Open Access is a Two-Way Street

Andy Abramson has an excellent post in his VoIP Watch Blog about a letter that was written by the founder of the Gizmo Project to Skype's Director of Government Affairs. In case you haven't heard (although I don't see how that would be possible, with the amount of noise they have been making), Skype has been going around whining about the cellular carriers in the U.S. not giving them "open" access to their networks. Basically, Mr. Robertson of Gizmo tells Skype that it is ridiculously two-faced for them to cry about someone else while at the same time they operate a completely closed, proprietary system. My favorite part of the letter is this:

It appears that when it is convenient for Skype's business objectives Skype waves the flag of openness, at the same time conveniently ignoring competitors requests for openness.

In my opinion, however, this behavior from Skype should not come as a surprise to anyone. They do exactly the same thing on plenty of other subjects, whenever it suits their needs. Basically, there is a total disconnect between Skype's public statements and their actions. Here is another good example:

In his recent publicity tour, the current CEO of Skype states repeatedly that one of Skype's "core values" is a passion for the customer. In fact, however, Skype still has the most pitiful customer support imaginable; no support phone number (a phone company without a support phone? That's "passion"?), no live chat, no email, only a web-browser based "support ticket" system which itself says that response will take FOUR DAYS minimum. Four days to respond to a support request? That's passion? Wow!

jw 18/9/2008