If you're a regular reader of this blog you'll be well aware of my affinity for Skype Certified products. It's for good reason: after the engineers at Skype put a product or piece of software through its paces, you're pretty much guaranteed to have a great Skype experience when you use it.

But what does this 'putting a product through its paces' entail? The certification process is a whole lot more than just slapping a logo on a box. You can learn a lot about what goes on, including specific checks made for different product types, in the Skype Developer Zone, but to be honest some of the information there is a bit dry--it's meant for the people who actually develop the products.

With nearly 200 products now Skype Certified, I wanted to learn more about how the certification process actually works, so I asked Pontus Randén, a Skype engineer in Estonia, a few questions and he was kind enough to provide answers.

Skype Gear: How long does it take to certify a typical product? Does it vary by product type?

Pontus Randén: It varies very much between product categories and even products, sometimes. The more issues we find the longer time it takes to test it since we make sure to re-produce the error several times so we know that it is actually there. So testing time varies but normally it takes 1-2 days. A satisfying detail, though, is that from the point where we have a full submission (all software, packaging, hardware) and the testing fee is paid we will begin the test within 3-5 working days. Basically this means that most submissions are tested and done within a week after we have received all we need.

SG: How many products do you certify in a typical month?

PR: Not so many. Very many fail, you see. Our test criteria are very stringent.

SG: How large is the facility and how many people work there on certification?

PR: It is small-office sized. At the moment we are five people working on this here in Tallinn. Added to that is our possibility to use various geniuses within the company.

SG: How exhaustive is the certification process?

PR: Very. Some testers get very sweaty.

SG: What do you think are the most important attributes that certification checks?

PR: Audio and general usability. We look at the “out of the box” experience and we make sure that everything from the manual to the actual audio input/output enhances the Skype experience. A Skype Certification Label is a brand that stands for a good product. If a partner wants the Skype Certification Label then the solution must be good, no matter if it costs $5 or $200.

SG: What percentage of the products you see fail the certification test? Do many try to get certified again?

PR: Around 70% or so fail the first time. Most non-Certified products come back to us for another or even a third round of testing. An interesting perspective here is that we actually help our partners to develop really good solutions by pointing out what is “not so good”. Hence the Certification testing as such can be seen as a Quality Analyses job. A good thing for our partners is that we also offer Pre-Certification, where we can help them with the actual development or do a more in depth QA on the solution.

Thanks very much to Pontus for providing some neat insight on the certification process.