Skype

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4. Why use skype when you can use vonage. £7.99 a month and free calls to anywhere in Europe and the USA. With skype, both parties have to have skype for the call to be free. With vonage you use a normal phone. You know what your bill will be each month. Best thing since sliced bread. I have had this for 3 years now-no catches, just huge savings. www.vonage.co.uk - Simon Evans, Naples Posted: 12 May 2011, 10:38am

5. On the surface an operational loss does seem nuts, however as is correctly pointed out at the end of the article big brands like Microsoft will pay plenty for things that improve the image, familiarity or frequency of use of their family of services. Supermarkets have 'loss leaders', products sold 'at a loss' to pull shoppers through the doors...only for that shopper to at that time pay 2 quid for about 12p worth of chewing gum at the checkout, result? ... the supermarket has made a net profit. In the case of Microsoft maybe 30 million happy clients per day counts as a profit, all be in not in cash terms.That said, I'd be suprised if banner ads are not rolled out within moments of Microsoft taking the wheel.And though many web users do enjoy virtually limitless internet data some do not, these people have to pay according to use. And video Skype is, like internet streaming, quite demanding. A few minutes video-skyp'ing is equivalent to viewing exactly according to instructions hundreds of web pages. - Mike, London Posted: 12 May 2011, 10:54am

6. I could never see how an auction site called Ebay could possibly utilise Skype it's not specifically a service you can bolt on to their core business. Skype isn't all free the area where Skype can make some serious money is the telephone market. Look at the UK, Ofcom are completely ineffective at controlling Home Phone prices nevertheless with Skype you can undercut them with competitive mobile phone rates from Skype to mobile as well, you can undercut them on local calls. Reason being 1) you do not have to pay for any tied contract 2) the Free weekends and evenings aren't free they load the charges while the day so local calls / mobile calls are very expensive 3) when using Skype you quite frequently need to make an international call previously you Skype. There is money to be made very easy money. - Ben, London Posted: 12 May 2011, 11:14am