Yikes! Hey guys, the last thing I wanted was to start an argument among our more esteemed contributors. I guess by starting this post I was hoping for someone to come out with something like, "Hey, you didn't see the annoucement? It'll be ready in a month.", or perhaps, "Here's a work-around that that will help you." Perhaps the tone of my original message was a bit too confrontational.

I'm a 30 year IT/Networking professional. Linux has been a huge part of my life, ever since I started with version 1.2 back when Linus was still wondering what job to get after university. I've fought the good fight as much as possible, given employment with a major multi-national who doesn't see IT risk as important as the risk we might take on the next oil well. We use Linux now, mainly in technical workstations and super-power number cruncher clusters. I'm not sure our management even understands the origins of the software that is helping them make so much money. Not sure they even care.

I say that to say this: If there's one thing I've learned it is that you need to go with the flow sometimes. When I open my Skype client, I see that 10,000,000 number of logged on users at the bottom. I realize that going to my long contact list and convincing all those people to start using Gizmo, or Google Talk, is probably going to be futile.

Do I think the world would be better off with all open source software? Sure. Do I think it will ever happen completely? No. There's just too much momentum from closed source efforts and too much marketing.

I think a lot of people in the industry were taken by surprise when Skype's viral marketing campagn was successful, and got them millions of users. I for one agree with a lot of telecom industry folks who say that SIP based systems are the future of VoIP. That being said, Skype is the 1000 pound gorilla right now, and I don't think anyone would count them out for a long time to come. They've got way too much momentum.

So, one way or the other, we need to acknoledge that Skype is here to stay. If we can't get native video Skype clients for the IT, we should at least look for some sort of gateway mechanism that would allow interaction.

Nokia isn't stupid (nor are certain employees of said company...). Clearly if the IT is intended to be marketed successfully, it needs to appeal to the mass market. As a communications tool, a huge part of that mass market is Skype users. My intention with my first post was to help folks see that video capabilities with programs like Skype are now "easy enough for your mother". I think the expectation from a lot of folks is that these capabilities should be available in a small handheld tool that was always intended to have video.

I understand that Nokia is dependent on Skype/Ebay for the development of video Skype for the IT. I also understand that from a marketing point of view, it is in Nokia's best interest to show customers that the full capabilies of the IT can be utilized.