Jared Moya
August 7th, 2006, 12:33 AM
Users of Skype and other consumer-focused peer-to-peer VoIP networks are bringing the tools to work. But rather than banning the technology, some companies have embraced it. Here's why.
Two years ago, Mark Ehr and a few co-workers began using Skype to communicate between Proxima Technology Inc.'s Denver headquarters and its offices in Sydney, Australia, and Windsor, England. "I'd spent hours talking to Sydney," says Ehr, director of product marketing at the 70-person software company. Luxembourg-based Skype Ltd.'s peer-to-peer voice-over-IP software routes calls over the public Internet, offers good voice quality and supports conference calls -- and it's free, he says.
Soon, top executives began using Skype for internal calls. "That set the tone for the rest of the company," Ehr says, and today Skype is the primary means of making intracompany calls at Proxima. Skype has also allowed Proxima to put off a planned migration to an internal VoIP telephony system.
Driven by convenience and potential cost savings, Skype and other consumer-focused public peer-to-peer calling networks have been quietly gaining ground in businesses, to the delight of some and the chagrin of others. While such public calling networks can cut costs, administrators must also sort through the management, compliance and security implications.
That needs to happen fast. As with public instant messaging services, peer-to-peer VoIP has taken root with consumers, who are increasingly using the programs at work. "Services like Skype are indeed coming into enterprises, brought in by users much in the same way IM services were brought in years ago," says Irwin Lazar, an analyst at Burton Group in Midvale, Utah. Currently, some 30% of Skype clients use the service for business calls, says Will Stofega, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=112575&source=rss_news10
http://veertual.krank.hu/Portals/0/DNNDownload/krAnk/skype-big.1195ff31-183a-4bc3-a5ae-f835dd06a1a1.jpg
Two years ago, Mark Ehr and a few co-workers began using Skype to communicate between Proxima Technology Inc.'s Denver headquarters and its offices in Sydney, Australia, and Windsor, England. "I'd spent hours talking to Sydney," says Ehr, director of product marketing at the 70-person software company. Luxembourg-based Skype Ltd.'s peer-to-peer voice-over-IP software routes calls over the public Internet, offers good voice quality and supports conference calls -- and it's free, he says.
Soon, top executives began using Skype for internal calls. "That set the tone for the rest of the company," Ehr says, and today Skype is the primary means of making intracompany calls at Proxima. Skype has also allowed Proxima to put off a planned migration to an internal VoIP telephony system.
Driven by convenience and potential cost savings, Skype and other consumer-focused public peer-to-peer calling networks have been quietly gaining ground in businesses, to the delight of some and the chagrin of others. While such public calling networks can cut costs, administrators must also sort through the management, compliance and security implications.
That needs to happen fast. As with public instant messaging services, peer-to-peer VoIP has taken root with consumers, who are increasingly using the programs at work. "Services like Skype are indeed coming into enterprises, brought in by users much in the same way IM services were brought in years ago," says Irwin Lazar, an analyst at Burton Group in Midvale, Utah. Currently, some 30% of Skype clients use the service for business calls, says Will Stofega, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=112575&source=rss_news10
http://veertual.krank.hu/Portals/0/DNNDownload/krAnk/skype-big.1195ff31-183a-4bc3-a5ae-f835dd06a1a1.jpg