Yea, let's let Skype live, shall we?

My recent Should Skype and Vonage Adapt or Die? post was a commentary on a death wish expressed to these providers by Network World columnist Mark Gibbs.

I've been expecting a forthright defense of

While Phil doesn't really get around to Vonage, here's the core of Phil's argument for Skype:

Like Microsoft, Skype opened up to third parties by publishing protocols. You can write your own voice mail client in an hour. Skype has APIs for presence, IM, voice and video calls, voice messaging, billing, and call routing. Skype has a budding developer community, mashup contests and free wrappers and other tools for programmers. Skype even publishes a high-level working API roadmap. It's still early, Skype's not done. And Skype is far from closed, Mark.

Phil's right. Skype's more open than you think, Mark, and deserves to be around for quite some time.