[Linux4christians] OT: Microsoft's Ballmer $7.7-Billion Skype Blunder

[Don Parris]

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 10:10, dcolburn at bibleseven.com <
dcolburn at bibleseven.com> wrote:

> A quick Search on startpage.com reveals that there are several
> alternatives to Skype.
>
> I would anticipate a significant loss of the user-base with MS
> struggling to add new users to replace those lost.  They may
> succeed but the alternatives to Skype will benefit from those
> who do not wish to deal with MS.
>
> Our teen son's first reaction was "Oh no, now what do we use?",
> followed by a search and several threads on several forums where
> they all agreed to find and use a different VoIP app.
>
>
>
Yeah, I started a thread on this the other day, with a link to
alternatives.  I'm currently playing with Ekiga, and have an Ekiga.net
account (dcparris at ekiga.net).

I've used Twinkle before, and there are a couple apps I'm not familiar with,
but am trying out.  We'll see how that works out.  I'm currently having
trouble getting Twinkle to register on Ekiga, not sure what the problem is.
Twinkle doesn't do video, but Ekiga does.  Twinkle is great for VOIP phone
services, and you can use it for fairly advanced activities - almost like a
switchboard - with Asterisk.

Incidentally, I've had mostly excellent service with Skype - I frequently
talk to a friend in Germany, and have done Skype sessions with her English
class.  It's not the same as a landline phone, but it does work very well.
The audio/video quality effectively depends on Internet quality.  My
previous adventure with Ekiga and Twinkle produced similar results, so I
don't foresee any real problems with a change.  That said, you may have to
do some tweaking with the libre apps than with Skype.


-- 
D.C. Parris, FMP, LEED AP O+M, ESL Certificate
Minister, Security/FM Coordinator, Free Software Advocate
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