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Fring and Skype Embroiled in Bitter Blog Fight

Fring and Skype Embroiled in Bitter Blog Fight

The latest Silicon Valley squabble sounds like an unusually esoteric episode of Gossip Girl. This one involves a couple of mobile Internet based phone services.

Last week Fring, which sells software that allows people to talk and chat over mobile phones on the Web, announced a fancy new feature to its service: the ability to video chat using the iPhone 4 over a 3G mobile phone data connection. Currently, the iPhone requires a Wi-Fi connection to use its built-in FaceTime video chat feature.

Skype, which runs a service for making calls over the Internet, was none too pleased.

Fring said in a company blog post that Skype has decided to block Fring members from using its chat service. Fring gets a little nasty in its blog post, calling Skype “cowards,” and saying that Skype “once championed the cause of openness” and is now trying to “muzzle competition, even at the expense of its own users.”

Skype quickly fired back in a company blog saying that Fring’s accusations are “untrue.”

Robert Miller, Skype’s vice president and general counsel, wrote that “Fring was using Skype software in a way it wasn’t designed to be used” and that it was damaging the Skype brand and its reputation.

Some of the anger might be the result of an earlier blog post by Fring that said its latest video feature caused a “huge” jump in traffic on its service. It said it would “temporarily reduce support to 3rd–party Skype,”  implying Skype provided poor service.

Who is right and who is wrong may, at this  point, almost seem irrelevant. The vitriol thrown back and forth suggests the companies probably won’t be working together in the near future.

[Thanks: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com]

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