A Caution re: Third Party Skype Access

Lots of hype last week (Mark Evans, VoIP Watch, Telelphone World) about a new service from Mobivox beta whose offering effectively lets you call your Skype contacts from a mobile phone. Once registered on the service, simply dial a local access number, tell VoxGirl whom you want to reach via Skype and a connection is made. I tried the service over the past week with some success but also have to issue some cautions as the key word here is "beta".

I have spoken with Stephane Marceau, CEO of Mobivox; he assures me that their primary goal is to enhance the Skype experience. Before releasing the beta version last week they did an alpha phase that involved over 1,000 users and raised many issues that have been addressed.. This beta is surfacing additional issues that they intend to tackle. With this background here are my cautions:

First, as acknowledged on their site, Mobivox "uses the Skype™ API but is not endorsed, certified or otherwise approved in any way by Skype™". And, as will be shown, in its current beta form, for good reason. On the other hand, when they have developed the basic service to an acceptable level, they intend to seek Skype certification.

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