Phil Wolff systematically dismantles David Greenfield’s The Six Gotchas of Skype for Business. Greenfield’s fundamental mistake is in equating Skype with a replacement for the office phone system. It’s not. Phil is right, however — ignoring Skype, and systems like it, is a mistake. Skype changes the communications landscape with new kinds of experiences that are not the same or possible on an existing office phone system.
As an example, last Thursday I held a "video conference" with one of our investors. I set up a webcam at one end of the boardroom table, and projected my PC image on the big screen behind it. Add a pair of reasonable quality external PC speakers, and we were in business, as we all sat at the other end of the table, talked and watched the screen. Could the experience have been better on a dedicated video conferencing system? Sure. But this was ad-hoc, required no additional equipment beyond what I already had, and cost me $0.
As Phil says — it’s not "Why?". It’s just "How soon?".
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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