Motorola, Skype Partner on VOIP
Not wanting to be left out of the growing market for voice over IP services, Motorola has announced an alliance with online telephony company Skype.
Skype, which was founded by the creators of the Kazaa file sharing network, delivers free voice calls using its peer-to-peer software and boasts 25 million registered users worldwide.
The initial phase of the partnership will include co-marketing of what Motorola calls "Skype Ready" Bluetooth headsets, dongles and speakerphones. The company also plans to bring Skype functionality to its mobile phones, but Motorola has not expanded on those plans.
"By making Voice over IP truly mobile and easily accessible, we can make communications seamless for consumers as they travel throughout the environments of their day – at work, at home, in the car, or out in the world," said Liz Altman, Motorola's vice president of Mobile Devices.
Skype currently offers a number of third-party hardware accessories that work with its software, but Motorola will be the company's largest endorsement thus far. Skype has recently been exploring ways to make money by delivering premium services, and Motorola will likely aid this effort.
"Our alliance with Motorola is a major step forward in delivering the Skype experience to a whole new base of mobile device and accessory users," said Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom. "Motorola is recognized worldwide for delivering innovative products and this collaboration advances our mission to offer expanded choice and mobility for Skype users worldwide."
Although it's still a relatively small market, research firm Yankee Group forecasts that VoIP will triple its subscriber base in 2005 with nearly 2.8 million customers, mostly in the enterprise. By 2008, that number is expected to swell to 17.5 million if home users accept IP telephony as a substitute.
David Worthington contributed to this report.