Skype's asterisk move begins its closed future

When Microsoft announced its purchase of Skype before this month, it took great pains to affirm its commitment to continuing support for the research on platforms other than Windows.

"Skype for Asterisk will not be available for sale or activation afterwards July 26, 2011," reads a new product notification from Digium, developer of the software that allows open source telephony system Asterisk to join the Skype network as a native client.

Blow to all the many businesses

This is a blow to all the many businesses and governments around the world that rely on Asterisk's flexible and free solution, and it's as well a clear signal that, in spite of its pretty words, Microsoft's Skype has no real intention of "making nice" with the open source world.

This is more of the same old, same old -- and furthermore proof that business and individual users who don't want to be locked into the Microsoft world should be evaluating the myriad and excellent open source Skype alternatives out there.