Using Skype from Your Home Phone Just Got Easier
•Me Home Phone Adapter for Skype and a New Skype-enabled Cordless Phone from GE Open up a New World of Calls from Your Home Phone — At Skype, we strive to ensure anyone can use Skype anywhere, at any time.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third leg of Skype's decade-long push off the PC. After partnering with 3 on a dedicated mobile handset in 2007 and shipping an Android app in late 2010, Skype is now moving in the opposite direction — back onto the traditional landline phone via GE hardware, so a call no longer requires a computer or even a mobile at all.
First-order effects
- GE gains a differentiated cordless-phone line for a market where handsets had become commodity purchases, while Skype's existing users can place calls from the living-room phone they already own.
Second-order effects
- Other cordless-phone makers face pressure to strike similar Skype licensing deals or cede the 'Internet calling from any home phone' shelf position, and landline carriers see yet another channel routing voice minutes around their networks.
Third-order effects
- If licensed-hardware deals become Skype's standard route into new device classes — mobile handsets, smartphones, now home phones — Skype consolidates its role as a cross-device calling layer rather than a desktop application.
The trend: VoIP is being embedded directly into consumer telephone hardware, with Skype licensing its way from PCs onto every screen and handset in the home.