Give Om Malik lots of credit. On the heels of his super successful Mobilize Conference yesterday he's breaking the news on Skype winding down it's extra's program.
This likely means two things:
1) Skype is going to internalize more development
2) Skype will begin offering more services that are labeled as Skype, vs. from third parties.
In my view this means that Skype will be ramping up services like conference calling, auto-attendant, faxing, deliver a more robust find me/follow me service and expand their mobile handset client software efforts.
While initially, the developers who built the Extras program up will be alarmed, I think this shows us one more thing. People want to talk but not much more than that.
More thoughts-I think this puts more emphasis on the Skype APIs and third party developers who want to leverage Skype as a pipe, not only as an application. By getting rid of the "Extras" Skype also is able to present a cleaner balance sheet, as the revenue for extras was really more of a pass through with Skype minutes and credit balances in users accounts paying the bills to the Extra's suppliers. In essence the "Extras" made the numbers look fatter and now with more prudent management and investment, Skype will be able to cleanly show how much money is really staying within the company, than reporting one that really what is nothing more than a collections and payment disbursement operation.
Initially this may look like Skype is just killing off their young, something they have been accused of in the past. My expanded view though is that there is more coming behind this as Skype both internalizes what can make them money and how they can play in the "Open" world, which is where the Developer Program, led by ex Counterpath CTO Jason Fischl begins to take shape.
Andy, you are bang on with your analysis.. I posted this comment on Om's blog minutes ago:
The problem with the “Extra’s” has never been lack of interest or lack of developers, but simply the lack of a real API. The client messaging API that Skype has had (and will continue to support) has very few actual uses outside of hardware and client software mashups. A few great apps., (like Skylook) filled a space where the Skype client itself was lacking – but that is hardly the basis for a robust ecosystem. They have had a history of eating their own children, as the current API really didn’t give developers any security that their app. wouldn’t just be included in the next release of Skype.
The real opportunity lies in some of the new things that are being developed using new API’s that are being tested now, if you Google around the Skype for Asterisk channel driver you can find mentions of Mark Spencer talking about ‘Skyhost’ – and how they built the S4A channel driver using this.
Skype is not slapping developers down, they are merely redirecting resources to where they should have gone years ago – the request for a real API isn't new information to them, but they seem to be able to actually make decisions now without interference from clueless brass of their former owners.
Having said that they deserve the criticism with all barrels for releasing a rather ambiguous statement, about the future of the developer ecosystem.
Posted by: twitter.com/AndrewHansen | September 11, 2009 at 09:14 AM