Forget Skype, Google Acquires Gizmo5 VoIP Startup Instead
November 11, 2009 by tcgames · Leave a Comment
Wow, remember a few weeks ago when Skype was beset by multiple legal actions from its founders and was in talks to acquire VoIP startup Gizmo5 to replace the underlying codebase that they were being sued over? Well things seem to be moving fast in the VoIP world because today, not only did Skype and its founders come to an agreement and save the underlying codebase, but Gizmo5 got acquired after all–just not by who’d we expect.
Google pounced on the peer-to-peer VoIP provider Gizmo5 just as its chances of being acquired by Skype had been dashed. Gizmo5 is an unscaled, but proven peer-to-peer VoIP provider. It has six million users for its SIP-based P2P VoIP service. The service would add the a PSTN link to allow incoming or outbound calls to real phones which Google Voice currently lacks. According to TechCrunch sources, Google has bought Gizmo5 for $30 million, but the official announcement has yet to be made.
According to the Washington Post, Skype was going to purchase peer-to-peer VoIP startup Gizmo5 for around $50 million. The purchase was part of a back-up plan in the event that it’s lawsuit with Joltid resulted in the company not having access to the underlying code Skype uses to make VoIP calls.
Skype Adds 37M More Users, Revenue Jumps To $170M In Q2
July 28, 2009 by tcgames · 2 Comments
Skype’s second-quarter revenue increased 25 percent year-over-year to $170 million, according to financial statements released by corporate parent eBay. Skype also saw its registered user base grow to 480.5 million for a staggering 75 million user increase during the first half of 2009.
Skype’s second-quarter revenue was up $17 million from Q1, a 9 percent increase, and it also added 37.3 million new users in Q2, slightly less than the 37.9 million it added in Q1.
According to the earnings release, Skype in addition to adding users, the company is also "focused on product strategies to enhance customer engagement."
Another positive quarter of growth for Skype could mean an increased IPO price as eBay gears up to take the VoIP company public in early 2010. That is, of course, if eBay and Skype’s cofounders settle a lawsuit over the P2P tech that’s at the heart of Skype’s client.
For more:
- see the press release here
Vonage Will Release Apps For Smartphones
July 28, 2009 by tcgames · 2 Comments
Vonage, a VoIP services provider, is making its first move to mobile by developing smartphone applications, the New Jersey-based company has confirmed to us. The news was first reported by Gadgetell. Unfortunately, Vonage wouldn’t provide many details on the applications other than to say it’s in talks with “top” smartphone makers, and that the applications will be available in the second half of 2009 and will offer competitive international calling rates. Vonage’s shift to mobile follows in the footsteps of Skype and smaller competitors such as Fring, Nimbuzz and Truphone, all of which have released applications for the iPhone (see past coverage here.) We won’t be surprised if they released an iPhone app, they are certainly late to the party.
Nevertheless, this is still a wise strategy for Vonage to expand its customer base, as the company will now be able to lure people who don’t want to give up their landline phones but want the ability to make international calls using VoIP on their mobile phones.
A Vonage spokesman also said the company is working on “integrating communication products so that consumers can easily link home phones, cell phones and computers.” All of which is a significant shift from Vonage’s traditional business model, which until now has been based on replacing landline phones by selling special devices that use broadband networks to carry voice calls.
Skype founders want to buy back company from eBay
April 13, 2009 by tcgames · Leave a Comment
It looks like a serious bid to buy Skype from eBay is coming to the table from co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. The duo have reportedly talked up several private equity firms to put together a multi-billion dollar offer for Skype.
Reports say eBay wants at least the $1.7 billion current book value of Skype, while Zennstrom and Friis are trying to raise a billion in private cash with eBay possibly putting a seller’s note together for another $1 billion. Given Skype had revenues of $145 million in Q4 2008, setting up a financing instrument for the purchase of a company expected to generate more than $500 million in 2009 shouldn’t be that tough.
Skype was originally sold to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion and bonus payments increased the final price to $3.1 billion, so both Zennstrom and Friits are also likely good for a large chunk of cash on a repurchase effort.
Since buying Skype, eBay has been confused as to what to do with the company, ‘fessing up that the communications company hasn’t blended well with its core competencies of e-commerce and payments businesses.
Other buyers for Skype may be scared off/locked out of discussions due to low-key intellectual property discussion between eBay and Skype founders. In a recent regulatory filing, Joltid, which – surprise — was founded by Zennstrom and Friis – has terminated eBay’s license to Joltid’s peer-to-peer technology at the heart of Skype. The lawsuit is currently in a British court and also begs the question as to why eBay didn’t get exclusive rights to Skype’s peer-to-peer technology in the first place when it shelled out the original $2.6 billion.
Skype For iPhone Gets 2 Million Downloads In One Week
April 11, 2009 by tcgames · Leave a Comment
Skype reported Tuesday it has logged 2 million downloads for its Skype for iPhone application, a bit more than a week after the application was released at CTIA. To get such a number, downloads have had to occur at an average of two to three per second since the app first appeared.
It’s a big number considering that around 4 million iPhones have sold between product launch and the end of 2008, but you could dilute it down a bit if you throw in however many million iPod Touch owners may have downloaded the app.
Regardless, 2 million downloads in a week is still a big number, no matter how you might want to divvy up the pie between the total number of iPhones and iPod Touches sold. It is also likely a number to grow larger and be freely bandied about during Skype’s lobbying efforts at the FCC and the EU, as it fights restrictions and/or banning of the application by carriers.
Skype Fuels FCC Fight for an Open Wireless Internet
April 7, 2009 by tcgames · Leave a Comment
Skype’s free iPhone application is stirring up debate again. Available on Apple’s App Store on March 31, the app first stirred debate after being blocked by Deutsche Telekom in Germany. Now Skype is fueling debate on network neutrality.
Skype’s Voice over Internet Protocol app gives users Skype calling and instant messaging on Apple iPhones and second-generation iPod touches. The application, which saw more than one million downloads in the first two days after being made available, allows users to make calls on the iPhone over a Wi-Fi connection, but not on AT&T’s 3G cellular network.
The limitation, which has been formally imposed by Apple’s App Store policies, has caused groups such as the Free Press to ask the Federal Communications Commission to investigate whether Apple and AT&T are breaking federal rules. The Free Press wants the FCC to clarify whether its Internet Policy Statement for an open Internet applies to wireless service providers who also offer broadband Internet access service.
Competition at Core
The Free Press complaint comes after a senior AT&T official was quoted in USA Today as saying that AT&T expects its vendors to not facilitate the services of competitors. That statement indicates it won’t be developers who have control over wireless innovations, but wireless carriers through restrictive language used to control the use of applications and services on their network, according to the Free Press.
The Free Press says the mobile Internet should be as free as the Internet users access from fixed locations.
“This issue is not new — it is simply unresolved,” said Ben Scott, policy director at the Free Press. “Wise voices at the FCC have long said that the Internet Policy Statement applies to wireless. As more and more consumers begin to access the Internet wirelessly, it is critical that the FCC clarifies that online consumer protections that…
German Telecom Bans Use of Skype on the iPhone
April 3, 2009 by tcgames · Leave a Comment
Just two days after announcing an application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, Skype has hit a roadblock. On Thursday, Deutsche Telekom, a German wireless provider, banned use of the application on the iPhone and said anyone caught using it will face a contract suspension.
Skype, owned by eBay, has more than 405 million registered users who communicate for free by voice, video calls, and instant messages.
Deutsche Telekom, which has exclusive rights to the iPhone in Germany through its T-Mobile business, said iPhone contracts block Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls, which Skype uses. The blocking has been in the contracts since 2007, spokesperson Alexander von Schmettow told the Associated Press.
Schmettow said using the iPhone application, which offers free Skype-to-Skype calls and fee-based calls to mobile devices and landlines, could slow down T-Mobile’s network.
Blatant Blocking
Skype’s legal counsel, Robert Miller, charged that Deutsche Telekom is using technology as an excuse to blatantly block Skype. He insisted the network is not slowed.
Nearly 24 hours after being made available, the free application had more than 600,000 downloads through Apple’s App Store, according to Skype.
“What amazes me is that Skype is the number-one download on the App Store in Germany, and yet the country’s dominant telecom operator, Deutsche Telekom, has already made it known that it would block the use of Skype on iPhone and BlackBerry, both for its mobile network customers and at its Wi-Fi hot spots,” Miller wrote in a blog post.
“I find it quite telling that Deutsche Telekom would be so bold as to announce this arbitrary blocking of Skype,” he said. “They pretend that their action has to do with technical concerns; this is baseless. Skype works perfectly well on iPhone, as hundreds of thousands of people globally can already readily attest.”
Worlds Collide
“It underscores the tension as…
Skype For iPhone Now Available In U.S.
March 31, 2009 by tcgames · Leave a Comment
Engadget has a report on how Skype for the iPhone is doing so far…
It’s finally here, and even a few minutes early. Skype for iPhone is now available in the US iTunes store, free of charge. We’ve heard great thing from the folks in Japan who’ve been fiddling with it for the last twelve hours, and so far it’s sounding pretty good for us, too, with only minor hiccups. Not sure if it’s a glitch, but despite what we heard earlier, we seem to be able to dial out while on 3G and not over WiFi (at least running OS 3.0 beta). Hit up the read link for quickest route to the app store page, and let us know what you think. Betcha wish you could ditch that AT&T voice plan now, huh?
Update: We’re getting reports the app is crashing for jailbroken iPhones — and possibly non-jailbroken ones as well. We just got our first denial when dialing out over 3G via a popup notification, but it only happened once and we were back to old habits one call later. We did experience a brief period where no sound was coming through, but that might have something to do with using OS 3.0 and was remedied by restarting the phone.
Update 2: So far, it looks like dialing over 3G’s only working for those with OS 3.0 beta, but unfortunately all of us in that situation are now suffering from frequent crashes and loss of audio. Things seem to be going smoothly for those running the latest non-beta firmware, but the calls only work over WiFi. That said, when using the app as intended (non-beta firmware over WiFi), audio quality was surprisingly good, far better than any third party apps we’ve used.
AT: Good question. As an actor it’s actually a lot like doing theatre. Very minimalist theatre. The words, the characters, the relationships, the moment all become heightened. There are no distractions. We have props and key set pieces, so that helps. But it is up to the DP, Camera, the Director and the actors to make the physicality work. It’s definitely a team effort. It doesn’t really take a lot longer to film once everyone has figured out where everything is!
Caitlyanna writes: “1. What are some of your favorite memories working on Stargate? Favorite episodes?”
AT: That is such a hard question to answer because working on the show in general was so much fun. It was the afternoon giggles. The laughing until tears streamed down our faces. The general comfortable feeling of family and goofiness that the show fostered. It was so easy to be there. The cast, the crew, the producers, the writers, all were in on this lovely atmosphere. We prided ourselves on being the fun show that guest starts wanted to be on. I guess my favourite episode is Heroes, because it was everything that was great about our show. It showcased everyone well. And it was so intense.
“2. How hard is it to work on an almost all green screen set on Sanctuary? (Love the show by the way.)”
AT: Thank You!!!!! It is actually quite fun and quite liberating to work on a green screen set. Once you get used to the intensity of the green, you live in the moment. Your job is to sell the reality of the situation and the space. And it becomes more about the words and the scene. I really appreciate it a lot more now.
“3. What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not acting?”
AT: Hanging out with Olivia. We paint and play music. She has an incredible imagination and I love going on adventures with her. We walk a lot in the woods looking for fairy castles. It’s precious time and it goes by so quickly. She’s reintroduced me to “wonder”.
