IPxx and Skype – Dream or Reality?
has been around for some time now, and despite being proprietary and suffering from certain limitations it has become the chosen mode of communication for millions of people all over the world. It has grown to proportions that make it impossible to ignore even by diehard Asterisk geeks, and for more than a year we have been looking for a way to integrate it into the IPxx to the extent that we have given away units for free to developers. Sad to say those developers have failed to deliver.
But finally there appears to be light in the tunnel. The recent announcement of Skype for SIP Beta Program was simply too interesting to leave alone and yesterday I got a mail with the following content:
How is the beta program developing?
We have been testing the solution across different PBX vendors and some large partners to ensure any possible interoperability issues and potential bugs are resolved prior to the next phase of the beta program. In the next phase we will open up the program to all remaining applicants. We hope to have the next release out soon, at which time we will be contacting you again to provide instructions on setting up Skype for SIP. By providing your Skype Name at this stage you’ll be able to start using Skype for SIP as soon as the next release is available.
I can hardly wait for that next release; I believe that integrating Skype with open source SIP devices is a huge step in the right direction.