Time to sanction Skype into the enterprise

Convergence & VoIP This newsletter is sponsored by Cisco Best Practices for Extending Your Network Architecture Access podcasts, whitepapers and more that offer best practices and principles for extending your architecture across a campus. Learn about the design principles that will transform your campus net and how to tackle the critical areas of integrated security, unified network services and more. Click here to read now! Network World's Convergence & VoIP Newsletter, 07/25/07 Time to sanction Skype into the enterprise By Steve Taylor and Larry Hettick Two recent announcements from VoSKY Technologies caught our attention. The company began to offer consumer products for Skype in 2005, and it has since expanded its product line to include enterprise VoIP gateways designed for companies that want to connect existing premises-based phone systems to the Internet for Skype calls. The first announcement, made late last month, stated that VoSKY Technologies had been selected by Avaya for Gold membership in the Avaya DeveloperConnection program. The Avaya program is designed to speed applications development and testing for Avaya compliance. The announcement also noted that the “VoSKY Exchange solution interoperates with Avaya’s traditional Merlin Magix and Partner phone systems, as well as Avaya IP Office [so] … businesses can interconnect both traditional and IP-based Avaya phone systems to form a private voice network for free interoffice communications and can connect to Skype.” According to David Tang, vice president of global marketing at VoSKY, the company’s approach isn’t just about making cheaper calls, but it is also “about adding applications and extending the life of the existing PBX.” When using a VoSKY gateway, users dial 9 for outbound call routing to the traditional PSTN, and dial 8 to have calls routed to Skype network over the Internet. Other applications include a click to call capability designed so enterprise customers can call into the company using a Skype connection; a multi-site and multi-vendor PBX interconnect feature; remote PBX access; and Skype trunking. Optimize Your WAN: Network World Shows You How In this Executive Guide learn how optimization can supercharge your WAN. Click Here The second announcement, made earlier this month, noted the availability in the United Kingdom of “The VoSKY Ultimate BizPak” which includes a VoSKY Gateway, several business edition software packages to manage Skype in the enterprise, Skype credits and subscriptions, and a guide on how to use Skype for business. By buying the bundled package, VoSKY estimates that small and midsize businesses will save about £113 vs. an a la carte purchase of the same elements. Our analysis: We freely admit to being occasional Skype users, although we haven’t discarded our PSTN connections in favor of replacing regular phone connections with Skype. And many of our friends and colleagues use Skype to save money on long distance calls. We think that Skype does have its rightful place in the enterprise as an optional calling plan, but we remain unconvinced that Skype will displace the regular phone network. Looking at the similarities of how instant messaging grew as an important business tool despite objections from the corporate IT department, we think perhaps the time has come to officially sanction Skype into business calling plans provided the enterprise takes appropriate security precautions and doesn’t cut the cord to the PSTN.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to Webtorials, the premier site for Web-based educational presentations, white papers, and market research. Taylor can be reached at taylor@webtorials.com Larry Hettick is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in voice and data. He is Vice President for Telecom Services and Infrastructure at Current Analysis, the leading competitive response solutions company. He can be reached at lhettick@currentanalysis.com This newsletter is sponsored by Cisco Best Practices for Extending Your Network Architecture Access podcasts, whitepapers and more that offer best practices and principles for extending your architecture across a campus. Learn about the design principles that will transform your campus net and how to tackle the critical areas of integrated security, unified network services and more. Click here to read now! ARCHIVE Archive of the Convergence & VoIP Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007