Hosted VoIP

VoIP service provider Skype announced Friday that its president, Alex Kazim, will be leaving the company to return to eBay (News - Alert), where he had worked for eight years. Kazin had joined Skype when the companies merged 14 months ago.

Following Kazim’s exit in January, Skype's (News - Alert) chief marketing officer and director of Country Operations Henry Gomez will take over the president role. As president, Gomez will serve as an advisor to Skype's CEO Niklas Zennstrom and the principal liaison with eBay and PayPal.

Gomez had worked at eBay for seven years, and joined Skype in November 2005 as general manager for North America. The executive has worked in building the company's US and Canadian business operations before becoming its CMO.

Today’s news comes on the heels of the VoIP provider’s announcement about it switching its business strategy a bit by offering for the first time a new annual, paid subscription Unlimited VoIP Calling plan. Skype will now give its users the opportunity to sign up for a whole year of unlimited SkypeOut calling to any phone within the U.S. and Canada for less than $15.

The VoIP service provider will make this offer ($14.95 per year) available until January 31, 2007; after that, the fee will go up to $29.95 per year. The regular fee for SkypeOut minutes within the U.S. and Canada is 2.1 cents.

“The new Skype Unlimited Calling Plan is an affordable option that will save consumers and small businesses hundreds of dollars compared to high rates charged by traditional phone companies,” said Don Albert, VP & general manager for Skype North America in a statement about the launch. "We want to give Skype customers convenient options of choosing either an unlimited calling plan with a flat annual rate and or staying with our standard pay-per-minute offering.”

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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit her columnist page.