Too Much Skype, Not Enough Product Planning

Too Much Skype, Not Enough Product Planning

Skype has launched a series of services that all seem to confuse, confound and basically befuddle.

First was Skype Unlimited--This means make all the Skype Out and Skype Forward calls you want from the USA to USA and Canada. Okay. This makes sense. One price flat rate calling. This makes your phone budget very predictable.

Then came Skype Pro--this adds unlimited calling and a bunch of bundled features, but it seems to be aimed at the NON-USA market first. It also seems to intrude on Skype Unlimited in some ways, but add some neat features at no cost. Bottom line is if have Pro you don't need Unlimited but if you have Unlimited you may still want Pro for some features.

Now there is Skype ToGo which requires Skype Pro. It looks like a clone of Mint Telecom except that it uses your Skype minutes. This is useful as a "minute stealing" defensive play. My guess is that Skype looked at Jajah and said, our customers are using that, so lets make up something simple that keeps things Skype. They also likely looked at MobiVox and saw some minutes being driven over that access gateway and said, we need to do more here.

What would have made sense would have been to just include Skype ToGO in Skype Pro and call it a day. For those who signed up for Skype Unlimited they should have been given Skype Pro for the balance of 2007. In 2008 they should be offered Skype Unlimited or Skype Unlimited Pro and that way they can decide which way ToGo.

End of the day, Skype keeps looking more and more like a phone company, albeit a 2.0 version. So where is the E911?