BBC News writes:
There are few people in the world who can claim to have invented something that captured the imagination of hundreds of millions of people.
But Niklas Zennstrm has done it twice.
Skype makes money because a small fraction of users is buying additional services, such as the capability to call from Skype to the telephone network or vice versa.
Not having to make money from every user is not a new idea, Zennstrm emphasises.
“It is very similar to companies like Google and other internet companies. When you go and search on Google you don’t pay for that. But sometimes you click on an advert and Google makes money on that.
“It’s the same thing with Skype. Some users are paying for services, but not everyone.”
Zennstrm believes the losers out of this new structure will be the telcos who do not understand that there is a change going on.
“This is a disruptive technology that shifts the industry”, he says.
“We have just started, and if you compare the number of people using Skype to the number using a telephone network around the world, we’re still just starting.
“And now we’re also very much focussing on moving away from the computer into mobile devices, so you can use Skype for free wirelessly.”
