Is WebEx "Dead Man Walking?"

Skype rocks. Why do you think Volpe tried to rip off it's core technology?

One interesting thing about skype is that they will be adding an app store / extension platform (much better than what they gave today) really soon. You couple together a distruptive killer product in Skype and a developer base that can monetize across 500+ million accounts, and you have something truly special and even more distruptive.

Roy // Magento

Yes, Skype does rock. I used to use it daily. In the past year I really slowed down. I suspect I will be using it much more again.

Great stuff, I really had not realized skype had taken off to that extend. They to the size that they can easily “pull a google” in any field related to telco. Due to their size and penetration they can offer these free products that a smaller company just could not compete with, but the flip side is that plenty of startups can then benefit from this free service.

Yes, I think it is going to be one of the next really, really, really big tech success stories. At $2.75 billion I think it's a bargain. Hats off to their investors. And frankly to eBay for knowing that they needed to spin it out to create real innovation since it's non-core to them. But smart to retain 35%. Smart, indeed.

Skype would be so much more useful if they would finally release three way (or more) video chat. The only free alternative is ichat and besides being Apple specific, it's also very buggy. Until Skype has this feature, there's still plenty of corporate market available for Webex, et. al., because you often need to do video chats that involve more than 2 people.

Ultimately Skype will ben an unstoppable force in screen sharing.

For the moment though, how sophisticated is their client? I use Go2meeting a lot for long distance meetings and am always paranoid to share only the things I want to share. Not my email inbox, not the directory with all my client names for example. Go2meeting let's you control these things very well. But hey, if Skype does not have these features yet, they are easy to code.

It is interesting to see how screen sharing is hugely important for a productive long-distance meeting, and video (of a talking head) is actually not.

Clearly this would be a good revenue opportunity for Skype, but also a great way to increase user acquisition. Webex and Gotomeeting require first time users to download their client-now people who might not have had a reason to download Skype would get it as the “price of admission” for engaging in a web conference. Brilliant.

I didn't even realise this feature had been released into Skype, so many thanks indeed. I'd previously been using Mikogo. The fact that there are a bunch of people with Skype already installed will almost certainly lead me to use that instead (if it makes the grade).

The bigger point about specialising is an interesting one. I agree with the principle of “do one thing well”, but I also quite like taking the idea of “T-shaped people” and applying it to products. Do one thing, really well, but have a range of other features that act as “gravy”. The challenge is knowing when to divert resources onto these other areas, i.e. deciding when you're doing that one thing well.

Mark, you know what is the most interesting part of this blog post? What's not on it…

MSN Messenger had some pretty f—ing amazing screenshare, video chat and remote control (so you could control the other party computer) for a decade or more. I've used it extensively, mostly because my family was in Brazil and they needed me to fix something on their computer. Yet, Microsoft failed to make this a business tool (they tried, but only worked inside the corporate firewall) and they fail to open up in a meaningful way.

Now, Skype is bringing a decade+ old technology and it surprises you like it is brilliant (not trying to offend you). Which, maybe, proves there is a correlation between fashion and technology: Everything old is new again.

I abandoned MSN Messenger in favor of Skype just recently, and there screenshare is pretty bad compared to Messenger, but I can't do business on Messenger. Plus, the core functionality of MSN Messanger, chat, has been replaced by Facebook and Google Chat.

Different topic, important for you: When I clicked on Google Reader to come here to leave a comment, IE8 gave me a warning saying this site/page was not safe in big-red letters. You might want to check what's up with that.

Could not agree with you more Joe. One can only hope this will not be long in arriving on the scene now, meanwhile we are glad to have GoToMeeting (no investment here; just very useful for out purposes).

Really like your comments Jan: Exactly follows our own thoughts on this topic. The particular advantage, if any, of being able to see a “talking head” applies only in a “negotiating” event such as a sales effort or a contract discussion where body (facial) language is always a very important element, otherwise sharing screen views is really the most important and valuable aspect of web inter-communication functionality … that is after first keeping the family happy while busy in some remote part of the world.

Very thoughtful title Mark: You've put together a really good compilation of the relative merits of the primary tools available to day for business related inter-communication as well as also reiterating the fundamental rule for scoping strategic direction of any business venture intent upon growing to significant size and sustaining itself along the way. Overall, as users of GoToMeeting (no investment here) and spurred on by your comment “worry about companies that spread themselves too broadly” encouraged me to blog my own observations upon these respective topics. Thank you for the background work. Enjoy Shanghai and keep the family happy remembering that a happy wife is a happy life” and it does no harm to keep the kids happy along the way

I remember being oft frustrated and disappointed with MSN Messenger overall even though the screenshare functionality was excellent when it worked: It was a technology ahead of its time back then and it should have been developed but, like many of Microsoft's forays beyond its core scope, they missed the boat, I think, largely because they could not accept thinking “beyond the corporate MS firebox”, so-to-speak, in their myopic objective of “owning the world” with their software. Look where that philosophy has left them: No returns to investors now in over ten years and a pack of Google wanna-be's snapping at their market base?

Mark, could you expand on this: “because I always route for UK-based companies” ?

I would think that such sort of “going broad” approach is often adopted by tech-heavy founding teams who find it easy to deploy products and but find it hard to understand that marketing these features is as big if not an even bigger challenge.

Another thought that I had while I was typing this: On several occasions you have referred to start-ups as being “FNAC” (Feature, Not A Company). May be we need a new acronym for companies that deploy many features hoping to become one company? MFNAC?

Yeah, and I'm sure there are other differentiated features that will help WebEx maintain its premium customers. But for most I can't help but thinking it's toast.

Interesting I feel that video chat builds a much deeper relationship than slide sharing. There is something to be said about being in meetings in person. You develop a more human relationship and start building trust. Skype doesn't replace that but it does help you to better get a sense of the other person much more so than a telephone call or web conference alone.

re: T-shaped – fair enough. But companies get lulled into a sense of “we'll just build a lightweight portion of those features,” but when clients start using the features that aren't as deep they start requesting feature improvements and grow frustrated when you don't respond. And this happens across many features so you die a death by a thousand cuts. Your development resources can get sucked into tons of low value added improvements.

re: MSN – I used it for years even as Skype rose in prominence. But eventually I switched. Why? 1) MSN had too much other BS on their product trying to monetize from me. 2) Everybody I wanted to connect with seemed to be downloading Skype. Even my parents! 3) the connection quality on sounds was much better on Skype eventually.

But then Skype was bought and seemed to be heading the way of MSN. They started introducing all sorts of spammy ways of trying to monetize me and I stopped using it. Now that they realize the hugh asset they have on their hands I *think* they'll work hard to keep the tool from looking to schloky. We'll see.

regarding “bringing decade+ old technology and it surprises you like it is brilliant” – mate – you could say that about anything. I was using IM and group scheduling products on IBM mainframes in the late 80's / early 90's. Am I supposed to think that Twitter / IM as technologies are revolutionary? Come on. What I'm saying is that the technology is become more ubiquitous, more the accepted part of the norm, better designed, cleaner, easier-to-use and better quality. And these are the imperceptible improvements that drive mass global adoption. My Skype call with my family from Shanghai was an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE more clear than the MSN video calls I did between London and California in 2004. Order. Of. Magnitude.

re: IE8 problems – thank you for pointing out. I appreciate it. I was having some problems because somebody had hacked my site and inserted dubious hidden ads into the text. We've cleaned up most of it – seems maybe some is remaining. I'll look into it.

Best,
Mark

Exactly. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. But didn't.

I lived there for a decade and started my first company there. So I still have a big affinity for all things British. But especially young tech companies!

Or how about TMFBTS (too many features, bound to suck!).

I'll have to work on something catchier!

This is all very encouraging to hear as an ex-pat Brit' who was transferred to the US in the first place just to start up a new division here for a very advanced-tech VC funded US company.
Of course, “can't beat 'em, so join 'em” and now a US citizen yet there are real opportunities back in the UK even today and these tools make it perfectly possible to do business with people there or even elsewhere even as equally far removed from here in CA. Skype is really terrific for establishing rapport with your prospect/client if you cannot reach them in any other way.
… On the other hand, I still remember back in the day using Fax: Even once explained a novel technology development idea that I had come up with as an solution to a situation by using Ham Radio communication between the UK and Canada! I hasten to add, not to make a sale or do business per se but simply to discuss the technical issues involved.
We have come an extraordinarily long way in inter-communication capabilities in the past couple of decades but my bet is, especially since we are now, as just announced this week, imminently going to see the real practical merging of TV and Internet, we aint seen nothing yet.

I also use Skype as an email alternative. Especially for people I communicate with frequently. I tell them not to email me and to IM me on Skype instead. We share files on Skype. We screenshare. We “go voice”. Skype more-or-less displays a history of our conversation by default so we can always pick up where we left off.

If Skype figures out how to integrate some Yammer-style technology for groups, they'll own the universe. Skype is great for 1-on-1 but not for groups.

By the way Skype for Mac has had screen-sharing since Jan 2009 (almost 1.5 years now) and the Windows version has had it since May 2009. Yes, the Mac version actually came first.

I hope Skype and A16Z re-focus on the product. It's been languishing since the eBay acquisition.