Skype. We make mobiles.. Oh, HANG ON!

Microsoft has given us a glimpse of Windows progress this week – and it was generally well received – particularly the one-year "grace period" allowing Windows 7 holdouts to climb on board for free. While price won't induce Enterprise customers to upgrade, lower retraining costs will –and the majority will wait to see what the …

  1. Pen-y-gors

    VOIP - Flavour of the month?

    With or without video, this seems to be the way to go. Just had an advert email from HMA, who do a very good VPN service, and are now offering HideMyPhone - one or more free new phone numbers to be used via their app, at a rate that is a lot less than I pay for normal mobile calls. I assume others are offering similar deals.

    But if M$ get their act together with wearable hardware and Skype, then yay, we have the Dick Tracey watch!

  2. h4rm0ny

    Bad idea.

    I have separate accounts for Work and Personal. Microsoft already had one abortive approach to merge my Windows account with Skype and my phone with Skype and they got a lot of angry push-back.

    The reason Lync is good and Skype is crap for business is that Lync actually supports group differentiation and different availabilities whilst Skype is approximately as advanced as a punch-card machine. Actually there are lots of other reasons why Lync is better than Skype but in this context that's the relevant one.

    If Microsoft want to force Skype integration into my other devices and accounts, they can go to Hell.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Bad idea.

      Actually there are lots of other reasons why Lync is better than Skype

      Actually, there are lots of reasons why Skype <strikethrough>was</strikethrough> better than Lync. I know Skype is a disaster for admins but it was successful because it was much better for users. I hate pretty much every aspect of Lync which I have to use for customers.

  3. IJC

    Time to rationalize

    "Most people overestimate what can be achieved in one year and under estimate what can be achieved in ten."

    One of Bill Gates most famous quotes. Journalists who have no understanding of what it takes to develop and synchronize large code bases representing multiple product streams really shouldn't write such stupid, misleading trash.

    Enterprise communications software isn't some crappy little phone app that can be knocked up in 5 minutes by some script kiddie.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: Time to rationalize

      You've obviously never worked with Microsoft's offerings then!

      The multiple product streams were the result of a bloated and dysfunctional product management which created the mess in the first place.

  4. ScissorHands
    Mushroom

    What is old is new again

    I'm looking at my three-year-old Nokia N9, running MeeGo, and I've always had Skype as a first-class citizen for phonecalls (a Skype phonecall can be placed through the "telephone app", just by pointing at a contact that has a Skype account) and messages (regular "Messages" app could send Skype, Google Talk, and even Facebook messages, before Facebook broke the API to segregate the messaging to the Messenger app). GoogleTalk videocalls, back when Google supported them, also worked the same way. Not having to use an app to make a call! Isn't that astonishing?

    However, since I don't use Skype that often I can't be sure if all the message streams for a contact were fused, or if I have a stream for each kind of contact. I think they were fused but you could filter by network.

    And I think Nokia Symbians (at least the N8/E7) could do the same. So good going, Nokia-now-Microsoft. It only took three (no, four) years to get back to where you were before committing seppuku. Congratulations.

    1. Terry Barnes

      Re: What is old is new again

      "(a Skype phonecall can be placed through the "telephone app", just by pointing at a contact that has a Skype account) and messages "

      Windows Phone has always done this too. I select a contact and I'm presented with an array of options for contacting them, including Skype.

  5. John Sanders
    Holmes

    """Some theories suggested that Microsoft didn't want to antagonize its carrier customers by bundling Skype so closely with the handset."""

    The Carriers have been antagonized a lot already; Elop during his tenure at Nokia fired many sales staff and forced others to leave, replacing the most competent and experienced carrier relations management experts with the bullies from Microsoft.

    The issue with carrier relations and retail got so bad, that every time there was a credit ratings downgrade of Nokia, the bad relationship with the carried was always cited as the reason by the rating agencies.

    "Skype is coming no matter what, but maybe we can do something creative that generates incremental revenue for you"

    Skype is an existential threat to the telecoms carrier community. Not a profitability threat like BBM or Whatsapp.

    A completely Skype-integrated platform destroys the carriers' profit without generating any money whatsoever for neither MS or the carriers.

    Skype never made any money all by itself, it only got cash from investors, the amount of people that bought Skype calls was minimal compared to the total user-base, but in exchange it killed both international calls and video-conferencing markets.

    The telecoms industry is 4 times as large as the computer industry, it is of the few very large industries that is experiencing good growth everywhere.

    Does anybody think the carriers will tolerate without a bloody fight that MS destroys their industry for the sake of selling handsets to further cement their Server/Desktop monopoly in business?

    We live in interesting times.

    But one thing is certain, MS growth is always at the expense (Destruction) of somebody else, the lack of room in the IT market to grow, and its voracity is leading MS to spread everywhere, and at some point somebody is going to say enough is enough.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      WTF?

      It killed both international calls and video-conferencing markets.

      Competition is such a bit, eh? International calls were a pure profit market kept up by the lack of competition. The carriers managed to keep the illusion going while all the same adopting the same VoIP technology they decried. Costs over a network have almost nothing to do with distance, so why should charges? Since the early 2000s multimedia traffic over the network has dwarfed voice traffic so it was only a matter of time for charging to catch up.

      There has never been a video-conferencing market: since the first phones from the early 1970s it's always promised to be the next great thing and never happened.

      1. John Sanders
        Facepalm

        >> Competition is such a bit, eh? International calls were a pure profit market kept up by the lack of competition.

        >> The carriers managed to keep the illusion going while all the same adopting the same VoIP technology they decried.

        Look I'm not defending the telcos here, I'm with you denouncing their blatant abuse, which incidentally acted as the motivation for creating & using Skype in the first place.

        The issue is not whether you or I like or not what MS is doing, or if we like or not the telcos, the point is that MS & Skype represent an existential threat to the telcos, which are not going to sit idle, and have way more power and influence than MS.

        Microsoft has a history and a reputation of putting their interest first and partners last, and a taste for crushing whoever they have to crush. They may be clumsy on the execution but they are relentless, I'm sure I do not have to give more examples.

        So I think the Skype integration is not going to be that great if MS wants to sell any MS phones "at all".

  6. Tim 11

    ...gradually becoming more coherent

    Don't forget the second law of thermodynamics though.

    You don't just kick off something in a "more coherent" direction and expect it to naturally gravitate there; lose sight of that goal and things will start getting chaotic again. And if there's one thing MS are good at, it's losing sight of their goals after 5 minutes

  7. Hans 1
    Coffee/keyboard

    Sidekick was supposed to compete with jesusPhone

    cd title

  8. captain veg Silver badge

    Lync

    "Nobody thought it was best solution, but it was lying around, so people started to use it."

    Did any of them get it to work? It's pretty much unusable in this organisation.

    -A.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If they abandon the Tiles for the Win 3.1 look&feel of Android...

    ... I will stop using Windows Phone.

    They got the best and useful UI for mobile, and of course they are going to ditch it to follow the antiquate Win 3.1 Program Manager style of others. Just because people say MS can't innovate, exactly because they can't see innovation and are afraid of it, and stick to old, outdated models.

    1. John Sanders
      Windows

      Re: If they abandon the Tiles for the Win 3.1 look&feel of Android...

      Last time I used an Android phone I do not remember having to run an application, leaving it, run another, and then find the program group where it minimized.

      I have used Winphones, Iphones and Androphones, and the only ones who let you change stuff you do not like are the Androphones.

      I think that you like the simplicity of modern Winphones, they are ok if you do not do much with the phone.

    2. Anonymous Bullard

      Re: If they abandon the Tiles for the Win 3.1 look&feel of Android...

      Innovation != something different.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If they abandon the Tiles for the Win 3.1 look&feel of Android...

      I will stop using Windows Phone.

      No, you'll be using "Windows" now that they're dropping the "Phone" from the name.

      Nice try, fanboy... you wouldn't dare use something else.

    4. Flat Phillip

      Re: If they abandon the Tiles for the Win 3.1 look&feel of Android...

      Someone who *liked* that Windows Phone tiles UI?

      Wow, the Internet does bring out the weirdos.

  10. 080

    I wish Skype worked

    After all these years, and latterly being owned by Microsoft, you would think that Skype would just work.

    No such luck, almost daily calls to NZ and France from a mixture of Android, Windows, Linux and the pay version via POTS all seem to have one or more causes for complaint be it poor voice quality, dropped calls, absolutely refusing to re-connect a dropped call, and none of this consistent. Sometimes the call quality is excellent and sometimes unusable.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: I wish Skype worked

      Welcome to the P2P nature of the beast I am afraid. As long as it remains P2P that will be the case. The performance is unpredictable. This is why I use it only for IM. If I have to do a call I pull hangouts and if I have to do a conference I (grudgingly) use Webex.

      Though frankly there is very little P2P left in Skype as it is, because the supernodes are now mostly from a population of dedicated server instances seeded on Microsoft Azure. None the less, the lack of predictable performance inherent to the architecture is still there.

      From that perspective the massive b***rdization of SIP in Lync is better. It also works nowdays - even on Mac and Android.

  11. JayKay

    How many times can they get it wrong?

    MSN Messenger, Skype, Lync, Nokia, Danger...

    Just a few of the products M$ has peddled to the masses over the years.

    Message to Redmond - MAKE SOMETHING COHERENT AND WORKS WELL!

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: How many times can they get it wrong?

      Um, Skype was being peddled to the masses long before MS got its grubby fat mitts on it.

      Anything that is wrong in Skype today was already wrong five years ago, so lets not blame MS for absolutely everything, shall we ?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Even if retraining costs are zero

    What is the incentive for an enterprise running Windows 7 to upgrade to Windows 10? Such upgrades require a ton of resources, so even if the cost is minor on the user side it certainly isn't on the IT side.

    Pretty much no enterprises upgraded to Vista, because XP had years of support left. They upgraded to 7 because they were getting close to the XP drop dead date (and the difficulty of the project meant some missed that deadline anyway)

    They'll move off 7 when it is soon to go off support. That may mean upgrading to a 10.x version, or may mean 11.x, depending on when the latter is released. They have zero incentive to make a jump off 7 in the next three years. It is all cost and no benefit.

  13. RNixon

    I miss the Sidekick.

    The article's right, but the picture caption's wrong - Microsoft didn't make the Sidekick. The Sidekick was made by Danger, who Microsoft later bought.

    Frankly, the Sidekick was the best messaging phone I ever used. The IM clients were very tightly integrated into the OS, as was the Twitter client. I don't recall if it did Facebook or not. (I think there was an app for it, but since the appstore is gone, I can't fire up my old one and check.)

    The SSH client was rock solid (critically important for me), the keyboard was excellent, and the web browser was one of the better mobile ones at the time. The apps were pretty weak - some games, calendars, and so on - but it was more of a mobile terminal than a smartphone.

    I wish I could get a phone that handled messaging as well now. My Blackberry comes close, and could match it if someone wrote a good BB10 Hub-integrated multi-IM client.

    1. mm0zct

      Re: I miss the Sidekick.

      It's not "new" but you might want to give the n900 a look, it's a fantastic phone for messaging and ssh (especially since it's runs X11, so if you have to do X-forwarding you can).

      Sadly the 256mb of RAM makes the "modern" web basically unusable, which led me to switch to the n9, but I sorely miss the physical keyboard (you might want to take a look at the neo900 project too).

  14. Andy E

    Skype on an iPhone is awful

    If you haven't tried the Skype app on an iPhone have a look at the comments on the iTunes store.

    This concerns me as my employer uses Lync extensively with all other IM's being blocked The main use for Lync is messaging and screen sharing to small groups of users and to be honest, Lync works very well.

    In common with some other posters I want to keep my work and non-work contacts separate. It's going to be interesting to see how the run down in Lync in favour of Skype will pan out. Badly I should think.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm, if forging a future on Skype, perhaps they'd like to share with us how they manage upstream server security given that these servers have a very chequered history of being 'open-listening posts' and very often end up located, well, everywhere...

  16. Andy 97

    I work (from home) for Americans based in Nevada.

    Lync is the desired tool of choice for them and I can honestly say that if MY business relied on Lync I'd be deeply concerned.

    Thankfully; Skype seems to fill the void.

    1. spegru

      integrate

      aaand you can connect Skype to Lync if you take out a microsoft account and use that on skype.

      It works ok, perhaps surprisingly

    2. spegru

      aaand you can connect Skype to Lync if you take out a microsoft account and use that on skype.

      It works ok, perhaps surprisingly

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