Devoted to hardware, software, IT issues, and information technology management

According to Skype's homepage; "Take a deep breath. Skype is back to normal." and customers can expect an explanation on Monday as to the cause of the problems over the last few days.  While I haven't used their service I saw many articles, posts and comments on this problem.  This issue brought back memories of RIM's outage in February that impacted a large portion of their BlackBerry customers here in the U.S.

I understand that many small businesses depend on Skype for their voice communications and this must have been extremely frustrating for them.  I also wonder what kind of fallout may result from this.  Could businesses shy away from consideration of other Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions?

While some assumed the problem (inability to sign-on to the Skype network) may have been the result of a Denial of Service (DoS) or other type of attack, Skype has communicated otherwise:

"This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software.  This controls the interaction between the user’s own Skype client and the rest of the Skype network."

On the bright side (not for Skype), SIPphone, saw a 400% increase in traffic the day of the Skype outage, with 4 times increase in sales, calls and downloads of its Gizmo Project software.  I guess loyalty only goes so far when you VoIP solution is down.

I read an interesting analysis that described the heart of the issue being Skype's peer architecture relying upon "supernodes", that are actually the end-user's computers, for their redundancy.  I'll have to do some more research and will be curious to see Skype's official response tomorrow.  I'll be sure to provide a follow-up.  Until then, please feel free to comment, especially if you were an unlucky customer affected by this outage.