When Niklas met Lech
By
Jane Hoskyn on September 15, 2006 in Skype in the news.
Ace artsy fartsy reviews website Monsters and Critics put down the popcorn for a few minutes yesterday to earwig on Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, who was in Warsaw talking about how all phone calls will be free within a decade.
(M&C is the web's sole source of this story, so I can't help wondering whether it was just a dream they had. But I like it, so I'm going with it anyway.)
"Skype's vision has always been to make everyone around the world talk for free," said Niklas, guest of Polish web portal Grupa Onet. Also present – now here's where I'm thinking it was all a dream – was Polish union leader and olden days Thatcher-botherer, Lech Walesa, who must have been delighted to hear Niklas say: "In ten years' time all telephone calls will certainly be free, whether you're calling someone on a computer or telephone." Power to the people!
Niklas's Polish hosts wanted to know whether they'd be seeing a repeat of Skype's "free calls to landlines" project, currently wowing the citizens of France and previously a big success in the US. Alas, the answer was no. (What about the UK, eh, Niklas? We love you, Niklas...)




