Daum and Skype taking on the world

Daum Communications of Korea is a company that wants to make a mark in the Internet world. Back in August they acquired Lycos to expand their presence in the search engine business. Now, they are teaming up with Skype.

is the brainchild of Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, two Nordic businessmen who also founded Kazaa, the company responsible for Kazaa Media Desktop, which was later sold off to an Australian company called Sharman Networks.

With Skype installed on their computers, users can have crystal-clear conversations with other users over the Internet (VOiP) for free and reduced-rate calls to non--Skype users. Already, 25 million people have downloaded the version of Skype's program and the company is set to crash through the 50 million mark by March 2005. The company provides services in 15 languages to 165 different countries including the United States, UK, France and Japan.

What is good for Daum is that they are going to ride the next wave. With more and more hotspots that allow wireless serving (Wi-Fi) coming, it will soon be possible to use Skype via a mobile phone - which than will be worrying for mobile telcommunications providers - not only in Asia, but all across the world.

(By Asia Business Consulting)