18 Mar
2005
18 Mar
'05
7:37 p.m.
On Friday 18 March 2005 16:59, Eric Dantan Rzewnicki wrote:
That is my impression as well. But, how to convince
management that
the current most popular solution is not the best thing for the
organization to roll out just because it's what has made the first
big splash in the general population ....
Well, you could take the high road....
"Skype might be popular, but it's not a standard and it's not free
software. Sure, you don't have to pay for it now, but it could be
they'll start putting more and more obtrusive ads in it or charging
per seat or per minute for business users. We would have no control
over any of that."
Or you could take the FUD road.
"Skype? Didn't you know it's from the guys who wrote Kazaa? I sure
hope you're putting more money in the budget for virus cleaning and
intrusion recovery. Not to mention angry users."
I'm afraid of management getting caught up in
hype, offering a
service to users and down the road realizing that they are locked
into a proprietary protocol. I just did some googling and realize
my fears are founded. The skype protocol is entirely closed as far
as I can tell.
I'm sure it'll eventually be broken if it becomes a de facto standard
(c.f. iTunes), but by then they may have been bought by someone
bigger or gotten rich enough to try to suppress open implementations
of their protocol via patents or whatever.
Basically what is wanted is a way for people (most of
whom probably
don't run linux or care at all about Free Software) who aren't able
to get through during our call-in shows to leave messages without
paying the toll free (for the caller) charges of using the PSTN.
Skype offers a viable option for that, _now_. While I can't help
feeling that it is a slippery slope that will come back to bite the
organization in the future ... I also cannot offer a Free
alternative with the same ease of use and practically non-existant
barrier to entry for the potential callers.
Have you tried PhoneGaim under windows? I haven't, but I have
converted dozens of AIM and Yahoo users to Gaim under Windows, with
only one or two people switching back (because of the lack of webcam
support.) Either way you're gonna have to do tech support for
whatever you tell your people to use. If it does come down to "we're
using skype, and that's that", why not support both?
Rob