Skype reports "Small number of users" locked

Skype said Thursday that "a small number" of its subscribers were unable to connect to the service of global communications since Wednesday night. Still, even if the problem only affects a small percentage of 170 million users connected Skype around the world, it can cause some major headache - especially if the operators of small businesses are affected.

Sign in problem current Skype follows in the wake of the acquisition agreement of $ 8.5 billion waiting for Microsoft's Skype, announced this month. The irony is that Skype has stated that its current problems of the outage are primarily limited to users equipped with computers running versions of Microsoft Windows.

"This affects primarily persons with Skype for Windows," Skype said in a Thursday blog. "We have identified the problem and will issue a fix in the next few hours."

Quick to blame Microsoft

Some Skype users were quick to blame feet from Microsoft, claiming the software giant had "broken Skype after owner for literally days," tweeted Tim Redfern. "Looks like Microsoft completed their purchase of Skype and has broken," added Tommy McCarthy in an another tweet Thursday.

However, many of Microsoft for Skype, which is subject to regulatory approval, is not intended to end until later this year. Yet, many users of Skype seems to be anticipating potential problems before - with some no doubt Recalling the infamous Microsoft's Windows "blue screen of death" on faulty PCs over the last decade of the 20th century.

So if the report of Skype Outage limited to a small number of users is accurate, it would be good news for Microsoft. Giant software plans to take advantage of consumption of base-mark and powerful to huge client Skype in the age of end of the PC desktop to today where fixed platforms dominate is more computer environment. To succeed, this brand strategy Skype will remain untarnished.

Local telephone numbers, three-way conferencing, administration of affairs and calls to the real phone numbers are all things that people will pay, Forrester Research Vice President Ted Schadler noted. "Skype has never had the money in the market for these services," Schadler wrote in a blog. "Microsoft does."

And the more Schadler focuses on the agreement Microsoft/Skype, more he likes it. "Microsoft Gets a network-wide and valuable disruptive innovation", he added later in a tweet.

A temporary manual correction

For users of Skye having problems connecting Thursday, Skype provided instructions for implementing temporary fixed for PC running Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, which, in each case, is to locate and delete a file with the name of "shared.xml." Unfortunately, some users will no doubt be repelled by instructions complicated Skype to complete this task, that is why Skype is scrambling to implement automatic correction for the problem in the next few hours.

Last major failure of Skype took place just before Christmas in 2010, in which approximately 20 per cent of all Skype clients, who have been using a previous version of the software of the company - failed in the world. However, the other 80% of the users of Skype running the latest client software also have been affected by the supernodes overloaded Skype peer-to-peer network.

"Unfortunately, the confluence of events - overload of the server, a bug in Skype for Windows clients and the decline of available supernodes - Skype functionality thus have become unavailable to many of our users for about 24 hours," Skype Chief Information Officer Lars Rabbe explained in a blog late last year.