Does Skype Matter?

It will sound presumptuous to ask whether Skype matters. It has 663 million registered users, now has the resources of Microsoft, is profitable and contributed more net new minutes of international voice than the rest of the industry put together in 2010, according to Telegeography.

Most people you know use Skype at times, at the very least, and audio quality is quite good.

The reason one might ask the question of whether Skype really matters is that, strategically, aside from cleverly managing a decline as gracefully as possible, one might question whether voice in itself is a strategic product for most service providers, or is getting to the point where it is tactically important. Important, but mostly important tactically.

By way of comparison, mobility is probably strategic, for example.

That is not to discount the huge role voice revenues continue to play in the service provider business model, its continued relevance as a value driver for users or importance. It is to ask whether anything about voice rises to the strategic level of what to do about creating new revenue, how an access provider can remain relevant i the Internet ecosystem and whether the growing importance of "dumb pipe" access services (not to be confused with "low gross revenue, low margin or low value" adjectives) can be matched by new ways to monetize other carrier assets.

With the coming shift to cloud computing, the growing role of devices and application providers in the rest of the Internet ecosystem, the question about Skype is whether it really makes sense for most people, even within the service provider industry, to worry about voice, or Skype, very much. Of course, businesses that sell voice products and applications are an exception. They will care quite a lot.

But it isn't so clear most people, even within the communications and network-based entertainment businesses, need to care so much. True, there was a time when Skype frightened most telco executives. That time has passed. There was a time when Google was seen as the biggest competitive threat. That, too, has passed.

So, in a strategic sense, one might ask whether Skype really matters. That isn't the same thing as asking whether it is clever, widely used or capable of gaining more share of international voice minutes. How much time and effort does a strategist want to spend thinking about voice, when there seemingly are a zillion other challenges to be met?

It will sound odd to some, but for many in the Internet ecosystem, the access and transport networks essentially are assumed to exist. All the other important business and software issues are handled elsewhere. That's something of the sense in which the question about Skype might be asked. Do users and providers not simply assume that Skype and communications capability exists?

It might not yet be the equivalent of "electricity," but it is getting closer. If one assumes the availability of electricity then many other products and businesses can be built. That doesn't mean electricity ceases to be a business for some entities. But it might mean most people will not obsess about it.