Skype CEO updates where company is headed

At the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo yesterday, Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom gave the luncheon keynote address.

Zennstrom was in London and we were in Los Angeles, but what does that matter?

Here are the main takeaways from his presentation:

• Skype is aggressively planning to open its payment system for ringtones and third-party software. Yes, fellow eBay company PayPal will be a preferred option, but Skype will take credit cards, too.
• Skype will be pushing recording systems for Podcasts- which, of course, they would love to enable.
• Voice content enablement, based on subscription models that could be handled via PayPal and other Skype-approved payment methods, will be increasingly marketed.
• More than 1,000 software and hardware developers are affiliated with Skype, with a stream of others on the way.
• Although Skype Groups is intended for business users, Skype is not planning a staffed sales effort to make inroads into enterprise IP telephony. Instead, they will do this via partner products likely to appeal to business users. Zennstrom cited one such example as Skype partner Salesforce.com's integration of Skype links into their CRM system.