Skype on launched Skype for Web

Skype on launched Skype for Web, the latest version of its VoIP service that can be used on a browser except a dedicated application.

“Perhaps you’re sitting at a computer that doesn’t already have Skype downloaded,” said the senior product marketing manager with Skype, Jonathan Watson. “Or maybe you’re on the go and using an Internet cafe or hotel computer where you can’t download Skype at all. Using Skype for Web makes it more convenient to get to your conversations.”

If you too want to use Skype for web, all you need to do is to sign in on Skype.com, where you can connect and start instant chatting right away from the browser. If you want to make voice or video calls, you will have to install a small plug-in.

Currently it is available on beta version and will work only with Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Windows and Safari but will be available only to some users. It will be released for worldwide customers in the coming months, as told by Watson.

The new services are believed to be “quite useful, because it opens up the number of computers that can use Skype significantly,” the principal analyst, Roger Entner at Recon Analytics.

Most of all, this latest version of Skype will be available for the first time to employees at companies “where the IT department locks down the computer and doesn’t let you install software,” Entner commented. “I’ve worked in quite a few companies like that.”

“That’s one thing a lot of people don’t realize,” Entner told. “I have Skype chat channels with 40 or 50 people in them.”

Thanks to the Web feature, that’s now possible on “all the computers being held hostage by IT departments,” he mentioned.

Currently, to make any video call or voice call, the user will be needed to download a plug-in; Skype is working with Microsoft’s IE team to apply the technology required for communications on the Web, Watson added.

“With WebRTC, there won’t be any downloads or installs — you can just get straight to your conversation,” he added further.

“Skype for Web has been a long time in coming,” said Andy Abramson, CEO of Comunicano.

“Microsoft is late to the party when it comes to WebRTC,” he added. “The optics are not in their favor, so they are trying to do something to correct that.”

WebRTC is supported by both Google Chrome and Firefox, while Safari of Apple and IE will need a plug-in, as pointed-out by Abramson.

In many ways, “this is nothing more than a catch-up play for Skype vs. Google Hangouts,” he said.