Facetime

Sold out to Microsoft, Skype on the one hand secured itself the bright future in the stable Microsoft empire, and on the other hand - killed its bright future as a global public communications service. No one ever will look at Skype, as at the independent service that suits everyone and works everywhere. This niche is now empty and someone has to take it. Besides, we expect that in the near future the communication services, owned by Microsoft rivals, will also make the considerable steps forward in order to keep the balance of power. Here are 5 products that (we think) will compete with Microsoft Skype:

Fring was the first video chat application on the iPhone. However, without frontal camera, it was not very helpful. But together with the front camera on iPhone, Apple introduced  it's own video chat program Facetime, that supported two-way video calls and immediately replaced Fring. Now Fring strikes back. Today, the strartup has launched the new iPhone app, which also supports two-way video calls, and in addition, has two major advantages over Facetime. First, it works via 3G (and Facetime - only via Wi-Fi), and second, it allows iPhone users to communicate with those who use Android and Nokia S40 smartphones, that run Fring (and Facetime supports video calls only between iPhones). However, the benefits of Facetime - are simplicity and iPhone native integration (to start a video call - you don't need to launch third-party program), and higher video quality.

A couple of weeks ago we suggested that Google is going to shift the video communications market (and win Skype), betting on mobile video calls. Today we can accurately say that very soon mobile video chat will become a huge market and the IT giants will fight for it. It's enough to watch the Facetime (iPhone 4 video chat) presentation to understand this. Since June 24 Apple will start selling iPhone 4 with the front camera and video over Wi-Fi in US, and it's obvious that to the and of this year millions of users will make video calls via the iPhone, and Apple will become the world's largest mobile video chat provider. But it will be only the short term win. Then Skype, Google and other players will join the fight.