2008 Year in Review: Just Skype, Baby

Despite the constant chant for eBay to sell off Skype since last year's $1.4 billion write-down, the voice company has continued to generate a steady stream of buzz - mostly good, but with an embarrassing gasp along the way.  

Skype celebrated its fifth year of operation over the summer and now has more than 370 million registered users. The company brags that its peer-to-peer VoIP/IM/video client software is in use in nearly every country on the planet and that people have made more than 100 billion minutes worth of free Skype-to-Skype calls. 

Skype announced a lot of big news this year including: the launch of a whole bunch of mobile phone clients; a deal with Digium to create a "channel manager" for the Asterisk IP PBX platform, which enabled Skype to be integrated properly into an SMB; the arrival of new executives, including a new CEO, CTO and Chief Strategy Officer; plus, a new version of the Skype client for good measure. 

On the public policy front, Skype pressed (without success) the FCC to force wireless carriers to open up networks to outside devices and called VoIP dead. Christopher Libertelli, Skype's North American senior director of government and regulatory affairs, has probably spent more time on Capital Hill over the past 12 months than some Congressmen. It'll be interesting to see how friendly the incoming Obama administration is to Skype's desires.  

The revelation that Skype's Chinese partner TOM Online monitored text messages and user data was embarrassing to say the least.  Speculation also continues to boil up on a wiretapping back door for governments to conduct intercepts of Skype calls and messaging. 

Will Ebay auction Skype? [1]
Skype: VoIP is dead - FierceVoIP [2]
AstriCon 2008: Working through the Digium/Skype Announcement ... [3]
SPOTLIGHT: Skype never stops moving - FierceVoIP [4]
SPOTLIGHT: Skype - The other birthday - FierceVoIP [5]
FierceVoIP Leaders: Jonathan Christensen, GM of audio and video for Skype [6]
[5]SPOTLIGHT: Skype's Libertelli likes Levin for FCC Chairman, current policy not so much [7]
Is China monitoring Skype calls? [8]
Skype responds to security breach - FierceVoIP [9]
A Skype Back Door? [10]
The Telco Skype Killer? [11]
Skype's mobilized phone play [12]