Skype (Wikipedia article) has become the de facto IM client in my place of work. This pleases me. We have two offices, Dublin and Paris, and also have a sales person in each of the US and Switzerland that travel a lot, so using a VOIP product like Skype makes a lot of sense. We’re kind-of/almost/maybe a VOIP or VOIP technology company too so this technology “clicks” or or fits in with us.
We use Skype to make inter-office calls or to contact travelling colleagues. The sound quality is far superior to mobile telephony and we found it much more reliable too (calling into or out of my mobile while I’m in Bangladesh is very problematic). Don’t forget cheap, my mobile bills for the last trip to Bangladesh topped out at €1400(!). That Skype traffic is encrypted is great and makes it perfect for corporate communications (recent security advisories notwithstanding). Also, Skype is cross-platform, one of my requirements for considering a piece of software really worth using.
One thing I don’t like about Skype is that if you purchase SkypeOut credit with a credit card you can no longer purchase credit for another account with that same credit card. For that reason I had to put credit I purchased for work use onto my personal Skype account so I wouldn’t prevent myself from doing the same at some point in the future.
My, personal, Skype name is “cliphwinters“.
To encrypt my personal IM conversations I use OTR in Gaim or Adium.
Don’t forget that Skypes crypto is close source so you don’t know what you are getting.
Yeah, that is a black mark against them, that and that they chose not to go with an open standard for their VOIP.
You could convince everyone to switch to Gizmo Project if you want access to other VOIP services.
I have no interest in converting anyone. Gizmo looks good but it’s just a SIP client with a central server, that’s something we could easily do ourselves since SIP is (part of) our bread and butter. The best thing about Gizmo is that their client is very good and cross platform. The worst thing is that it’s tied to their service.
use Skype Groups to buy credits and distribute across multiple users. It’s provided by Skype themselfs and works perfect for me
Is Skype Groups new? I might suggest it in work.
Yeah, except you’re never logged in, are ye.
Yeah, ok, I’ll try and log in more often.