Andy Abramson

As I wrote on Monday, eBay has added Skype Me access to their listings for merchants.

To me this is old news, for my dear friend Om Malik had confided this to me weeks ago over one of our regular coffees and telephone chats. He’s been looking at options for a while, considering his next move. Everyone with any ambition always does. Of course, being his friend also meant that I … Read more

IDC has a report that tells us what the likes of Level3 have been saying is going to be true. That there will be a lot more VoIP users in the next few years, especially those who want alternative phones that offer simple set up. Can you spell PhoneGnome? This report, of all reports shows … Read more

Yesterday at the eBay Dev Con someone mentioned a pending big Tuesday announcement at eBay Live. Given the audience that will be in attendance my money is on the announcement of worldwide integration of Skype Click to Call within the Ebay web portal. A lot of what I saw this weekend leads me to believe … Read more

According to this news account, the recent survey of 900 people by TeleGeography Research shows that the cable MSO’s in the USA are now attracting lots of new converts to VoIP.

One of the most savvy VC’s who plays the game very smart is Danny Rimer. His fund, Index Ventures made a boatload off of Skype. I say he’s savvy because he’s admitting that everything doesn’t always work out and because he’s being transparent about his mistakes. Today, he was profiled in The Independent over in … Read more

The Skype PR rep on site at eBay DevCon was kind enough to forward me this list of what ports were open for outbound traffic. Ironically, Port 5060 and 5061 which are used for SIP traffic didn’t make it on the list. Here’s the text she forwarded: For the safety and security of our network … Read more

Alec has a very teasing post that has me wanting to learn more about. The company is called Pika and they have a platform called Pika Connect that combines Asterisk and Skype in a way that lets everything work together. I’m hoping to learn more about them here at Skype DevCon as I heard from … Read more

In my view this is more of a continuation of a business strategy by Cisco, than the end game. Cisco has been buying pieces of emerging sectors for years, using the concept of vertical integration. These two acquisitions continue that trend.

I just tried to use two other IM/Voice/Video products here at DevCon and found that neither of them could get around the firewall, which obviously eBay has erected. Of course, Skype did. I’m not sure at a Developer’s Conference how cool of an idea that is, but it is the eBay network so they can … Read more