Is Skype Becoming Yet Another VoIP Service Provider?

It sure seems so.

From their trunking partnerships with big names like Avaya to the cutting off of API access to companies like fring everything you read these days seems to point to the fact that Skype has surrendered to becoming yet another VoIP service provider.

The one time poster child for innovation and disruption in telecommunications is shaping up to become nothing more than a cheap minutes pusher. You can thank eBay’s mismanagement, increased competitive threats and a pending IPO for that.

It’s recent announcements and partnerships seem to point Skype direction straight to the enterprise. Not the small medium business – where Skype is very popular (and currently best fits as a communications solution).

Skype could have delivered on, say, some sort of hosted PBX solution rather than simply turn itself into the cheap pipe for large companies.

It hasn’t gotten mobile right yet either (Which just so happens to be one of the fastest growing ways to make a VoIP call). Many argue that companies like fring and Nimbuzz are eating Skype’s lunch.

No one can refute the fact that making a communications service ubiquitous is difficult – if not down right impossible – given the access fragmentation that is present today.

But for a service that once held this promise, it is difficult to watch it meander down the path that so many others before it have taken.

Cheap minutes might drive revenues today, but Skype going to need more than that if it wants be around tomorrow.