Who are the authors for skype. Who Invented Skype? How many users around the world use Skype

What is Skype? What is skype and how to use it? Skype is one of the most popular online communication programs. https://website/ip-telefoniya/chto-takoe-skaip https://site/@@site-logo/logo.svg?1

What is Skype? What is skype and how to use it?

Skype is one of the most popular online communication programs.

What is skype and how to use it?

Skype(read Skype) is a simple computer program (already Russified), thanks to which you can call other Skype subscribers around the world for free. Those. provides free encrypted voice and video communication over the Internet between computers (VoIP), as well as paid services for communication with subscribers of the conventional and mobile telephone networks. It is possible to organize a conference call (up to 25 subscribers, including the initiator), transfer text messages, files, show your desktop, as well as video calls (currently using a standard client - up to two subscribers, and using third-party plug-ins their number is limited only by the bandwidth of the channel).

What is Skype? Skype is a variety of communication methods:

Skype has many useful features that keep you connected with friends, family and colleagues, share your thoughts and get the information you need.

Skype can be used on both desktop and mobile, so you can stay connected even on the go without changing your plans. Skype works on many mobile phones and devices such as the PlayStation® Portable (PSP®). In addition, there is a huge selection of WiFi phones and cordless phones with built-in Skype.

To get started, try sending instant messages to someone on your contact list or open a group chat where several people can chat at once. You can set up a conference call to discuss your upcoming meeting with friends and then use the Business Reviews™ Finder to find the perfect place to host it.

Plus, you'll have great video conferencing options. All you need is a webcam that will allow you not only to enjoy free video calls, but also to take pictures of yourself, so that you can later use these photos in Skype.

Skype is not designed for emergency calls

Skype is not a replacement for a regular phone and cannot be used to call an emergency

Find friends on Skype

If you use Microsoft Outlook®, Outlook Express®, or Yahoo! Email, you can import data from these applications into your Skype address book. If your friends don't have Skype yet, you can send them an invitation to download Skype and then you can chat for free. Do not be surprised if they send you a bouquet of flowers and a chocolate bar: these are your grateful friends. And you deserve it.

Do you know other MySpace users? Convince them to download Skype or MySpaceIM from Skype. Then add them to your Skype notebook, and your social circle will expand noticeably. Just look up the name of the person you need in MySpaceIM.

Adding a new friend to your notebook is easy. In addition, Skype allows you to add contacts who do not yet have Skype, and call them to landlines and mobile phones at low rates anywhere in the world.

If you have phone numbers stored in your Microsoft Outlook® address book, they will be shown in your contact list and you can easily dial them directly from Skype. To call landlines or mobiles, you need Skype Credit or a monthly subscription.

How to use Skype at work?

Are you a sole trader? Or an employee of a multinational holding? No matter how modest or, conversely, impressive, your company staff may be, thanks to Skype you can save time and money and, most importantly, always stay one step ahead of the competition.

Skype enables businesses to find their unique way of working, no matter what their goals are and where their employees are located.
Voice, chat, video conferencing and even calling and sending SMS to mobile phones - you choose how best to convey information to your colleagues and clients. Whatever your business, download the business version of Skype and take the first step towards minimizing costs and increasing profitability.
And if you do not stop there is not included in your plans, especially for you - Skype Manager, a system for centralized management of the use of Skype throughout the enterprise.

Skype Manager simplifies and streamlines the exchange of business information. With just one simple online tool, you can connect colleagues to your network, give them access to the Skype features they need, and save money with our very competitive rates.

Where does Skype work?

Skype works on the following operating systems Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, Windows, Windows Phone, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Google Android, PSP, Symbian.

Skype works on TV. Free video calling on the big screen right in your living room is a reality thanks to the latest developments from companies such as LG, Panasonic and Samsung: the latest TVs from these manufacturers are designed to work with Skype in high-definition mode.

Where to download Skype?

Just follow the link for your operating system:

How to pay for Skype services?

You can deposit money into your Skype account using Diners, MasterCard or Visa. Using the payment system moneybookers will allow you to use your credit and debit card or bank account to securely purchase Skype products. You can also pay for purchases in Skype through the system WebMoney. SkypeOut services can also be paid through Yandex money. Thanks to the company PayByCash You can pay for purchases on Skype using the payment methods used in your country, so you can do without a credit card.

When and by whom was Skype created?

Skype was created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis.

The first Skype appeared in September 2003.

In October 2005, eBay was bought by eBay for about $2.6 billion (an additional $500 million was later paid), although the company's annual turnover was less than $100 million. In April 2009, eBay executives announced that in the first half of 2010, Skype will be sold on the exchange, as the activities of this company do not fit well with the online auction business.

The company is headquartered in Luxembourg, with branches in London, Prague, San Jose and Tallinn.

Events

2003

• Foundation of the company

2005

• The company was acquired by eBay for $2.7 billion.

2007

• March: Skype 3.1 release, new features added, including Skype Find and Skype Prime. Skype 3.2 beta has also become available with new features that allow you to send money via PayPal to other users.
• August: Skype 3.5 for Windows was released, now there is support for video in the profile, as well as the ability to embed video in the chat; call transfer to another user or group; call auto redial.
• August 15: Skype 2.7.0.49 (beta) for Mac OS.
• August 16-17: "Black Tuesday", as a result of a Skype failure, Skype did not work for more than a day.

2008

• January 30: Skype releases a Sony PSP version.
• March 13: Skype 2.0 for Linux released with video conferencing support.
• July 9: Skype 4.0 Beta was released, the fourth version of the program has a new interface.
• September 1: Skype closes SkypeCasts.
• September 12: Unlimited Europe for $5.95 now includes Russian cities St. Petersburg and Moscow in addition to calls to landlines in 21 European countries.
• December 26: Skype releases version 1.0.0 for Nokia Nst-4 in system-pack v1.0.0

2009

• February 3: Skype 4.0 (Windows) released.
• March 31: Skype released a version for the Apple iPhone.
• May 12: Skype discontinued conferencing.
• September 1: eBay announced the sale of a 65% stake in Skype to a group of investors Andreessen Horowitz for $2 billion.
• Nov 9: Skype releases toolbar for MS Outlook

2010

• January 19: Skype is another client of the Russian company SPIRIT in the field of IP-telephony. The sound quality has been greatly improved.
• February 19: Skype ends support for Skype Lite (Skype for Java Phones) and Skype for Windows Mobile.
• April 31: Skype released a version for the Apple iPad.
• August 9: Skype filed for its first share issue. The company plans to receive $100 million during the placement of shares.
• September 2: Skype adds support for offline chat messages.
• October 5: Release of the full-fledged Skype client for Android.
• October 14: Skype 5.0 (Windows) was released, the fifth version of the program has a new interface and the ability to make group video calls is added.
• December 22-23: Skype crashes worldwide.
• December 23, 18:20 Moscow time: Skype has been restored.

2011

2012

In the program release dated January 10, 2013, integration with the Outlook mail client is implemented.

On January 29, 2013, Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Live Messenger, completely switching to the development of Skype.

The February 22, 2013 version for Windows 8 added a file sharing feature that allows users to exchange documents via instant messaging.

Released on February 27, 2013, version 3.2 for the Android platform is adapted for 7-inch tablets.

On April 7, 2014, Microsoft announced Skype TX, a dedicated Skype-based solution for TV studios and radio stations. Since April 29, 2014, group video conferences have become free. In September 2014, support for phones with the Symbian platform was discontinued.

What is Skype technology?

Unlike many other IP telephony programs, Skype uses a P2P architecture for data transfer. The Skype user directory is distributed across the computers of Skype network users, which allows the network to easily scale to very large sizes (currently more than 100 million users, 10-15 million online) without expensive centralized server infrastructure. In addition, Skype can route calls through other users' computers. This allows users behind a NAT or firewall to connect to each other, but creates an additional load on the computers and channels of users directly connected to the Internet.

The single central element for Skype is the identity server, which stores user accounts and backups of their contact lists. The central server is needed only to establish communication. After the connection is established, the computers send voice data directly to each other (if there is a direct connection between them), or through a Skype intermediary (a supernode is a computer that has an external IP address and an open TCP port for Skype). In particular, if two computers located within the same local network have established a Skype connection between themselves, then the connection with the Internet can be interrupted, and the conversation will continue until it is terminated by users or any communication failure within the local network.

Thanks to the codecs used by Skype (data compression algorithms) SVOPC (16 kHz), AMR-WB (16 kHz), G.729 (8 kHz) and G.711 (formerly ILBC and ISAC were also used) and with sufficient Internet connection speed ( 30-60 kbps) in most cases, the sound quality is better than that of a conventional telephone connection.

When a connection is established between a PC, data is encrypted using AES-256, which, in turn, uses a 1024-bit RSA key to transmit the key.

The Skype VoIP protocol is closed and used only by the original Skype software. Using the API, third-party programs can access its functions.

There have been no cases of data decryption and/or data interception officially confirmed by the developer in Skype.

For stable use of video communication, an Internet connection speed of 200 kbps or more is required, and a processor clock frequency of 1 GHz or more is desirable.

What is Skype history?

The first versions (versions 0.97, 0.98) of the program appeared in September-October 2003. The program simultaneously supported 10 languages ​​and had a simple, logical interface, originally adapted (unlike ICQ and MS-Messenger) for voice communication. During installation, Skype itself chose the Windows localization language and had login registration easier and faster than in competing programs. It was the ease of installation, development and use of the program that quickly attracted the attention of a large number of users. In version 1.2, an answering machine (Voicemail) appeared for the first time, and starting from 1.3, any of its owners could leave messages to other users, even if they did not use this service. 1.2 also introduced the SkypeIn feature, which allows you to link your Skype account to a phone number.

Starting with version 1.4, it became possible to redirect calls to other Skype accounts, as well as to regular phones.

In version 2.0, for the first time, the possibility of video communication appeared, and in 2.5 - the possibility of sending SMS, organizing Skypecasts (this technology was officially disabled from September 1, 2008) and integrating with Microsoft Outlook.

Version 3 has a service (SkypeFind) that allows users to create a list of companies and give them a description. It is now largely filled with spam.

Skype 3.5, version for Nokia Nst-4Skype client can be installed on a compatible phone or PDA, with significant cost savings due to low system rates. However, cellular operators do not want to lose excess profits and slow down the process in every possible way. T-Mobile, Germany's largest mobile phone provider, has said it will block Skype internet telephony traffic on iPhones. It comes to the fact that the lobby of mobile operators is trying to ban Skype, and at the same time ICQ, in Russia.

What are skype services? What are skype paid services?

SkypeOut rates as of March 2006 in US dollars per minute SkypeOut Allows you to make outgoing calls to landlines and mobile phones in most countries of the world. Payment per minute, differentiated. Calls to toll-free numbers (such as +1 800 in the US) are free, and even users who have not paid for SkypeOut can use them. Skype Out also makes incoming Skype calls to a phone with the Skype Lite mobile application. 180 days after the last SkypeOut call, the balance will expire. SkypeIn Allows you to receive phone calls from users of traditional telephone networks. In this case, the participant receives a phone number in one of the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, France, UK, USA, Japan and Hong Kong (China). All incoming calls to this number will go to the Skype account, and if the score is positive, calls can be forwarded to any phone number. As a bonus to the phone number, Skype provides a free answering machine for the duration of the use of the number. Skype Voicemail Free services . Outwardly similar to a conference call, however, unlike it, it is installed through a central server, as a result of which it does not impose high requirements on the bandwidth of the user channel that initiated the conversation.

What are Skype Gadgets and Products?

Skype produces and sells various products for the Skype program. For example, the wireless phone RTX Dualphone 3088 for calls without a computer. The phone allows you to make and receive calls both via Skype and in a regular telephone network without a computer. Skype also produces Freetalk Wireless headsets - wireless headphones with a USB transmitter for wireless communication via Skype, video calling equipment (Freetalk Buddy Pack) and webcams (Freetalk Connect 2).

Attempts to ban Skype

The Commission on Telecommunications and Information Technologies of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) is preparing recommendations to ban Skype in Russia. The interests of RUIE members are clear: thanks to Skype, millions of Internet users in Russia have the opportunity to bypass the existing high tariffs for international telephone communications. In addition, the initiators of the ban and the FSB claim that Skype is difficult to eavesdrop due to the lack of its connection to SORM.

In Belarus, all calls over the network must go through the state operator, and the use of other international networks, including Skype, is considered a violation of the law.

Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest telecommunications company, has said it will block Skype if you try to use it with your iPhone.

Access to Skype may be blocked by hardware. Verso Technologies and Cisco Systems have similar solutions. In particular, they are used by the largest Chinese provider China Telecom. Similarly, Skype is blocked in the UAE.

In response to attempts to ban Skype, its developers began to introduce traffic masking tools into the program to bypass VoIP blocking. In addition, Skype can work with proxy servers, VPN and Tor, which practically negates the effectiveness of its blocking.

Number of Skype users.

Year (end of year) Registered Users Online Users
2005 74 million 10.8 million

Comparison of Skype with other programs

	Skype	Net2Phone	MSN Messenger, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo Messenger	Other Voice Clients
Work with all brandmauers No configuration required	V	X	X	X
Unlimited calls to other subscribers	V	V	V	Sometimes
Sound quality	It is better, than by phone	Worse, than by phone	Worse, than by phone	Worse, than by phone
Security and encryption of connections	V	X	X	X
100% ad-free	V	X	X	Sometimes

Over the ten years of its existence, Skype - a unique program for free voice communication over the Internet, based on peer-to-peer technology and allowing you not to be afraid of intercepting calls - has become one of the many Microsoft services, supervised by all self-respecting intelligence agencies in the world. How could this happen? The usual thing is money.

KaZaA

The real story of Skype began in 2000, when two employees of the Swedish telecommunications company Tele2 - the Swede Niklas Zennström with an engineering and business education and the Dane Janus Friis, who did not even have a completed secondary education - were recruited to work on the entertainment and news portal Everyday.com , the likes of which just then came into vogue. Probably to save money, the management of the Estonian branch of Tele2 placed an ad in the local newspaper for qualified programmers with a pay of about $300 per day.

Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis.

Three classmates responded to the ad - Jaan Tallinn, Ahti Heinla and Priit Kasesalu. Friends back in FIDO, at the end of the Soviet era, they founded a small company called BlueMoon Interactive and even developed the rather successful computer game Kosmonaut. In 1989, it became the first Estonian game to be sold abroad, and brought them some good money at the time. But by 2000, the company was already on the verge of bankruptcy, so the friends learned the simple basics of PHP in a couple of days and were successfully hired by Tele2. Another Estonian, Toivo Annus, was appointed to lead the Everyday.com development team.

The portal Everyday.com was launched in the shortest possible time, but turned out to be commercially unsuccessful. Zennström and Friis left Tele2 and moved to Amsterdam, where they started thinking about starting their own business. The frenzied popularity of Napster file-sharing service, which the outraged members of Metallica have already begun to pursue in the USA, led them to the idea of ​​​​creating something similar, but in collaboration with representatives of the recording and film industries. A well-established team of Estonian programmers was involved in the development of such a network, and in September 2000, the KaZaA program was born in Tallinn.

Ahti Heinla, Toivo Annus and Jaan Tallinn.

Unlike Napster, whose main problem was the presence of a central server where data about connected computers and available files were stored, KaZaA did not require intermediate servers at all. As a result, almost immediately after its appearance, the KaZaA client became the most downloaded program on the Internet.

However, Zennström and Friis failed to reach an agreement with the labels, which considered KaZaA as another intermediary of the "pirates", and soon armies of American lawyers began to hunt for the newly-minted businessmen. The Swedes went on the run from the plaintiffs, constantly changing "appearances and passwords", and the whole team began to intensively encrypt correspondence and regularly get rid of "compromising" information. At the same time, the Estonian government initially rejected the request of the Americans to interrogate the BlueMoon team about revealing KaZaA's trade secrets. Subsequently, however, they were nevertheless interrogated in the presence of American lawyers, but no charges were brought against the Estonians.

As a result, at the end of 2001, KaZaA was sold to the Australian company Sharman Networks, registered in Vanuatu, and a few years later, already in 2006, Zennström and Friis paid about $ 100 million from their own funds as part of the settlement of copyright disputes with four major labels - Universal Music , Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music, among others.

Skype: start

Meanwhile, the most important part of KaZaA's intellectual property - patents for the Global Index peer-to-peer technology - remained in the hands of enterprising Swedes: specifically for this, they registered the Joltid company in the offshore zone of the British Virgin Islands, to which all rights were transferred. And they did it just in time, because now the labels could sue Sharman Networks until they were blue in the face, but they could not get the rights to the peer-to-peer technology itself and prohibit its use already as patent holders.

In fact, even then, Zennström and Friis had the idea of ​​​​creating an application that could provide voice communication between any computers connected to the Internet, while completely free. The partners had almost ready-made Global Index P2P technology in their hands, only instead of files it had to be configured to transmit digitized voice data.

Of course, the Estonian team of programmers familiar to us joined the project, and the city of Tallinn became the actual headquarters of Skype for a long time. In the spring of 2003, an alpha version of the new application was ready and sent to 20 testers. The name was made up of the words “sky” (“sky”) and “peer” (“equal”, already in the meaning of the “peer” node) and initially looked like “Skyper”, however, the skyper.com domain name turned out to be busy, so the partners decided to just drop the last letter.

At first, reviews of Skype were skeptical, primarily because of the mediocre sound quality, but the mere fact that this application allowed you to communicate with people on the other side of the world for free made me look at it from a completely different perspective. The well-known American venture capitalist William Draper decided to invest in the people who made KaZaA, and the invested millions returned to him a thousand times more.

The first full-fledged version of Skype was released on August 29, 2003, and the company of the same name was registered in Luxembourg, a country where foreign jurisdictions do not welcome interference in the activities of their legal entities. And it was very reasonable, because the "robin hoods" of file sharing have now become the worst enemies of all telecommunications companies in the world. On the first day Skype was downloaded by 10,000 people.

Skype: eBay era

After working with KaZaA, Skype was originally created as a product protected from interception: all conversations were encrypted without fail, and computers connected to the network were supposed to act as supernode servers to one degree or another. The only necessary central element of the network is a server with user accounts and backup copies of their contact lists, containing no other information. Skype easily bypassed firewalls, skillfully masked its traffic, leaked through any available ports and left no trace of its presence on the Internet.

As a result, for some time it became a favorite tool for criminals of all stripes, and with the opening of paid services (for example, calls to SkypeOut phones), they even began to use it for money laundering. Not surprisingly, law enforcement and intelligence agencies of all countries, as well as representatives of telecommunications companies, bombarded Skype's Luxembourg and London offices with a wide variety of angry demands, which the company's lawyers simply sent to the trash without reading.

This was possible not only due to the Luxembourg “registration” of the company, but also due to the fact that Zennström and Friis now paid the closest attention to the legal support of the business: KaZaA’s experience made them make every effort to ensure that the next enterprise was one hundred percent legal. In particular, Skype was never registered as a telecom operator, instead the company was considered an "electronic information provider", like, for example, an enterprise providing e-mail services.

Until 2005, Skype bore little resemblance to a typical high-tech business: price lists for paid services were compiled without relying on any marketing research, staff were recruited based on the results of simple tests, and salaries and even the terms of its payment were not prescribed anywhere. None of the three Skype offices - in Tallinn, Luxembourg and London - even had signs, and the offices themselves were impossible to find by a random person.

At the same time, the number of lawsuits against Skype has steadily grown, while Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft and Google have announced their intention to open similar services of their own in the near future. In the summer of 2005, Zennström and Friis began negotiations with eBay, and in September it was announced that Skype had been sold to this largest online auction for $ 2.6 billion: this was the most impressive purchase of eBay in history. The partners woke up as billionaires, and the Estonian programming team received $42 million each. In addition, another 140 people in Tallinn and London had small stakes in the company.

It is unlikely that eBay really understood that O they bought, and most importantly - why. The cultural differences between the Estonian and American staff of the company were so great that even the corporate parties that took place in Pärnu simply shocked the Americans. eBay representatives' hair stood on end when they saw a "live" television broadcast of the 2006 Skype party, where Zennström poured vodka with his own hands for everyone, and the guests splashed in the pool right in their clothes.

At the same time, Skype brought much less profit than a headache, and in 2009 eBay decided to spin it off as a separate company and put its shares on the stock exchange. And then the former owners Zennström and Friis reappeared on the scene with a proposal to buy Skype back. Moreover, they had a well-known argument in their arsenal: all rights to patents still remained in the ownership of the offshore Joltid, and the eBay store used them under license. Meanwhile, eBay managed to sell a 65% stake in Skype to investment fund Andreessen Horowitz, as a result of which Joltid started litigation against two rivals, accusing them of illegally using other people's patents.

The situation was resolved by a settlement with eBay, which ended up with nothing but a waiver of legal action from Joltid and licenses for their peer-to-peer technology. Skype was bought by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion.

Skype: the era of Microsoft

The acquisition of Skype was also the largest purchase in history for Microsoft, as well as for eBay. Zennström and Friis for the second time received impressive money for their most successful enterprise. For the time being, Skype is still a standalone application run by the Microsoft Skype division, with offices in Luxembourg, Tartu and Tallinn. But, knowing Microsoft, there is no doubt that in the future this application will become just a part of the code of some larger branded product, and the name Skype itself will remain in the past.

And, most importantly, there was nothing left of the former secrecy of the negotiations: according to former NSA employee Edward Snowden, the US intelligence agencies got behind the scenes of Skype with the help of eBay, and in order to disguise the technical and legal consequences of such actions, the secret Chess project was allegedly developed, about which only a few people at eBay knew. There is no doubt that this collaboration continues into the Microsoft era. In addition, now the communication technology itself has been changed in such a way that it is no longer possible to create supernodes on some separate computers within the network that meet purely technical requirements: all their functions have been transferred to Microsoft servers.

In turn, the user agreement now allows access to the transmitted data both by Microsoft itself and by affiliated companies and Internet providers. The availability of means to control Skype conversations has already been openly announced by the intelligence services of several states, including, of course, Russia.

Of the entire original Skype team, only one person continues to work on the system - Priit Kazesalu. Annus quit immediately after selling the system to eBay, Tallinn and Heinla held on for another couple of years. All of them are now very wealthy people, investing in a variety of start-ups: Tallinn, for example, participates in the Lifeboat Foundation's "saving humanity" project and owns MetaMed, a "personalized healthcare" company. Billionaires Zennström and Friis enjoy life and are seen in acts of charity.

Communication is one of the main components of our life. The development of technology pushed letters written by hand to the “backyard”, giving the palm to IT tools. The latter include mobile communications and the Internet. With their help, you can freely communicate, being hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart. Now we do not run to the mailbox - we rush to the computer as fast as we can, when the Skype call begins to ring melodiously and loudly in it.

Leading communication tool

Without exaggeration, we can say that this program is a kind of symbol of freedom on the Internet. Many users of this utility are seriously interested in how Skype was created and who was its founder? There are many opinions about this issue. And most of them are false. Interestingly, many Danes and Swedes declare with absolute certainty that the developers of Skype are their compatriots. However, this is not entirely true. This article talks about who really invented Skype and how this utility has gained recognition around the world.

Estonian roots

Everyone probably knows a small beautiful European country whose name automatically raises a smile - Estonia. For some reason, the population of the former Soviet Union associates this state exclusively with the slowness and slowness of its citizens. Imagine the surprise of many when it becomes known that the creation of Skype is the work of the Estonian guys. Agree, it is incredible that this country with a slow pace of life is home to one of the fastest programs for communication on the Internet. This fact contains a seemingly hidden allusion to an absolutely false idea of ​​the temperament and character of Estonians.

The origin and development of the utility

The history of Skype began in 2003. It was then, about 11 years ago, that the Estonian guys Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jan Tallinn developed the initial code, which was the foundation of the future program. At that time, they were also working on a file sharing utility between Internet users. This program is called KaZaa. Together with Estonian young people, the founders of the described file hosting service also worked on this project: Dane Janus Friis and Swede Nicholas Zenstorm. In the process of work, not even slow guys designed the code, which became the basis for the future interactive program.

In parallel with how Skype was created, programmers studied the requirements and wishes of users of the World Wide Web. It became clear that people no longer have enough of a simple chat. Therefore, the team of creators decided to endow the utility with all possible functions that will facilitate not only written communication, but also video communication, as well as the exchange of various data.

Name choice

The original name for the utility was the expression "Sky peer-to-peer", which means "Across the sky with each other." The team then settled on a shortened version of "Skyper". However, in the process of registering domains on the World Wide Web, it was discovered that this name was already taken on many resources. As a result, young people "threw" the last letter "r" from the name and opted for a simple and concise "Skype". This name selection process took several months. The final decision was made in April 2003. The result was the successful registration of domain names Skype.net and Skype.com.

Full version and rise in popularity

In August of the same year, an official program was made available on the Internet, which had almost all the functionality planned by the developers. The so-called beta version was released to the network in order to obtain detailed information about errors and malfunctions. While Skype was being created, the programmers decided in the future, as far as possible, to introduce into their “brainchild” the functions that consumers want to see. It is thanks to the beta version that the developers have collected enough information about the tastes and preferences of users, which allowed them to create a fast utility equipped with various modes.

The first full version became available to users in autumn 2003. It is noteworthy that in a few months the number of users of this program has grown hundreds of thousands of times. A huge number of people thanked those talented programmers who came up with Skype.

Advantages of the utility

What attracted users to this program?

For starters, it's free to use. The minimum and necessary set of functions for communication is available for free. Remarkably, among them the leading position is occupied by video communication. For many people who live hundreds of thousands of miles apart, this mode is a great opportunity to be closer to each other.

The second point is quick registration. In order to become a member of the large "Skype family" it is enough to enter your mailbox address in the field, select a nickname and password. And that's it. Now you can enjoy.

This utility also has a convenient and intuitive interface. Thanks to the well-designed toolbar, you can easily switch modes, change tabs and customize the program. The fourth point is a convenient and quick search for an interlocutor. Just go to the "Contacts" tab and click "Add Contact". We enter a name for the search and in the window that appears, select the one we need. A request to be added to the contact list will be sent at the same time.

Of course, the huge advantage of Skype over other programs for communication is the presence of a large number of different functions. The first and most common (like all similar and similar utilities) is the ability to send and receive simple text messages. The presence of video calls has made Skype the leading application for contacting distant interlocutors. In addition, using the program, you can share various files: send photos, documents, music, videos, and more.

First problem

Two years after the release of the program, the first unpleasant event for developers occurred. Trying to introduce the population of China to the new mobile version of the utility, a team of young programmers received serious resistance from local telecommunications companies. The reason for this was the fear of Asian corporations to lose control over the conquered market segments. Only a few Chinese companies made concessions and agreed to add the SkypeOut application to their mobile phones.

Sale and returns

The rapid growth in popularity has attracted the attention of large companies to this program. In 2005, the developers sold their "brainchild". The buyer was eBay, which offered $2.6 billion for the interactive utility. After some time, the corporation, known worldwide for its online auctions and the PayPal payment system, paid bonus payments to the developers of the program, increasing the cost of Skype by 500 million. The history of the creation and modernization of the utility includes another owner. In 2011, eBay sold the rights to the program back to the developers and their attracted investor, Microsoft. The deal amounted to $8.5 billion.

At the moment, this is the full version of the story about how much the developers have yet to come. A huge number of plans are in front of programmers. We can only look forward to new and more advanced versions of the Skype interactive communication program.

Skype is designed for personal and business communication at any time, in any circumstance, on any device, such as mobile phones, computers or Alexa. Unique Features voice and video calls, and Skype text messages help you communicate and work together. It is suitable for making one-on-one and group calls.

You can have Skype meetings and get together with colleagues, share experiences and celebrate holidays with friends and family, and learn new skills with a teacher. Skype is a free app. You can send messages, make sound and video calls, including in groups of up to 50 people!

And by making some money to your account, you can call regular phones and send SMS messages. You can pay only for calls already made or subscribe to a calling plan, whichever suits you best.

Download Skype today and start adding friends, family and colleagues to your contact list. It will not be difficult to find them on Skype, because Skype has been around for a long time for a variety of purposes hundreds of millions people.

Contacts

Skype was founded in 2003 and is today a division of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) headquartered in Luxembourg.

Sitemunications SARL
23-29 Rives de Clausen
L-2165 (Luxembourg)
Company registration number: R.C.S. Luxembourg B100.468
Authorized Representative: Lauri Paal
VAT code: LU 20981643

Call via the Internet to a regular cell phone or landline phone? Easy. Contact another user on the network by establishing direct audiovisual contact? Even easier! VoIP and softphones are rapidly conquering markets around the world, and at the forefront of this "attack" is a program whose name is well known to everyone - Skype. That's what we'll talk about today.

Before Skype, or a digression into history

Many science fiction writers of the 19th-20th centuries predicted that sooner or later humanity would invent a kind of videophone, thanks to which the interlocutor could not only be heard, but also seen. Some especially gifted personalities (Tesla, for example) started talking about it even at a time when even an ordinary telephone was a curiosity.

In fact, humanity coped with the invention of such a contraption sooner rather than later. Judge for yourself: even 15 years ago it was hard to think that very soon we would have compact and powerful cell phones at our disposal, from which you can easily make a video call to anywhere in the world (that you can also easily go online, listen to music, read, watch movies, and so on, and there is nothing to say).

It is worth noting that attempts to invent a videophone as an independent device is a topic worthy of a separate story. For example, back in 1964, AT&T managed to install the first public videophone booths in New York, Washington, and Chicago. Devices bearing the name Picturephone Mod I were also installed with pomp at the headquarters of large companies. It was planned that the innovation would be a resounding success, and then universal recognition would come. In devices, by the way, 3 pairs of telephone wires were used: one for sound transmission and two (with a bandwidth of 1 MHz) for video transmission in each direction. The image was updated every 2 seconds. An additional PBX was used for video switching. But the public did not appreciate all these efforts - a call from New York to Washington cost $16 for 3 minutes, and to Chicago - $27, which scared away even the most notorious geeks of that time. As a result, the booths were dismantled already in 1968.

However, we digress. Our today's story will not be about video payphones at all, but about the idea of ​​transmitting voice and image over the Net, which appeared almost before the invention of computer networks themselves.

As paradoxical as it sounds, until a certain period of time, telephone networks and data transmission networks existed independently of each other. The fact is that the equipment and channels of those years simply could not cope with both at the same time. Scientists have been struggling to solve this problem since the 60s, but the first noticeable progress was made only in the 80s, when the ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) was created - a network that supported services for the transmission of voice, data, video and text. But those were only the first steps, and the real results and the actual “birthday” of Voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing came in the 90s.
The first sign that broke through the dam of "network silence" was the Internet Phone program, created by the Israelis from VocalTec. Internet Phone was released in early 1995 and, in fact, was a banal IM + softphone, with which you could call other PCs by voice. But what seems banal now, then evoked emotions like “omigod, it's magic !! 11.” And this despite the fact that this miracle worked in half-duplex mode, that is, unilaterally, as when talking on a walkie-talkie ( which is not surprising - the founders of VocalTec got the idea for the program while serving in the army, looking at packet voice radio).

Neither the above, nor the fact that the quality of communication usually left much to be desired, could stand in the way of progress - in a few weeks, thousands of people downloaded Internet Phone and immediately began to actively use it. This served as a go-ahead - it became obvious that the interest of the public is great, and the prospects for Internet telephony are huge. The market was immediately flooded with all sorts of clones of the Israeli program, and by the end of 1995, the DigiPhone software appeared on sale, which allowed you to listen and speak at the same time.

In the camp of software for transmitting video over the Web, things were also going well in the meantime. At the beginning of all the same 90s, craftsmen from Cornell University wrote the CU-SeeMe program, originally intended for Macs, and then released for Windows. By the way, it was with the help of CU-SeeMe in 1994 during the flight of the Endeavor NASA shuttle transmitted its image to Earth.

Interest in VoIP technology, that is, in the transmission of a voice signal over the Internet or other IP networks, grew rapidly, and already in 1996 the issues of standardization and adoption of regulations were ripe. The International Telecommunication Union, an international organization that defines recommendations in the field of telecommunications and radio, and also regulates the international use of radio frequencies, adopted recommendations for the H.323 standard, which was based on almost 50 other standards. Thus, the first standard was adopted for multimedia communication using packet-based networks that do not guarantee quality of service. At the same time, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an open international community of designers, scientists, network operators and providers that develops the protocols and architecture of the Internet, developed the Realtime Transport Protocol (RTP), which found application in H.323.

The further development of VoIP proceeded as follows:

• 1996 was also marked by an agreement between VocalTec and the giant Dialogic. The goal of their joint project was to create the first specialized telephone gateway for IP telephony, called VocalTec Telephonе Gateway (VTG).
• 1997 gave the world the opportunity to make calls not only from PC to PC, but also from PC to phone and vice versa, as well as from phone to phone.
• The year 1999 was marked by the first specification of the open standard SIP (Session Initiation Protocols), which the guys from the IETF have been developing since 1996, and which will be discussed below. H.323 has a competitor that, as time will tell, will quickly make short work of its predecessor.

This is how the matter imperceptibly approached the new millennium, and hence the creation of Skype.

Skype

Skype belongs to the pen of European progers, namely the Estonians Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jan Tallinn. These names may surprise someone, because in recent years, the creators of Skype are often called completely different people - the Dane Janus Friis (Janus Friis) and the Swede Niklas Zennstrom (Niklas Zennstrom). The thing is that both the first and the second are true.
It is possible that the names of the three Estonian developers not only caused surprise, but also seemed vaguely familiar to some readers. If you showed up, we hasten to please - you have an excellent memory. The fact is that in the early 2000s, these guys were developing the unforgettable KaZaA P2P file-sharing network, thanks to which they gained fame. The work on Skype, which gentlemen IT journalists unfairly credit to Friis and Zennstrom, respectively, was already after.

“Who are Zennström and Friis?” you ask. Of course, it was no coincidence that they also appeared in this story - this couple was directly related to the development and development of both projects (both KaZaA and Skype), and some of their "exploits" literally overshadowed the rest of the team. However, to call them "the creators of Skype" is a strong exaggeration, since these two are primarily businessmen and investors, but not developers. We will tell you more about Friis, Zennstrom and their role in Skype separately below, but for now let's get back to the program itself.

Active work on Skype was started in 2002 after a solid investment from the Draper Investment Company, and the software came out pretty quickly: the Skype.com and Skype.net domain names were registered in April, and the public saw the first beta release of the program already in August 2003. By the way, a random interesting fact - during development, the program was called Skyper (short for "Sky peer-to-peer"), and only closer to the completion of the work was renamed Skype, because the Skyper domain name was already taken.

So, what made Skype different from many other similar programs, which at that time were released a little more than a fig? Unlike other software designed for IP telephony, Skype used and still uses the P2P architecture for work, which is not at all surprising if we recall the track record of its creators. In fact, this is one of its main advantages: all voice traffic goes through network nodes, which are the users themselves (and the more users use the system, the better it works). Skype can also route calls through the computers of other users, which allows users behind NAT or a firewall to connect to each other (creating an increased load on the channels of other users).

By the time Skype entered the IP telephony market, almost all of this market was occupied by software and hardware based on the SIP standard, which it's time to talk about in more detail.

Unlike the secret Skype protocol, SIP is completely open to developers, well thought out, and easy to implement in hardware. The SIP protocol was taken as a sample for SIP HTTP messages, like HTTP requests, are transmitted over the Internet in text form, and their formats partially coincide. This greatly simplifies the development and debugging of programs that support SIP, and, quite likely, contributed to its growth in popularity. Just like Skype, SIP does not have a centralized server - there are many servers; in fact, anyone can acquire one, and they all interact with each other. The tasks of the protocol include only the establishment and coordination of communication, and it is not at all necessary that this communication be voice - it can be any other data stream (video, multimedia, interactive service).

SIP is focused on working in local networks and on good Internet channels.

Skype is the complete opposite of SIP, although some evidence indicates that the Skype protocol is based on a modified SIP. Be that as it may, there are more than enough differences: Skype is a closed protocol, and, due to its P2P structure, uses forced encryption (data is encrypted using AES-256, which, in turn, uses a 1024-bit RSA key to transfer the key Users' public keys are certified by Skype's central server when they log in using either 1536- or 2048-bit RSA certificates) and are much better suited to extreme environments than SIP. The phrase “I’m at the door, and he’s at the window” most accurately reflects Skype’s behavior pattern - close the usual range of UDP protocol ports for it, and it will switch to free TCP ports, and if it presses completely, Skype is always ready to use an HTTP proxy. Some experts argue that the only way to completely block Skype is to analyze the contents of all packets that Skype, remember, encrypts. The program bypasses simpler methods.

All of the above has been seriously straining the intelligence services of almost all countries of the world for many years - how is it that something cannot be intercepted and decrypted, this is definitely a mess! However, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Germany and Russia have already hinted that they still have solutions for listening to Skype in their arsenal.

Skype is criticized by many security experts and even hackers. Back in 2007, in the 100th issue of ][ Chris Kaspersky devoted an extended article to this issue, entitled "Skype: a hidden threat." In the article, Chris writes the following: “Skype is a black box with a multi-level encryption system, stuffed with anti-debugging tricks of an executable file that reads confidential information from a computer and transmits it to the Network using a proprietary protocol. The latter bypasses firewalls and severely masks its traffic, preventing it from being blocked. All this makes Skype the perfect vector for viruses, worms and drones that create their own distributed networks within the Skype network.”

But Skype managed to conquer a wide audience not due to encryption and resourcefulness, but due to two very important things: simplicity and excellent sound quality.

Starting from the very first version, released in the fall of 2003, Skype supported 10 languages ​​and had the most simple interface, unlike other IMs, which was originally tailored specifically for voice communication. It also played a role that the entire procedure for installing the program and registering a new user was many times easier than that of competitors. As for codecs, Skype uses SVOPC (16 kHz), AMR-WB (16 kHz), G.729 (8 kHz) and G.711 (formerly ILBC and ISAC were also used), which, with a sufficient connection speed (30-60 Kbps) /c) allows you to get a sound comparable in quality to conventional telephone communication.

Immediately taking off the bat in 2003, Skype did not stop developing for a minute. With each new version, more and more new features and "conveniences" appeared. It makes no sense to list all these answering machines, online numbers, conferences, services for sending SMS, and so on, since the article is still not called “Skype services for dummies” :). Instead, I would like to note something else - the company developed steadily, despite the fact that in 2005 Friis and Zennström sold their offspring, which had already gained immense popularity (74.7 million accounts and an average of 10.8 million users on the network), eBay for the tidy sum of several billion dead presidents. The facts and figures clearly show that this has not affected the development of Skype in the worst way:

• As of today, there are more than 560 million accounts on Skype;
• There are versions of Skype for almost all platforms known to mankind, including mobile ones;
• The company provides a full range of VoIP services;
• Skype produces and sells various gadgets from headsets and webcams to full-fledged Skype-backgrounds - phones that can work with both the regular telephone network and Skype.

We shared an orange, or patent trolling

Now, after covering all sorts of technological aspects of Skype, we can talk about more fun things - for dessert, we have the real "scandals, intrigues, investigations."

As promised, let's return to the personalities of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis and take a closer look at them. Zennström is a graduate of Uppsala University with a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in physics. Friis, on the contrary, cannot boast of a "tower", since he once left school and went to work in the technical support of a local provider.
It so happened that at the very beginning of their life and career path, these two got a job at the Swedish telecommunications company Tele2, where in 1996 fate brought them together.

After working side by side for several years, Zennström and Friis got along so well that already in 2000 they decided to quit and start their own business, which became the KaZaA file-sharing network. In fact, to develop it, Friis and Zennström moved to Amsterdam, hired a team of programmers, and preferred to remain in leadership positions.

However, an incident came up with Kaza - the brainchild of Friis and Zennstrem did not have time to gain momentum, as active persecution began on peer-to-peer networks. Just then, the legendary Napster closed, and, as you know, a holy place is never empty - all illegal content flowed to other networks, one of which was KaZaA. Copycats immediately began to besiege our unfortunate businessmen, wanting to drown them in lawsuits, and this state of affairs was not at all to the liking of the newly minted startups. Zennström and Friis were forced to keep the location of the company's offices secret and, in the most literal sense, go on the run, hiding from the subpoenas that rained down like a cornucopia.

When it became finally clear that the saying “time heals” does not apply to this situation, and it only gets worse, it was decided to get rid of KaZaA. A bizarre deal was made, during which KaZaA went to the Australian company Sharman Networks, registered in the Pacific island of Vanuatu. However, something was not included in this deal at that time, something very important - the rights and patents for the peer-to-peer technology that was used in KaZaA. These rights remained in the hands of Zennstrom and Friis, or rather their new company Joltid, registered in the British Virgin Islands.

You already probably understand that all these details are given here for a reason. The fact is that later it was this technology that was used to create Skype.

By the way, if we talk about the role of Friis and Zennsterm in the creation of Skype, then everything was already familiar to us - hired programmers (the same Estonians who pored over KaZaA) and two inseparable startups as the founders of the project. Although, in fairness, it should be noted here that Zennstrom was faithful to Skype and remained as CEO until 2007, that is, for another two years after the sale of the company to eBay.

So eBay. As mentioned above, in 2005, just two years after its inception, Skype was sold to eBay for a fabulous $2.6 billion plus another $1.5 billion a few years later if Skype's financials were good (it was the largest eBay acquisition in the history of the auction). Both Friis and Zennström then suddenly became billionaires and, it would seem, could easily enjoy life, start and promote other projects, invest and just spend those same billions. But it was not there.

After waiting four long years after the deal, and having managed to launch the Joost startup in that time, the prudent couple decided that it was enough to watch the development of Skype from the outside. And development, by the way, was obvious: the number of users grew from 53 to more than 400 million, the international traffic of Skype in 2008 amounted to a record 33 billion minutes, but all this did not bring the coveted money to eBay. And since the profits from Skype amounted to much more modest amounts than originally planned, in 2009 the largest auction on the planet decided to get rid of the acquisition, saying that it intends to again spin Skype into a separate company and put its shares on the exchange. This message caused Friis and Zennström to suddenly become active.

Few people initially understood why eBay bought Skype at all (official statements sounded too unconvincing: “for the convenience of communication between users of the auction”), but only in 2009 the whole comedy of the situation reached the general public. It turned out that by acquiring Skype itself, eBay managed to leave the rights and patents for the memorable key technology in the hands of its previous owners. Yes, Friis and Zennström represented by Joltid. And the owners, having learned about the upcoming listing of Skype on the stock exchange, developed a storm of activity, starting to return what was sold back. So, the New York Times, for example, leaked a rumor that the former owners of Skype have already managed to spend their billions and are now forced to communicate with private investors, trying to find the missing part of the amount to make a “reverse” deal.

Moreover, savvy businessmen immediately fired a “warning shot” - since eBay had been working with Joltid all this time under a license, Friis and Zennström filed a lawsuit in court, intending to cancel the validity of this license in the UK. To start.

Mutual blackmail and attacks towards each other lasted for almost six months. During this time, eBay, as if in response to the offer of Zennstrom and Friis to buy out their offspring, managed to sell 65% of Skype shares to Andreessen Horowitz's investor group for $ 2 billion. Resourceful businessmen immediately sued again, now against the new owners of Skype, accusing them of patent infringement and demanding $75 million for each day of the service's "illegal" operation. The auction, which Friis and Zennström also didn't leave alone (because eBay still had a 35% stake!), filed a counterclaim against Joltid to ban the company from using Skype's underlying technology. Realizing that the process would probably not be won, representatives of eBay, just in case, declared their readiness to rewrite Skype from scratch, if necessary.

The end of all this circus came quite recently, in November 2009. Surprisingly, the situation was nevertheless resolved peacefully. eBay, which had previously categorically refused to pay anything to ex-Skype owners, eventually agreed to the deal. Zennström and Friis did not remain in the overlay, they not only got seats on the board of directors again, but also snatched a 14% stake in Skype. The whole point of the situation is that they did not have to fork out - eBay agreed to their terms in exchange for a waiver of claims and licensing of their intellectual property.

We will, of course, never know what Zennström and Friis' original plan was, or if it existed at all. It is possible that they imagined "returning to Skype" a little differently, so to speak, in a more rosy light. Perhaps Joltid had the rights up its sleeve for a more appropriate occasion, and eBay's decision to get rid of Skype forced things. On the other hand, it may turn out that Friis and Zennström did not plan anything criminal at all, although it is very difficult to believe that they “accidentally” retained the rights to the key technology, and Joltid was opened in an offshore zone by pure chance.

After the above, it would be reasonable to ask the question: “what will happen to Skype next?”, Because although the division is over, it cannot be said that everything is going very smoothly. No, no, yes, they will try to ban a softphone in some country or sue the company (recently, telecommunications and cellular operators in a number of countries, including Russia, have been very bad at Skype). However, this is due not so much to Skype itself, but to VoIP telephony in general - in the latter, OPSOS and Co., due to paranoia, often see a competitor, pest and enemy number one.

Perhaps, with regard to the future of Skype, the following can be said for sure: one of the most popular and successful VoIP services, which is used by several hundred million people, cannot simply disappear into oblivion, no matter what happens. And if the founding fathers of this software also include two such cunning and stubborn types as Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, Skype will not only not disappear, but, most likely, will find better ways to monetize and increase profits.