October 18th, 2005
Competition Is a Good Thing, Isn’t It?
(Migrated weblog post from LSR)
Who wouldn’t agree to that statement? Competition is a good thing, specially, for us, end-users, when we get confronted with a number of different tools and we get a chance to try them out in order to make our choice as to what we would consider the best option to go for. Originally, I know that many folks have already made this conscious decision by choosing to use cutting edge technologies like Skype, that would allow you to make use of IM, VoIP, File Transfers, Videoconferencing (Video4Skype and vSkype), etc. etc. I have made that choice myself and so far I have been more than delighted with what I have been offered. Skype is a superb VoIP application to keep in touch with other folks.
But while it continues to grow further it looks like it may have some competition ahead. And, again, although I am a big fan from Skype, it is always good to be on the look out for new applications that could improve our online experience. And this is the case of two other offerings that I have bumped into over the last couple of days.
One of them is called VoipBuster, a free VoIP client that would allow you to place calls on to fixed / land lines in quite a few countries without having to pay a single penny more. a good friend of mine recommended that I should give it a try out and I went ahead and downloaded the application. And I must say that I have tried it out with a couple of phone calls to Spain and one other to Canada with some incredible quality and with very good speeds. The best part is that all this is Freeware and without having to pay any money. And this is where the competition bit would take in place for Skype, since this would certainly get some market share away from SkypeOut. I mean, right now you would have to pay an amount of money for using SkypeOut, however, with VoipBuster you don’t. If you want to you can pay an amount of money, a symbolic amount of 1 Euro, yes ! one euro and you can use VoipBuster for as long as you want and without limitations. Incredibly amazing, eh? Well, I am not sure if this is going to continue with this new application while it is still in Beta, but this is one of those tools that I would be keeping an eye on to see how it develops.
The other tool that would bring in some competition as well for Skype would actually be Jajah. Another superb Freeware application that provides you a whole bunch of features including as well calling other fixed / land lines all over the place and free of charge, too. In fact, if you want to check it out further without not downloading the client just yet you might as well check out the following weblog post from Robing Good: Skype Killer Offers Free VoIP, SMS and Videoconferencing : JAJAH, from where you can see an extensive list of the features that jajah has.
Just in case you may not have enough time to go through Robin’s review here you have got the key unique features from Jajah:
So after going through that impressive set of features who wouldn’t want to check it out and give it a try. I did so already and downloaded the client but so far I haven’t had much time to give it a good test, which is something I would be doing over the next few days and then let you all know how it went.
To sum up, we have seen how Skype took VoIP and other standard IM clients by storm and it looks like after it has settled down quite nicely we are going to see another revolution take place with applications like VoipBuster or jajah, which seem to target applications like Skype in order to get a good number of early adopters who I am sure would be advocating about each of those tools like I am somehow doing it over here. So go and give them a try and feel free to share your thoughts about them by commenting on this weblog entry or contacting me via e-mail, or why not? Through any of those different fantastic tools.
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October 18th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
[…] A couple of days ago I created a weblog entry talking about how Skype was starting to have some serious competition in the area of Instant Messaging and VoIP by mentioning two different new applications that have become available: VoipBuster and jajah. Well, it looks like there is now a new application that is supposed to provide the same kind of functionality as Skype and it is called Gizmo. […]
October 19th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
[…] Yes, folks, indeed, it seems like competition around VoIP clients is sky rocketing because it looks like we have got a new competitor in the market. Just recently I talked about VoipBuster and Jajah, Gizmo and Wavigo as pretty interesting competitors against Skype and it seems we have got a new competitor in the market: vSparrow. […]
October 19th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
[…] You actually find out that the competitors might not have beaten it any time soon. Over the last few days I have been creating a number of different weblog entries on a number of different competitors that are starting to come up to continue taking some market share from Skype, one of the most powerful VoIP / IM clients out there. And it all looked like it was going to be a tough time recovering from some major losses, but, wouldn’t you know it, Skype has just come back with a new plugin that will take online real-time collaboration into new heights: Jyve. […]
October 20th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
[…] Somehow it has grabbed everybody’s attention and I just couldn’t help commenting myself on it as well, why not?, since I am just such a big fan of VoIP / Instant Messaging. Yes, I know you have heard / read about it already (You are probably getting tired of all the hype around it already, even though it is its first day out) but just for those who may not have seen it yet, GTalk is the latest VoIP / IM to enter the market after quite a few other offerings, that I have weblogged about in my weblog previously. […]
October 21st, 2005 at 2:06 am
[…] A few weblog posts back I created a couple of weblog posts regarding a few of the VoIP / IM tools that are out there and that were going to bring some competition to Skype, which is always a good thing if you would want to stay ahead of the pack. That was when I talked about VoipBuster, Jajah and Gizmo. At the same time, and not too long ago, I mentioned Google’s incorporation into the VoIP / IM space with the launch of Google Talk. In short, it looks like the list is never going to end just there so I thought I would mention one last addition that I have been enjoying for a couple of weeks now and which I think is also going to have something to say. […]