AstriCon 2008: Working through the Digium/Skype Announcement

Digium CEO Danny Windham and Skype VP Stefan Oberg met with FierceVoIP to discuss the hows and whys of the interoperability announcement Thursday. There's a little something for everyone - including customers and channel partners.

Windham said small businesses will be able to use the Skype for Asterisk connector to enable a presence on the Skype network while getting all the functionality of a PBX. A general Skype login name could be routed into a PBX for call processing and delivery to the next available person in a calling queue; a single Skype ID could be used for sales, technical support or other types of customer service queues.

"Asterisk does least-cost call routing," said Windham. "Calls from a standard handset could be routed through SkypeOut... You can save a lot of money both on inbound and outbound calls. It's easy to get access to the Skype network now."

Digium's benefits are more ethereal. The Skype for Asterisk connector will work on any Asterisk 1.4 or 1.6 release, including third-party releases. "It will work with Trixbox," Windham stated. "Any third party [project] is a candidate." He expects the enthusiasm involved will drive use of the product and "some revenue."

For Skype, the advantages are clear. "A lot of people are using [Skype] in businesses already," said Oberg. Skype's business customers want a way to distribute call queues, a better way to handle voice mail, better call logging and a way to tie Skype in with SIP-based mobile phones. "They're basically asking for a PBX. That is what this solution will give them."

While the two companies have had on-and-off discussions over the years on how they could work together, a serious effort crystallized at a June meeting at Digium's HQ in Huntsville, Ala. "We went from zero to high priority following that meeting," said Windham. A room full of people from both companies discussed alternatives, while Digium CTO Mark Spencer sat to the side writing code. As discussions went on, Spencer produced a rough hack of what a Digium/Skype solution would look like within three days.

Since the initial hack, Digium's software engineers have worked to refine the solution, making it more robust and suitable for a formal beta, but neither Windham nor Oberg would commit to a firm shipping date for a number of reasons.

On Digium's side, it is a matter of further polishing and testing the software. "As soon as we get happy that the quality is good," stated Windham. Pricing also needs to be set for the module.

Skype has broader concerns. "We want to polish our go-to-market strategy," said Oberg. Pricing needs to be set and there's a new mindset involved, since Skype has been available in a simple self-serve mode. One new area for Skype is a revenue share with channel partners on the number of minutes used. It's the first time Skype has engaged in revenue sharing with channel partners.

"We haven't had a partner strategy at all," said Oberg. "Going to business is a whole new thing for us... we're starting with Digium and we'll see how it goes... We're focusing on SMBs, Digium and Asterisk is the perfect partnership."