Peter, go ahead – add a technical perspective to this discussion.

I’d prefer a more neutral, more usability focused and technically focused perspective. I wish the marketing speak and thoughts would stay where they belong, and don’t take over IT more and more. But that’s just me.

Jim,

Thanks for the comment.

My impressions are purely subjective. I find myself using Skype a lot less than I have ever used to, opting to use other OTT and messaging alternatives (with our without WebRTC). These alternatives offer better user experience and options that I sourly find missing from Skype.

The fact that most of what was done at Skype in recent years was around hardening and improving media quality is telling to the problem. We are at a time where communications is being redefined. Skype isn’t part of that effort.

For instance on mobile devices the video calling now supports HD video or QHD video (960×540) (no more postage stamp size 160 x120) and they have resolved the battery drain issues. On the backend chat messages are now buffered for up to 30 days until an offline recipient comes back online; also they have improved the handling of file/photo transfers in a similar way. There are now versions for Amazon Fire, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8.

One other feature introduced over the past year on all platforms has been video messaging. Not sure how much it is used with offerings such as Glide around but at least it’s there now as an option for users.

To some degree another improvement in speed and responsiveness comes from mobile devices with faster processors. Certainly Skype on my BlackBerry Passport with a quad core SnapDragon 804 processor works almost as responsively as Skype on my PC’s. Same for Skype on my iPhone 5.

They also have Click-to-Call at the point where it does not impact my browser performance, finally!

Now this may not sound like revolutionary innovation but it does make for a more reliable, robust service. Let’s just say it’s moving into a more mature phase.

As for Skype on the Web, I think we’ll see some experimenting to see where it is actually used by users. But we’ll not really see the impact until they release a version that does not require a plugin and can be used on all the popular browsers.

Philipp,

I’d say that hardening ORTC is a side effect and not the reason for getting Skype into this.

Hopefully Microsoft is using this to harden the key components needed for ORTC with a shorter release cycle.