Skype's New Enterprise Offerings ? What do they mean?Skype's New Enterprise Offerings ? What do they mean?

Last week Skype introduced new features for its “Skype for Business” offering designed to make Skype manageable in a business environment.  Do these tools finally give the green light for widespread enterprise deployment?  Well….the answer is a decidedly “maybe”. 

Skype initially announced its business offering last year, which was designed to let small groups centralize billing for Skype-to-PSTN connectivity services (SkypeIn/SkypeOut).  With last week’s announcement Skype adds management and configuration tools, enabling Windows network administrators to use the Windows Installer to centrally deploy Skype and disable unwanted features such as file transfer capabilities (no such capabilities yet exist for centralized control of Mac or Linux clients).  In addition, Skype announced enhancements to its business control panel, further improving centralized account administration capabilities.

Skype also started a bit of a marketing push, touting the success that architect firm Lewis and Hickey have had in using Skype to improve communications and reduce telephone costs. (See: http://about.skype.com/2007/01/skype_for_business_takes_lewis.html)

I had the chance to speak with Skype’s Director of Paid Services, Michael Jackson, yesterday about Skype’s business offerings.  It was clear that Skype sees a growing revenue opportunity in serving the business community, but it was also clear that Skype sees its sweet spot in the small business market, rather than trying to compete with enterprise IP telephony platforms and services.  Interestingly, he noted that many of the business tools being developed are often first created to meet internal needs as the Skype organization continues to grow.

While the new features are helpful, they still don’t meet the needs of larger enterprises.  Notably missing are directory integration between Skype and enterprise LDAP services, the ability to for enterprises to “own” Skype accounts, assigning and revoking Skype usernames, or redirecting incoming calls to other users, and the ability for enterprises to obtain call data records or instant messaging logs for its Skype users.  Other enterprise needs that are still missing relate to security and access control.  For example, there is no way to force Skype calls through an enterprise managed gateway that could be used to enforce security and/or policy restrictions in the same fashion as enterprises use instant messaging gateways from companies such as Akonix, Symantec, and FaceTime (though some of these companies do have tools to detect and block Skype usage).

But Skype usage, and enterprise interest continues to grow, as do the number of companies delivering collaboration and business applications around Skype, including Convenos’s web conferencing solution, Unyte’s application sharing, and OnState’s, automated call distribution engine. 

Skype still might not be ready for the larger enterprise, but it is moving in the right direction.  If its able to address the enterprise-grade management and security requirements we could finally see widespread enterprise adoption in the future.