Ruminations on Russia

Some of the most powerful bloggers on the future, or lack of it, for the telecom industry have had a real go at Skype recently.



Here from Om Malik on legitimate comments on Skype 2.0 (albeit as a Mac user I had to kick an analyst off his PC for a while to play with it - no worries we don't pay him to have a life so he did not mind staying late anyway.)



Here from James Enck on the Yahoo offering and Verso's Skype-blocking.


And then one from Andy Abramson suggesting a little unease inside the company. As James has it the comments emanate from the West Coast and make significant reference to problems in the Estonian development center.


I have no reason to like or dislike Skype as a company (I have a different take as a technology and a further view as a service) but have an opportunity to sell a voice-engine that could replace the stranglehold that GIP's has on Skype so am always interested in a bit of salacious gossip.


Being somewhat closer to Estonia than the esteemed bloggers of the West Coast it was a little easier to have a same time of the day conversations with friends of friends. For those of you who are interested Estonians are a strange mixture of Swedes without the welfare state and Russians without a bottle of vodka. It makes them somewhat reserved and very self-sufficient. If your only interaction with an Estonian of any kind was Steve Jurvetson then you would be very surprised to meet a real Estonian. Steve would also throw many aliens off track if they captured him as a representative of the human race.


Anyway the local Estonian take on the unhappiness in Skype's ranks does not seem to ring true with the Estonian R&D center. Yes its strange having a bunch of strangers constantly wondering through the office - but changes seem to be minimal at the programmer level. There was also a little head scratching at the management change in London allegations.


Now I am not a Skype insider and I was fishing for information on the role of GIPS as a core part of the Skype offering so lets not pretend that I was getting all the story, but it does not fit with what is being blogged as gospel truth.

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