I recently wrote about how Skype is going to be using the revenue generated from the IPO to attack the business market. The company does a good job highlighting its penetration into fringe business cases--mobility and international calling--and emerging business cases, such as video calling, but perceptions of Skype as prone to security and other problems have been a barrier to enterprise-grade use. Should you consider Skype for enterprise-wide deployment? Let's discuss.
That Skype is setting its sights beyond the SMB is obvious. Read the Security and Exchange Commision S1 filing Skype just issued: "We believe there is a significant opportunity to better serve the communications needs of the small and medium enterprise segment, as well as larger enterprise customers."
In truth, tackling the enterprise will be an uphill battle for Skype. If you're like most IT managers, anything that smacks of P2P file transfer is something that you want out of your corporate networks. P2P file transfer programs are widely seen as leading causes of malware distribution, so there's a natural resistance to Skype, particularly with a distributed architecture that's radically different than the classical PBX and IP-PBX architectures. Notions of uptime metrics, scaling, etc must evolve in a network where there is no single switching complex or gateway. Skype is still seen as major security risk by most managers.
When I helped develop the new release of the Skype Administrator's
Guide, I was fortunate enough to spend quite a bit of time working with
the engineers behind Skype for Business. It was clear to me then that
they understand these perceptions, and the potential security risks
implicit in deploying Skype, the risks of malware distribution,
eavesdropping and intercepted calls and more. They had thought through
those issues and built in the necessary measures to secure Skype.
On a broader level, Skype has developed a new suite of business-focused products. Skype created a centralized management overlay to the Skype network, re-branding the Business Control Panel as Skype Manager. The software console allows businesses to create Skype accounts, purchase paid products, manage and pay for the use of Skype products by their employees.
