Research Group Pushes to Ban Skype 196
cowmix writes "Hot on the heals of Skype being purchased by Ebay, a research group called Info-Tech just put out a recommendation to its customers that all corporations should ban the use of Skype on their networks. The reports sites a laundry list of issues it feels plagues Skype, most of which will have a familiar ring (ie the normal anti-IM and P2P talking points). Will this cool Skype's rapid progress into the business arena?"
Info-Tech, No conflict of interest there... (Score:5, Informative)
Now lets not give this poor piece of press release any more credence then it deserves, It may be on yahoo's page but its only the equivalent of a company making a mock news story about themselves.
Re:Not if (Score:5, Informative)
whois + summary (Score:1, Informative)
"The leading IT research firm for midsized enterprises"
Date Registered: 1998-4-17
Info-Tech Research Group
602 Queens Avenue
London, ON (CA)
N6B 1Y8
Administrative Contact
Info-Tech Research Group
Casey McKeown
602 Queens Avenue
London
Summary:
They are 'suits' from London who charge clueless businesses a fortune for 'papers' and 'consultation documents'
There are two simple reasons why Skype use is bad (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Half-truths (Score:5, Informative)
Only Linux/ALSA is supported.
Windows, Linux and MacOS is supported. On Linux, Skype uses OSS, not ALSA. ALSA support is in the works.
Audio is poor quality: only 8KHz 1 channel 8 bit sampling.
Audio quality scales with available bandwith/cpu power. Skype dynamically switches codecs depending on the available resources.
Encryption not turned on by default.
Really? [skype.com] All Skype calls are encrypted end-to-end by default - Skype to PSTN calls are encrypted until it reaches the PSTN network.
User interface uses harsh, unfriendly colours.
Subjective. The Linux version can easily be themed through QT, as it is dynamically linked to your QT library.
The ringing sound is kind of loud, and surprises you when you're not expecting it because you forgot to set your status to not interrupt you.
Not only can you change the default ring tone, you can download free ringtones from the Skype website...
So... What was the problem again?
Re:Think About it (Score:1, Informative)
I'd like to point out to you the official Skype docs, where they tell you to open your firewall to all outbound and inbound traffic above port 1024 so that Skype works better. They also state that this will have no negative impact on your network.
And Skype does use documented ports - but if they are blocked, it resorts to looking for other ports like HTTP and HTTPS. So that means my choice as an admin is to allow Skypes POS on my network (eating bandwidth, making my internal communication control more difficult, getting rid of non-approved software, blocking the ability to stop file transfers, etc) or to turn off all Internet access for users. Your choice here. Trust me, I have no issues with turning off end user access to the Internet. 99% of the jobs I see elsewhere in the company don't seem like they need Internet access anyway.
Before you start posting about how easy it is for a network admin to control something like this, and deal with all the regulations that now surround being in charge of networks and servers at a company that might be publicly traded, you should really work on a network that is outside you own home.
If you are a company that wants to step into the VoIP arena, there are a ton of better options than Skype. Open source or closed. Extremely expensive or free. That's your choice too. But at least use a supportable solution, that you can use as a business tool, that runs established protocols, that you can leave running all day without impacting the performance of your computer, that doesn't rely on Kaazaa technology to work and that can become part of a larger VoIP environment rather than just be a propietary chat tool.