35% Users Do Business With Skype

[Interop] Stephen Oberg from Skype mentioned at Interop that 35% of Skype’s users do business with the VOIP application/service. That’s good news for Skype, because this will help the company convince IT departments that companies have an interest to allow the use of Skype by their employees.

Usually, IT departments don’t like using consumer-technologies because they always feel that it’s not secure enough (and when is it secure enough?). For example, the IM provider could theoretically snoop-in conversations. Would AMD use Intel’s IM service if there was one? Some would hesitate.

The concern is real, but there are real advantages in using Skype, or other applications like it, in situations where information is not critical. We think that Skype is poised to gain some market share in the enterprise market, and into new services like integration to PBX.