An investigation into Skype Technologies S.A. E-Book

Josephine Stadler

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 1,8, New College Durham, language: English, abstract: Skype is quite a new software enabling free calls over the Internet (Shaver, 2006). Users save money, because Skype charges nothing for telephone calls between Skype users. Only calling a landline or a mobile phone and receiving incoming calls from a conventional phone or mobile phone are charged (Skype Fast Facts, 2005). This idea is supposed to revolutionize the whole phone market (Powell, 2005). VoIP is the future telecommunications media in Germany. What is Skype’s future in Germany?

Leseprobe

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Table of Abbreviations

Table of Exhibits

Acknowledgements

Chapter I: Introduction

1.1. Skype – nature of study

1.2. Hypothesis/ Research Question

1.3. Aims and Objectives

1.4. Limitations to the study

Chapter II: Literature Review

2.1. VoIP – the technology

2.2. The future of VoIP

2.3. Skype – the technology

2.4. Characteristics, pros and cons of Skype’s technology

2.5. The future of Skype

Chapter III: Methodology

3.1. Case Study Approach

3.2. Key Concepts

3.2.1. Validity & Reliability

3.2.2. Triangulation

3.2.3. Generalisability

3.3. Research Families/ Research Techniques

3.3.1. Primary data (Research Family)

3.3.2. Secondary data (Research Family)

3.4. Analytical Tools

Chapter IV: Findings

4.1. Structure of the findings and the conclusion

4.2. Evaluation of the primary data sources

4.2.1. Questionnaires directed to private respondents

4.2.2. Questionnaires directed to VoIP experts

4.2.3. Interviews with IT specialists

4.3. Tariff comparison of SkypeOut v. Deutsche Telekom

4.4. Skype’s Vision, Mission and Competitive Strategies

4.5. Analysis of the future market opportunities of Skype

4.5.1. SWOT Analysis of Skype

4.5.2. The Product Market Growth Matrix by Igor Ansoff

Chapter V: Conclusion

5.1. VoIP’s future in Germany

5.2. Skype’s future in Germany

5.3. Final conclusion

Chapter VI: Recommendations & further investigations

6.1. Recommendations to Skype

6.2. Further investigations

Chapter VII: Appendix

7.1. Bibliography

7.2. Ethical issues

7.3. Form : Questionnaire directed to private respondents

7.4. Form : Questionnaire directed VoIP experts

7.5. Framework of the Interviews

7.6. Abbreviations, technical terms & definitions

7.7. Skype – history & facts

7.8. Declining Deutsche Telekom

Table of Abbreviations

Table of Exhibits

2a: Skype’s Technology

Exhibit 3a: Triangulation

Exhibit 4a: Which Internet Connection do you have?

Exhibit 4b:Have you heard about VoIP before?

Exhibit 4c: Have you ever made calls over IP?

Exhibit 4d: How good or poor is VoIP?

Exhibit 4e: Do you know Skype?

Exhibit 4f: When did you start using Skype?

Exhibit 4g: Which tool do you use most?

Exhibit 4h: Have you saved costs?

Exhibit 4i: Has Skype changed your calling behaviour?

Exhibit 4j: Does VoIP impact the ground-based network?

Exhibit 4k: Skype’s future?

Exhibit 4l: What is the future of VoIP?

Exhibit 4m: Do you use Skype internal or external?

Exhibit 4n: Impact of Skype

Exhibit 4o: Prospects of VoIP

Exhibit 4p : Tariff comparison

Exhibit 4q: Product-Market Growth Matrix

Exhibit 4r: Talk for Britain (Skype, 2006h)

Exhibit 5a: Broadband Penetration

Exhibit 5b: VoIP’s voice quality

Exhibit 5c: VoIP in 5 years

Exhiqbit 5d: Skype’s future

Exhibit 5e: Worldwide subscribers

Exhibit 5f: Skype user numbers

Acknowledgements

The world of telecommunications and VoIP is awfully fast-moving and innovations are made every day. Skype launches new products continuously. The author collected information until the 15th of November 2006. Hence, information given in this project is correct until the 15th of November and predictions are made according to this data.

The author is no studied IT expert. She presents technical information about Skype’s and VoIP to the best of her knowledge and she always backed up information with IT specialists. In the following, the words “VoIP”, “Voice over IP”, “IP Telephony” and “Voice over Internet Protocol” do all stand for making calls over the Internet. They can be used interchangeable.

Chapter I: Introduction

1.1. Skype – nature of study

Skype. The whole world can talk for free. This is Skype’s slogan. “Voice over Internet Protocol is predicted to be the next revolution in telecommunications.” (BBC News, 2005)

Skype is quite a new software enabling free calls over the Internet (Shaver, 2006). Users save money, because Skype charges nothing for telephone calls between Skype users. Only calling a landline or a mobile phone (SkypeOut) and receiving incoming calls from a conventional phone or mobile phone (SkypeIn) are charged (Skype Fast Facts, 2005). This idea is supposed to revolutionize the whole phone market (Powell, 2005).

IP Telephony is getting more and more lucrative for private users, as only a standard PC with soundcard, headset and Internet access is needed. Most households have these prerequisites. Private users state they switched in order to save costs (VOIP INFORMATION, 2005c). Due to the fact that Skype users do not have to pay monthly charges or telephone rates, they are only charged for the Internet connection. The best is having a flatrate with a fixed monthly charge (VOIP INFORMATION, 2005d).

In September 2003, Skype Technologies SA was founded by Niklas Zennström, co-founder and CEO, and Janus Friis, SVP, Strategy and co-founder. Its headquarters are in Luxembourg (Shaver, 2006). However eBay acquired Skype in October 2005 and Skype became a 100% subsidiary of eBay, Skype’s brand and product act independently in the market (Skype, 2006a). In the second semester 2006, Skype registered 113 million users worldwide and covers more than 7% of the global international long distance calls (Company Update, 2006). Every second, 6 new users register at Skype and between 6 to 8 million concurrent Skype user are online. In Germany, 5 million users are registered (Analyst Day, 2006).

1.2. Hypothesis/ Research Question

Skype is the best-known VoIP provider (FAZ.NET, 2005). Although many people know VoIP and Skype, very few think about the impact of Skype on the conventional German phone market. According to a survey, carried out in early 2006 by the German foundation Stiftung Warentest, 10% of the German population use VoIP. This demonstrates a high demand for IP Telephony and a need to analyse the future of VoIP in general and of Skype in particular and the impact on the conventional German telephone market. Predictions state that in 10 years, everybody will use VoIP technologies, instead of landlines (FAZ.NET, 2005). On the other hand, Blau (2005) stated that “over the next five to 10 years, most phone customers will remain with their traditional telephone”. Due to this controversy, it is important to investigate the future of VoIP in general and of Skype in particular and its economic impact on the German telecommunications market. The researcher developed the following hypothesis and research question:

VoIP is the future telecommunications media in Germany. What is Skype’s future in Germany and will it be able to impact the telecommunications market in Germany?

1.3. Aims and Objectives

The researcher’s overall goal was to analyse Skype’s future within Germany and to consider its impact. This overall goal has led to the following specific research objectives:

Collate the technology behind VoIP and critically analyse its advantages.

Evaluate the future of VoIP.

Critically analyse Skype’s technology and its implied pros and cons.

Explore Skype’s strategy.

Predict Skype’s future in Germany.

Discover Skype’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Evaluate German’s attitude towards Skype and its future.

1.4. Limitations to the study

The whole VoIP market is a very vast area and hence the depth and the breadth of the project is limited. The project focuses on the VoIP provider Skype and is directed to Germany. Analysing the whole world is no small-scale project.

Due to a limited word count, time and money, the topic could not be extended. Although comparing Skype to other VoIP offering companies to conclude on a future of all businesses were interesting, this definitely goes beyond the scope of this study.

Furthermore, the researcher will not concentrate on Skype’s marketing, as Skype uses word-of-mouth propaganda and advertises especially on the website of Ebay which is the parent company of Skype (Hills&Sale, 2004). Investigating Skype’s branding would be a very interesting topic, but as well as the previously indicated limitations to this study, this would go beyond the scope of this project.

Additionally, the author will not research the influence on the mobile sector or interactions of VoIP with the mobile phone industry. The investigator did not compare Skype’s fees to fees of call-by-call providers.

The world of VoIP and Skype is extremely fast-moving. The media is constantly publishing new articles, figures or evaluations. The author stopped collecting data at November 15th. Articles which had been published after this data had not been taken into consideration and predictions are made on data published before November 15th.