Hi Josh, I'm still subscribed to Skype Blogs in my RSS feed reader so just picked up on this. I'd think one of your first tasks is to really get hold of whichever unit looks after Skype for Business. I was one of the thousands of people who lost their Skype-In number with less than a months notice. This caused me a lot of hassle. I'm now using Voipfone and very happy with the service. Skype haven't contacted me since sending the email to say my Skype-In number was being withdrawn. I was surprised at this as a business user, all of our company has now moved away from Skype and I've stopped recommending it as a business solution. I'd be wiling to listen to any improvements or attempts to win me back to Skype. Thanks...

Looking forward to new features. Please bring us caller ID in the US!

I am quite happy to see this blogpost.

If you move with your family this means you plan to stay several years as the captain of this ship.

I hope Skype will continue to charm me, not with one thousand new small features and one thousand permanent bugs but with indeed - like mattm_uk says above - :
quality, reliability, business focus, adult focus, customer support.

And, welcome to Europe,

Jean

Welcome to Skype. I use Skype to keep in contact with 5 or 6 friends scattered through out the USA.

Many times 3 or 4 of us get together for a conference call. What we miss with Skype is a ability to have Video Conference call. Presently we use a program called OOVO. Works great, but would love to see Skype offer the same feature.

Any chance of that happening ??

My family, and I'm certain many other Skypers, would greatly appreciate the tools ability to block unwanted "Add Me as a Contact" spam. Such has become a highly offensive 'splash screen' while logged in. Perhaps there should be a limit to the number of accounts a spammer can take into the PC. Aw shucks, now that my user name is public on this blog I must batten down the hatches even more I suppose.

Congrats on your New Challenges. I hope you are able to arrive at the BenchMarks you personally set for your new adventure. This should not come as surprise to many Skyper's. The new US SKype plan has wonderful new features but is way to confusing to the average user and even an experienced end user. There must be a more timely response to support challenges, billing questions,and use.
The media used is not important, be it Skype, email,phone, it just must be fast,understandable, and resolve each and every request every time.

After All that's CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Good Luck
Respectively Submitted

PeterMathewson
Portsmouth, New Hampshire USA

ps. I am also using ooVoo with family members and we do like it. It is very intuitive and asethically pleasing to the eyes.

Congratulations on your appointment. Skype is amazing, and has the potential to transform businesses especially in less developed countries where call costs are amongst the highest and businesses could compete globally if they could get their telecommunication costs down. Please could you make sure that Skype serves all its customers globally and focuses on providing adequate services such as skype-in numbers for less developed countries, and not just the same old OECD countries.

Richard Ketley
Johannesburg

Josh,

Congratulations with this huge step.
Good luck moving the family again into Europe.

I will sure miss our sporadic get together during lunch time, but I'm sure we will meet again when you come over.

It has always been a pleasure chatting with you.

Cheers
Dennis

Josh - Dude, congrats! What a pleasant surprise to find out about this today.

-Alan

Josh: congrats on your new challenge.
Skype is great, Skype 2 go is amazing.
One thing that is really needed is the ability to receive Voice Mails via email, just like Vonage or GrandCentral do. There's a 3rd party app that does that, but it requires the skype app to be running, and that defies the purpose.

Of course Called ID in the US is also long overdue.

Looking forward to those two improvements.

Lorenzo

Josh Congrats,
Awesome product and possibilities. I was unfortunate enough to buy a phone from Skpye's website only to find out it's got a Vista bug (see skype user forum Phillips VIOP123)

When you take the wheel do you plan on offering your customers some sort of guarantee that you will stand behind the products you sell. I want to keep on praising Skype but am shy as of late.

Thanks and the best of luck.
John
New York

Hello Josh,

I am a blind Skype user, relying on the software and services to receive, place and record telephone calls as well as communicate with many other Skype users, many of whom are also blind. In addition to full caller ID support here in the U.S., I would like to see the return of a fully unlimited Skype Out plan. 3,000 minutes is quite a lot, but I always like to get a hold of unlimited service whenever it is available. Of course, I also hope you will bring Skype into an industry leadership role with respect to its accessibility to assistive technologies on which people with disabilities rely.

Hi, how about hire some extra guys working on the Linux version... We Linux folks also are use the paid services and it would be great to have the same features the Windows users have...

Cheers, Anders Pamdal

Josh,

Congratulations on the appointment!

I've been an enthusiastic Skype user for the last four years, and while I still use it heavily, I must admit I am a little disappointed that Skype still does not have a complete mobile offering. I use a Blackberry and have been waiting for a mobile client for at least the last couple of years. Heck, these new Facebook kids on the block even have one. Anyway, to bypass this shortcoming, I have configured a calling card with my device for international calls. This is money that should have been going to Skype.

Oh well, I am sure you have a full plate. Best of luck in your new job and hope you will make 'mobile' a top priority!

Mudassir

Congratulations,

I couldn't be happier with Skype, it puts Yahoo Messenger in the stone age. HOWEVER, my main complaint is that the United States has to be one of your major markets, yet unlike Yahoo Messenger, there is no caller ID showing on outgoing messages, so when I call my friends, they don't pick up because they don't know its me. This flaw has come close to detouring me away, and if Yahoo Messenger actually worked, this would be what detoured me from using Skype. Hopefully this can be resolved in the near future.
Best of luck to you,
Corey

Congrat!
I love Skype to go. I have family in Hong Kong and I call them via cellphone using Skype to go, and they call my cell via Skype in. I can stay in touch with them without computer at all.

However, the process of getting skype togo, skype in, skype out and skype premier is too much work. Please give me a single package and make it easier for people to use skype without sitting in front of computer.

Have fun at Skype!

Choon

Hi, maybe is not the righ place to put this comment but as a new CEO coud do something about.
I am pretty surprissed because Skype, that I been using for more than one year (in fact this is a new nic , I have an old one that is pvidales)certified the PrettyMay software, because I tried the trial version with a Skype out number (56-2-5814525) but the standar telephone buttons do not activate the extensions for call transfer. I sent a mail to PrettyMay support but only reeives the automatic response, nothing more.
Is not a problem of my laptop because I tried in more than two computers. I still looking for a PBX that work well with standard telephones when call to the Skype numbers. Please verify this with your support department because I think Skype should not certify this product because this problem.

Hi Josh,
Salutations, I am from Canada and am sure I am speaking on behalf of a lot of Canadians when I ask "when, if ever, will Skype-in become available to us in the North?

Cheers,
Steve

Congratulations Josh! I don't understand why the owners of this stuff keep changing the CEO's so often or why it happens that way, but wellcome and I hope you understand Skype at this very moment is in the edge of the knife, it can rise or it can fall, it all depens on how it treats its customers. You just have to look to the previous comments to see what I mean, and there are many other issues, like the fact that Skype is just servicing a reduced number of countries and in many ofthem those services are very limited. I have years waiting for Skype-In and toll-free numbers for my country. I don't know to which extent that depends on you but it really can change the destiny of Skype as a really global and enduring solution or just a temporary boom that coudn't meet the challenge and was eventualy left away by other players in the game that understood this.

Hi Josh, congrats on your new appointment! I've got one simple question: With Apple having announced and made available the SDK for the iPhone.... When can I expect to use Skype on my iPhone?

Thanks!
Winni

Welcome to Skype! I wish you all the best.

I do have trouble following some of the directions but I really like SKYPE.

The only regret I have is that SKYPE did not hook up with GOOGLE. GOOGLE
has such a wonderful "personality" and is always fun to use and to see is
coming next. I was very sorry that SKYPE is involved with EBAY and their
banking associates. I had so much trouble getting satisfaction with both of
them and I had many e-mails trying to get my personal information so they
could take advantage of me. Is there any chance that SKYPE and GOOGLE might
team up together and let their good lights shine in the future. They seem
made for each other. Best Wishes to you all. Phyllis1929

Josh,

You are most welcome. For myself, I think that the business end of SKYPE is really weak at the moment - which seems strange when you consider the ability of companies to *pay* for the service and the relatively large amounts that companies could pay for your service (for example, I have 20 lines pulled into my company right now, all using a mixture of land lines, IDD, IDT and VOIP carriers). Your carrier fees are competitive, but your integration with other technologies is nigh non-existent.

I really encourage you to think about setting up a specialized team of 50 or so people as a completely independent unit whose sole existence is to focus on developing SKYPE business oriented processes, solutions and products so business users can effectively use SKYPE.

It would be very nice to see Skype play nice with Asterisk. I, for one, would absolutely love to see a situation where an asterisk box interacts smoothly and easily with Skype.

It would be very nice to not have this one-to-one correspondence between credit card and SKYPE accounts. Many businesses need multiple lines and this restriction you have placed is very limiting.

I also think that you should accept payment by Western Union in USD, which would make a lot of your international customers woes go away.

Best of luck moving forward - please separate residential from commercial!

Dear Josh,

On behalf of the entire Earthcast08 planning team, we would like to thank you for providing us with this awesome service. On Earth Day 2008 (22 April 2008) educators and students from all across the globe worked together to host a live, 24 hour webcastathon known as Earthcast08! We used skype both in the weeks leading up to the event for planning purposes and on the day of the event to host conference calls that we streamed out live to the Worldbridges streaming audio server.

To say the least, this was an inspiring event. We had participants from several countries in 5 different continents listening in and participating as moderators from the UK, Canada, the US, Germany, and Portugal took turns moderating hour long blocks of time dedicated to discussing issues of sustainability, conservation, and the overall health of our earth. While most of the conversations took place in english, we also had blocks of time moderated in german, spanish, and portuguese.

Student voices were loud and clear throughout the day as well. Students from grammar school through university levels shared their thoughts on the environment and what we need to do in order to shape a more sustainable future. It was clear from the student voices that the time has come to act.

Again, on behalf of the entire Earthcast08 Team, we want to thank you for providing this platform that we used to collaborate on this 24 Hour live webcastathon on Earth Day 2008.

Cheers to you and the entire Skype Team!

Matt Montagne
Earthcast08 Team Member

Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

Earthcast08 Overview:
http://www.edtechtalk.com/earthcast08

Recorded audio from the 24 hour event:
http://www.webcastacademy.net/Audio

World Bridges Website:
http://worldbridges.net/

Media Coverage of Earthcast08:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080423/NEWS/804230368/-1/NEWS08&sfad=1

Josh,

Thanks for your refreshing comments and your promises to users, especially that of "listening well". I hope you will respond quickly to what must be the overwhelming demand for SkypeIn numbers in Canada.

I would very much like to see at least some progress reports, or even some hint that Skype is even listening. There are hundreds of posts from Canadians begging for the above mentioned service, yet there is not ONE SINGLE REPLY from anyone connected with Skype.

I sincerely hope you respond in a timely manner and do what is possible to prove to your loyal customers that you indeed are "listening well".

Thank you.

couple of points -

Basic cost of service as compared to quality of service has deteriorated somewhat over the past 2 years (2006 to 2008). more interference (sometimes) and what appears to be an ever increasing cost advertised as "changes in service". It appears (appearance only, of course) as an episode in "bait and switch" where once the service is established, increase the cost in the hope that the subscriber has established enough "ties" through the service that they won't "go away". The physical "cost" is about the same - but the packaging seems different. Is it an attempt to confuse intentionally? IF there is/was no intention to offer skypepro in the future wouldn't it be better to make/have made that known EARLIER in the process?

For some reason I seem to be having "drops" in service. No rhyme nor reason for "why" - just that it happens. Service drops doesn't make for good adevrtising. Frankly, the service is used extensively throughout the USA (literally coast to coast) and there is no reason for internet lines to develop these types of drops. "Lack of dependability" is one reason I don't use skypein.

@ wendynbel - you may wish to take a look at the call quality guide, which might help. If that doesn't do the trick, or you have recurring problems with your Skype online number, please give me a shout and I'll put you in touch with one of our troubleshooters.