Skype's new COO Scott Durchslag speaks out
Scott Durchslag joined Skype last week (June 30) as chief operating officer, reporting to President, Josh Silverman. I caught up with him Monday while he was in Luxembourg for a meeting of Skype's leadership.
I first met Scott a few years ago when he was an executive at Motorola, the mobile phone pioneer based in suburban Chicago, and I was a tech columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times.
He made a name at Moto, having led a turnaround of the company's South Asia business, where his team doubled revenues to $1billion. As Chief Strategy officer who architected the successful 2002 turnaround strategy, the RAZR phone was launched which became the best-selling mobile phone in history, helping double Moto's market share to 24 percent. Scott was also the force behind Motorola's shift away from proprietary software and toward consumer experience-based designs.
The self-described "consumer product guy" was involved in major deals with such partners as Kodak, Microsoft and Google.
The 42-year-old Chicago area native, who has an MBA from Harvard, left Motorola about a year ago, soon after the company lost Mobile Devices President Ron Garriques to Dell.
He laughed when I asked him whether war-torn Yugoslavia, where he was a freelance journalist, or Schaumburg (Motorola's headquarters) was more dangerous. He wisely kept his counsel.
He has been busy in the past year with some private equity deals and the birth of his second child.
He shared some thoughts about the Skype opportunity and where it's headed.
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macroqueen commented Monday, Jul 7
I was surprised to see that there were no comments here yet.
I want to welcome Scott.
I have been a Skype member/user for a long time, I think since its inception. I am happy to say that with the exception of slight increases in cost, I have been happy with it. I don't use any other type of telephone services. I still have problems with people complaining that they can't hear me or that there is too much noise for me to carry on a conversation with them, but for the most part this has been due to the type of headset or laptop mic I was using. I have been a very loyal customer. I never miss an opportunity to brag about the service to anyone. I especially have fun when the telephone companies and other voip services ask me to switch and I tell them about the service. I can actually hear their jaws dropping when I tell them how little the cost is. lol I even talked one rep from a major cable company into going to the Skype website to sign up! Wonder what their boss had to say about that recorded call! LOL! People who know me tell me that I should be working for Skype because I talk people into switching ALL the time!
My hope is that you will be improving Skype WITHOUT raising the cost. Skype's low cost and ability to cover most of the world is what drew everyone in. My nightmare is the thought of Skype raising the cost to the point where it is just as good to go with the cable company (who, BTW, are also lowering their prices for phone). I hope that I will be singing Skype's praises until the day I die (and I'm already 50 Hang in there, and again, welcome from a lowly Skype user.
kimjo614 commented Tuesday, Jul 8
I am a Chicago native as well. I used Skype this past summer when my son was vacationing in Europe and we were very happy with it. I plan to start using it more. Good luck with your new job. I know very little about the company but I know it's got to better than Motorola.
bl.ceo commented Monday, Jul 14
I'm very interested in see Skype makes some inroads into the SMB market. I believe their is a tremendous void in the 50 employee or less market and Sype has the platform to leverage. I'd like to see a stronger 'business' channel that has products and service bundles that speak to this group. Welcome aboard, I'm excited to see progressive changes at Skype!
j.e.p.jr. commented Tuesday, Jul 15
High on your To-Do list: Get rid of that god-awful and heinously ugly Skype 4 Beta "downgrade." It's going to cost you customers. (Read the forums.) Who at Skype remains clueless to design itself making a HUGE difference in the product and the user's experience? They certainly will never work at Apple.
In sum, I could not care less for any new Skype features until someone recognizes that I must look at that client all day long. Skype 4 Beta has me leave work early just to get away from a very decidedly ugly interface. Was it designed for Windows 95 and is only now being released?
kolahun commented Thursday, Jul 24
I agree with Scott, Skype is the best so far. In the past I tried dialpad, deltatree, and yahoo messenger, and my kids have tried ooVoo, I am decidedly staying with Skype. About 4 years ago a friend told me about Skype. I registered with Skype but was reluctant to use it, given my previous experience with the above-mentioned services. Then a friend who traveled to another country kept asking for us to communicate through skype; it was not quite successful at the time. But now things are much better and I am currently a full-fledged user of Skype and telling all friends to get on skype. With my present Internet connection,I have tried other available services but failed to get the same quality and quantity(I may say) of service as what Skype offers. My brother, a relative, and few friends are connecting and are getting excellent results and they are excited about it. The subscription, which I benefit from right now, is the best deal you ever presented to the public from Skype. Keep the innovations going, we are with you. Larry
frank.voisin commented Tuesday, Jul 29
When will Canada get Online Numbers? It seems very strange that you do not support Canada!
momaries commented Friday, Aug 22
Guys you don't have any comments because you have too many frustrated and unhappy customers.
It's really ironic that you have a new COO and Skype fails, including myself. My call to Florida drops in 10 seconds (I am in Ohio)..
I don't mean to be rude or anything but people really don' care about new COO etc.. WE NEED SERVICE. I am among frustrated customers.
I wish you well.
MomAries.
canada1409 commented Wednesday, Aug 27
I agree with MomAries. Customer support so far has been despicable. It is very hard to get information about my account being blocked. My house just bought a year of service from Skype and I'm beginning to think that was a big mistake. Hopefully the new COO can work on improving customer support.
Jonathan
footc1 commented Tuesday, Sep 9
I agree withe protesters on this blog. Skype has a really long way to go on customer service. Besides the extraordinary wait time they don't answer your query.
I have been trying for months on my problem. If you have SkypeOut and want to switch to Unlimited World be careful. I have been double billed because I can't make Unlimited World take over. I cancelled it because they are ready to double bill me again.
Skype is going to crash and burn with the poor customer service they have and introducing services before they are ready.
Kevin
robert-yankeenautica.com commented Thursday, Mar 12
Mr. Durchslag;
I am glad that it is now official that Nokia and Skype (are) Partnering in Mobile. I have used Fring, iSkoot, and Shape, which all have some form of a problem, for me. I have SkypeLite for Symbian S60 3rd Edition E71, which is not for my $900 Nokia E90 Communicator PocketComputer. Since I have been asking for Skype for Symbian since my signing up with Skype, when will Nokia/Symbian/Skype add the E90?
meredithemmanuel commented Sunday, May 31
Yes, yes, yes! Skype for the Nokia E90 AS SOON AS POSSIBLE ... Please!!!