BTW, Alec–Thanks for the props about revealing my investigative reporter side. Most people fail to realize that my degree from Temple University is in Journalism, even if I ended up taking the Advertising sequence :-)

http://www.skype.com/company/news/2005/skype_openplatform.html

Then look at the one from August 31st. In addition to announcing the Developer Contest, they announced the formation of the “Platform Advisory Council”, consisting of 15 of their top ISV’s.

http://www.skype.com/company/news/2005/skype_developercompetition.html

So, they market themselves as a platform.

It just makes sense for Skype to move towards what we all want and I know they will, but it is hard to be critical of them for not doing something they never said they would.

RIM blackberry is widely acknowledged to be a platform. They have a few hundred pieces of software, thousands of developers, and some APIs. How are they different from Skype?

How Skype prefers to market themselves really isn’t germane.

Quote from Wikipedia:

In computing, a platform describes some sort of framework, either in hardware or software, which allows software to run.

Is this not what Skype is?

Surely you’re not extrapolating from a few hundred hardware devices a platform makes? A ‘vibrant ecosystem’ and a platform are two very different things. Skype is careful not to say the word ‘platform’ and refers to first class partners and applications that leverage the client.

http://saunderslog.com/2005/09/12/the-skype-webcast/

Go to that link, download Meg Whitman’s presentation from the acquisition announcement, and jump to slides 50 through 59. Note the claim of 1000’s of developers, all the wonderful applications, and the language describing the ecosystem they are building.

They are a platform in every sense of the word, despite the fact that they haven’t provided developers with a means to monetize applications, or been open or… etc etc etc. They are executing a platform play.

So… what we “think” it should be is critically important. They increase their value by increasing the number of applications using that platform. To do that, they need developers… and that means they need to listen to developers and understand how developers want to use their platforms.

Yee gods and little fishes… I am sounding like Dave Winer.

They will (hopefully) make Skype more of a platform play for us eventually but the transition from VoIM client to Asterisk or a VXML play is not an easy one, and quite frankly they add 150-175K new users a day, so why should they care? Also the cheque for 2.6 Billion should quell and dissention amongst pundits that it won’t be sucessful, cause’ that is pretty damn impressive to me.

Lets call a spade a spade, we want a platform that allows us to make money from Skype’s userbase, we are chasing the dollars (and up until recently) Skype’s play wasn’t profit motivated. If you touch Skype’s core business (presence .. cough), basic toolbars, video etc., or anything obvious that they will move into, then your business model isn’t sustainable or fundable.

The Skype API was originally built for hardware, not software - the add on’s; some very impressive like Columbus CRM or the Unyte product, or even Jyve for that matter, are unintended benefits/consequences much like podcasting was to RSS. For Skype/Ebay to monetize these opportunities they need to add many people and support systems and this isn’t going to happen overnight. P2P has little benefit for the end user, the client is the server etc., the only real benefactor is Skype, but therin lies it’s biggest challenge, it isn’t traditional and moving from P2P to platform is a biggie.. it simply can’t be what we ‘think’ it should be.