Skype is truly great, if all you want to do is make voice calls to other users, be they either Skype users or people on landlines.

But God help you, if you need to access any other phone system such as joining conferences, retrieving voice mail from some provider other than Skype, access Voice Response Systems and Automated Attendants, FORGET ABOUT USING SKYPE AND THE SKYPEOUT FEATURE BECAUSE THE SKYPE SOFTWARE WILL NOT SEND DTMF TONES CORRECTLY.

This has been a known issue since January 2005. Read the Skype Forums on their own web site. http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=14141

Skype users have been after Skype to so much as admit that DTMF doesn't work. 84 similar posts over almost 2 years, over 14,000 views and after all that NO RESPONSE from Skype. NONE.

Skype has released many updates since January 2005 and yet none of them, this latest included, fixes the DTMF issue. If the number you are dialing requires you to use the dialpad for input after the call is answered, Skype will not work properly. Oh, you'll press the buttons and hear what sounds like DTMF tones, they're just not DTMF tones that any phone system, PBX, conferencing system or voice response system can understand.

So, great product POTENTIAL, but unless all you want to do is call your friend and chat, totally useless to real business people.

Plus, Sykpe support is just plain lousy to the point of being non-existent. They will not fix the problem, they will not acknowledge the problem, they probably won't even answer your e-mail if you complain about the problem.

Pure arrogance IMHO. They are the market leader so they don't really care what customers say. They've got their sights set on things ten years down the road and couldn't be bothered with making the current release actually work.