For those believers in MSFT

[txlaw]

Reed Hastings added to the board of Facebook.

 

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/23/facebook-adds-netflix-founder-and-ceo-reed-hastings-to-board/

 

Hastings also sits on the board of MSFT.  The ties between MSFT and Facebook are strengthening even further.  That's a good thing for MSFT shareholders.

[txlaw]

"Facebook Unveils Skype Video Calling and Group Chat"

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_unveils_video_calling_with_skype_and_grou.php

 

 

[ericd1]

Skype Averaging 300M Minutes Of Video Calling Per Month; Represents 50 Percent Of Traffic

 

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/skype-averaging-300-million-minutes-of-video-calling-per-month-represents-50-percent-of-traffic/

 

I would presume this also helps fill LVLT pipes!

[Liberty]

I'm surprised that video calling is just 50% of skype's traffic. Voice calls are a few kb/s (depending on which protocol it uses, between 3 and 10) while video is probably at least an order of magnitude more than that, and even more for high-rez video.

[nodnub]

I'm surprised that video calling is just 50% of skype's traffic. Voice calls are a few kb/s (depending on which protocol it uses, between 3 and 10) while video is probably at least an order of magnitude more than that, and even more for high-rez video.

 

I agree.  This suggests that only a single-digit percent of total skype calls are utilizing video at this point.

[txlaw]

"Facebook Unveils Skype Video Calling and Group Chat"

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_unveils_video_calling_with_skype_and_grou.php

 

 

 

What I find fascinating about this is watching GOOG and MSFT (both of which I own) battling it out in over the top video calling/conferencing and "social."

 

MS Skype is linked with Facebook, Comcast boxes, and MS business products such as Lync, and is available on all the major mobile device OS's.  That covers a pretty good amount of potential usage.

 

Google Voice and Video chat is linked with Google+ (see Hangouts, for example), Google TV boxes (eventually, I believe), the Google Apps suite, and will be available for access either by native app or web app on all the major mobile device OS's.

 

I gotta wonder . . . where the heck is Apple with its Facetime solution?  They need to get on the ball because GOOG and MSFT are running ahead of the pack in this space.

[Liberty]

Apple cares about video calls because it helps them sell iPhones and iPads, so they'll probably interoperate their protocols with Google (hasn't Apple said it'll use open protocols? Can't remember). I doubt Microsoft will open Skype, though, but the free competition will certainly make it harder for them to make money directly with it.

[txlaw]

Apple cares about video calls because it helps them sell iPhones and iPads, so they'll probably interoperate their protocols with Google (hasn't Apple said it'll use open protocols? Can't remember). I doubt Microsoft will open Skype, though, but the free competition will certainly make it harder for them to make money directly with it.

 

Perhaps that's right. 

 

But a lot of video call/conferencing usage is going to occur through social networking service interactions and business/workplace interactions.  If Google+ and Facebook emerge as the strongest social networking services out there, and both of these solutions have embedded video solutions from Google and MSFT, what sort of additional value does FaceTime bring to the table that makes us want to buy Mac OS devices?  What about in the work context? 

 

If HTML 5 makes it easy to access video conferencing services through web apps, we can simply use Skype or Google Voice and Video to serve all our video call needs.  I'm just wondering what Apple is planning to do to keep FaceTime a valuable asset, rather than a cutely named app that is undifferentiated from competing services.

 

It might be that they make FaceTime the first solution that is actually allowed over the wireless networks.  The whole Apple-carrier relationship thing. 

 

Or they may try to shut down Skype usage or Google Voice and Video chat usage on their devices.  Don't think that would fly.

[twacowfca]

"Facebook Unveils Skype Video Calling and Group Chat"

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_unveils_video_calling_with_skype_and_grou.php

 

 

 

What I find fascinating about this is watching GOOG and MSFT (both of which I own) battling it out in over the top video calling/conferencing and "social."

 

MS Skype is linked with Facebook, Comcast boxes, and MS business products such as Lync, and is available on all the major mobile device OS's.  That covers a pretty good amount of potential usage.

 

Google Voice and Video chat is linked with Google+ (see Hangouts, for example), Google TV boxes (eventually, I believe), the Google Apps suite, and will be available for access either by native app or web app on all the major mobile device OS's.

 

I gotta wonder . . . where the heck is Apple with its Facetime solution?  They need to get on the ball because GOOG and MSFT are running ahead of the pack in this space.

 

Facetime is far superior to Skype in our experience, but it requires an Apple device.

[Guest VAL9000]

Facetime is far superior to Skype in our experience, but it requires an Apple device.

 

This is a pretty significant disadvantage.  Metcalfe's law - the value of the network is proportional to the square of the nodes.  Apple has to deliver support for more devices if they plan on taking this seriously.    Skype's way out in the lead in terms of platform support.  Even if it's a proprietary protocol, users don't really care about that..  Nobody's going to care if Facebook uses open protocols for video chat.

 

We shouldn't be too surprised that Skype's traffic is mostly voice calls.  Skype Out is an extremely widely used service and all of those calls would be restricted to voice.  Plus to Skype with video you need a camera on both sides of the conversation - not everyone is able or willing to do that.

 

Google's Huddle service might prove to be extremely difficult for Skype to replicate.  Skype's architecture is P2P - in a huddle of 10 people you'd have to transmit your video stream 9x while downloading 9 streams.  Google's approach is (I think) hub and spoke, so you download 9 but upload 1 stream.  Given the typical upstream/downstream split on home broadband service, this seems ok.

 

It looks to me like we're really starting to enter the era of cloud services.  I'm seeing pieces come together with Office 365 and Google Apps and it's really interesting and innovative stuff.  As consumers, business users, and investors we're going to benefit a lot from what's in the pipeline for these two companies.

[Liberty]

Whoa, paying people to use your products? Reminds me of what Bing did for a while...

 

http://www.winbeta.org/?q=news/microsoft-pays-university-250000-adopt-office-365

 

Microsoft has offered to give the University of Nebraska $250,000 dollars to make the switch from IBM Lotus Notes to a much more feature-rich Office 365, which offers newer technology, greater flexibility, and operational savings. Microsoft did this in hopes that the University would not make the transition over to Google Apps.

[Guest VAL9000]

Whoa, paying people to use your products? Reminds me of what Bing did for a while...

This isn't likely to be a common occurrence in the future.  Microsoft is "buying" an early adopter so that they can use University of Nebraska as a successful case study to win future business.  Office 365 is unproven in large-scale deployments.  Once they have a convincing story to tell (e.g. U of N's IRR was 30%), there won't be a need to subsidize future customers' migration efforts.

[S2S]

Google's Huddle service might prove to be extremely difficult for Skype to replicate.  Skype's architecture is P2P - in a huddle of 10 people you'd have to transmit your video stream 9x while downloading 9 streams.  Google's approach is (I think) hub and spoke, so you download 9 but upload 1 stream.  Given the typical upstream/downstream split on home broadband service, this seems ok.

 

Skype HAS a group video calling feature; just that it is currently a premium service (for now anyway) at $8.99/month.

 

Google, though, came up with a rather ingenious way to do video conference: the software automatically detects who is speaking and focus on that person's video stream.

[Guest VAL9000]

Skype HAS a group video calling feature; just that it is currently a premium service (for now anyway) at $8.99/month.

 

Google, though, came up with a rather ingenious way to do video conference: the software automatically detects who is speaking and focus on that person's video stream.

 

Re: Skype - I wonder if it's premium because they use the hub-and-spoke approach for that service.  The premium charge covers the cost of bandwidth routed through the hub.  I don't know either way, just speculating.

 

That autofocus is smart.  Really useful for things like distributed project work, virtual board meetings, and the like.  I could see the tech and vc community foaming over this.