Leapfrogging, China, strange calls from the US… It all gets you thinking.

I had an interesting phone call this evening. It was from someone in the US who was preparing a piece for a morning radio show on the impact of Skype in China and was interested in the “leapfrogging” aspect. As I’m sure will always be the case, one comes up with the best responses after the actual interview. That, and I was thawing some chicken at the time and thinking about what I was going to do with it for dinner. Things like that can be a little distracting.
My response was along the lines that I don’t see Skype as such being a major leapfrogging development for a few reasons. Firstly, the old criticism against the technocentric view of leapfrogging applies. Adopting Skype, or any other such ICT for that matter, doesn’t really constitute leapfrogging in and of itself because it merely entails adopting current technology. That isn’t a step beyond anything, as the leapfrogging concept suggests. Secondly, to function acceptably, Skype requires a fairly stable and up-to-date ICT infrastructure. So, Skype functionality is more a result of ICT adoption rather than a major step forward.
The big question then is how would Skype be used once it achieves widespread adoption in China? This is a question that I cannot answer and I would be surprised if anyone could at this point. But, judging from the way it’s been used in places where there already is widespread adoption, I wouldn’t expect anything too remarkable. As far as I’m concerned, Skype just makes it cheaper and easier to do things that we already do, i.e. communicate. Obviously that does impact the potential level of integration between regions with all the benefits that may have, but so do a lot of other things and any assumption in this regard would be highly speculative.
On top of this is the issue of Internet censorship in China. I don’t know how things stand today but I do know that Skype was initially blocked in China. Given Chinese authorities’ track record in these matters I would be quite surprised to learn that Skype can currently be freely used in China to facilitate communications with other Skype users or traditional telephones outside of China. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
The thing that came to me after the interview, that I should have said about leapfrogging (although I got the impression that the focus was more on China) actually regards Skype itself. Skype has had a significant impact on Estonia, where the program was initially developed although the idea was brought over by a Swede and a Dane, and this may be regarded as far more illustrative of the leapfrogging concept than the diffusion of the application. Skype (and Kazaa which came from the same place) have given Estonia a lot of credibility in a new IT sector that is exceptionally innovative. This example underlines the fact that leapfrogging doesn’t necessarily entail a move forward (“leapfrogging” might be a bit of a misnomer). In fact, it’s far more effective when it moves to the side, so to speak. Estonia is creating a market that is unique and where it is an undisputed leader. This has contributed considerably to Estonia’s being the dynamic EU hotspot that it is at the moment. That’s leapfrogging!