Fring Calls Skype 'Cowards'; Skype Responds 152
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that Skype and Fring are not getting along so well today. First, Fring made a claim that Skype was blocking Fring and in a subsequent blog post, called Skype 'cowards': 'Now that Fring expanded capacity to support the huge demand for video calling for all users, Skype has blocked us from doing so. They are afraid of open mobile communication. Cowards.' Skype has responded, stating that Fring's misuse of Skype software was damaging their brand and reputation: 'There is no truth to Fring's claims that Skype has blocked it. Fring made the decision to remove Skype functionality on its own.'
Not so sure Fring is the bad guy here. (Score:5, Interesting)
Skype’s client does not offer many of the new iOS4 features that Fring is quick to jump on, namely video calling, background operation, and even push notifications which have been around for a long time. One could argue that Fring’s client allows Skype users to use these features with Skype, which is something that users want. Skype is notoriously slow at adopting new features such as these, and is also slow at their geographical expansion. You still cannot get a Canadian Skype-In number, but there are a host of Canadian VOIP services offering phone numbers for example.
Basically, sounds like the vanilla Skype client is not ready to adopt this technology on their iPhone apps, but Fring already has, using Skype's API. This makes Skype's devs look bad, obviously, if a third party's app is surpassing their native app on their native API. Sounds like a lot of code-dick measuring as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, Skype still wins if Fring violated any licensing agreements (which it seems like Skype is implying)