BT gets into VoIP (sic!)

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=6158117&section=news

Supposedly BT are getting into competition with Skype. What a j.o.k.e. A company that only knows how to employ people with skills to defend its monoplistic markets is going to take on one of the brightest projects on the Internet. Chalk & Cheese.

The fact is that the kind of market that Skype is in is one of the Internet's success stories. Skype thrives by driving customer costs down to approximately zero and then building up. Users of Skype recognize that logic and hunt it down in similar projects such as Linux, and the vast array of very high-quality freeware.

The fact is that traditional companies cannot begin to deal with these upstarts. Skype and its ilk come from nowhere. Companies like Skype have the ability to adapt to their own growing marketplace, turning their business plan upside down every week if necessary. The momontum inside BT only permit it to lumber on. Skype et al can gain incredible market share in new markets, and the only option for a company like BT is to attempt to buy them for astonishing amounts

The idea of BT gaining some foothold in Skype's marketshare? Thanks for the laugh. Now, if you want a company that could take on Skype - that would be Apple. Apple is riding a wave right now with its phonomenally successful iPod and iTunes. If it moved on VoIP (which is possibly is, but my ignorance keeps me in the dark right now) and integrated into the iPod concept it could create an equivalent of BT's domininance of the last mile and own the connectivity of VoIP devices in the home & office to VoIP services such as Skype.

The other critical advantage of Apple is its global focus. BT's UK/EU focus hampers it beyond belief. It means it will only be taken seriously by its exsiting and diminishing customer base, who will all contunue to pay through the nose for second rate services.

Yours, a BT customer ;-(

posted by Andy Swarbrick/PopG at 3:07