Desi Skype or Damp Squib? :: VoiFi

Well, all you Skype fans.. meet the so-called 'Desi Skype'.. VoiFi.
VoiFi is the brainchild of Sabeer Bhatia (co-inventor of Hotmail).

The recent extra-hyped launch of VoiFi prompted me to try this out.

On paper VoiFi inculcates features like :-]
a) PC2PC Calling for Free.
b) Free SMSing
c) IM
d) Playing small built-in games with friends

The demonstration by Sabeer Bhatia was actually quite impressive, but atleast I did not find any USP which would propt Skype and other popular messenger software users to get hooked on to VoiFi.

Let me explain the process first. You have to visit VoiFi.com and get yourself registered. Even the registration process is quite difficult as the page asks you to type a text throught the image, and the right input is treated wrong. I had to do the process four times before finally getting registered.

Then, you have to download the 6 MB program and get it installed. The program requires the msxml4 pack which is not available in Win98 and the initial version of Windows 2000. It keeps prompting every now and then about this. Finally I got logged in, but I had to have a VoiFi friend for using the mentioned features. When after some invitations I finally got a friend who had signed up, I used the PC2PC feature and the sound quality was VERY IMPRESSIVE.

The Gaming part is a small time-pass event and you don't get much choice for the games. Regarding the SMS feature, you cannot SMS to non-VoiFi people unlike Yahoo! and that's quite absurd.

The other bugs in VoiFi were :
a) It WANTS Internet Access whenever the computer boots up, and it keeps on prompting every now and then about this.

b) After realising my YahooMessenger and GoogleTalk were much better, I decided to dipose it off. Even uninstalling does not remove it completely. You gotto do all the stuff yourself.

c) Very Frequent hangs and application crashes.

On the overall i would give it a 4 out of 10. I mean, the only thing worth the trouble is the sound quality during PC2PC calls. Frankly I did't expect this from Sabeer.