Internet calling provider Skype is courting small businesses
Looking to expand into the small business sector, Skype has revamped a number of applications to cater to a corporate audience, the company announced at the CeBIT show in Germany.
Skype, the global Internet communications company, recently announced Skype for Business, a solution designed to help small businesses easily manage communications, improve productivity and reduce costs. Skype for Business expands existing Skype small business offerings to include: Skype for Business Web site, a resource dedicated to business support; new Skype hardware from Plantronics; and new features in Skype for Business Control Panel (formerly named Skype Groups) to simplify management of grouped users and pre-paid services.
Skype, which was bought by eBay last year, offers software that allows people to make free calls over the Internet from their computers. Skype also offers premium services, such as Skype-Out, which charges customers for calls made from PCs to regular phones.
Skype has traditionally been thought of as a consumer application. But the company says that 30 percent of its 75 million subscribers use the software for business.
"Skype for Business is clarifying the package we have for business customers and also adding some new features," said Saul Klein, vice president for global marketing of the Luxembourg-based company bought last September by online auctioneer eBay.
Skype for Business introduces a dedicated Web site aimed at simplifying global communications and group administration for companies with fewer than 10 employees, a market represented by more than 50 percent of businesses already using Skype. This new resource, available now at the Web site skype.biz, makes it easy for companies to use Skype and find valuable resources to maximize security and improve productivity. Other useful features include integration with the Microsoft Outlook toolbar and new products optimized for small businesses are also available through Skype for Business.
Skype for Business is designed for these users, who are too small to invest in building their own Internet Protocol telephony networks or to subscribe to expensive managed services from a telephone carrier.
We know from listening to our more than 75 million customers that 30 percent of them are regularly using Skype for their businesses and most of these are small companies, said Niklas Zennstrom, Skype CEO and co-founder. "Skype is dedicated to being the champion of these companies by making it incredibly easy for them to be productive, save money and have access to a sophisticated global communications solution that helps them compete."
Seemingly similar to the concept behind Microsoft Office Live, Skype’s new Business Web site aims to aid in administration and worldwide communications for small companies with 10 employees or less.
The skype.biz site now allows users to integrate with Microsoft Outlook, offers a shopping portal with business-oriented products and also includes updated security tools.
Skype for Business Features:
Skype for Business allows administrators to centralize the management of company-wide paid services and usability tools are described as follows:
The Skype for Business Control Panel is available in 18 Major Languages: Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Six Currencies: Brazilian real, British pound, euro, Japanese yen, Polish zloty and U.S. dollar.
The Skype for Business Control Panel offers a new auto-management feature that enables group administrators to make large credit purchases to one account and simultaneously distribute Skype credits, topping-off all customer accounts. Skype credits can be used for Skype premium offerings including SkypeIn, SkypeOut, voicemail, personalization and third-party conference calling.
Skype Certified Business Hardware:
Skype also unveiled a new product that it launched in collaboration with Plantronics.
The Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset is Internet-optimized, with a plug-and-play USB Bluetooth voice adapter.
"Skype for Business coupled with our new Bluetooth headset is the ultimate tool for small businesses," commented Philip Vanhoutte, EMEA Managing Director, Plantronics. You no longer need to carry a multitude of devices. Our Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset solution is multipoint, allowing customers to switch seamlessly between mobile phone and Internet calls.
“We are using Skype and it has reduced our voice communications costs significantly." said Mark Ehr, Director of Product Marketing, Proxima Technology http://www.proxima-tech.com, a company that makes service management software. "We frequently hold international four-way conference calls between our offices in Australia, the US and the UK, with usually a mix of Skype and SkypeOut, and it has the potential to save us thousands of dollars. We also use Skype to forward our office phones to our SkypeIn numbers when we are travelling, it is great to be at a hotel in London, receiving free SkypeIn calls, and my callers do not realize that I’m not sitting at my desk in Denver."
The Voyager 510 Bluetooth retails for $99.95 on the Plantronics Web site.
Other available high-quality products optimized for small businesses include:
- Actiontec: Vosky Exchange allows company PBX systems to connect with up to four Skype callers.
- Linksys: Cordless Internet phone provides freedom of movement; a convenient alternative to Skype calls on the PC.
- Polycom: Computer Calling Kit, an option for Polycom’s SoundStation2 and SoundStation2W (wireless) conference phones, enables the conference phones to also serve as the microphone and speaker for Internet calling.
- USRobotics: USB Internet Speakerphone enables hands-free, high-quality Skype calls.
Skype has also partnered with several third-party software providers, such as Salesforce.com and WebDialogs, to integrate their applications with Skype.
Among other features of third-party products are: speaker phones, cordless Internet phones and electronic switching gear for businesses, as well as software programs to share documents and presentations over the computer during calls, to make conference calls with as many as 500 people and to translate calls in English into French, Spanish, Cantonese or Putonghua.
Third Party Business Services:
Skype has partnered to offer enhanced services to business customers. Examples include:
- Convenos: The Skype Certified Convenos Meeting Center delivers an on-demand Web collaboration and conferencing tool so customers can run productive, cost-effective meetings.
- Digitrad: 1Touch Connect translates the following languages into English: Cantonese, French, Mandarin and Spanish at: share.skype.com.
- Salesforce.com: Skype for AppExchange brings Skype features to Salesforce and all the on-demand applications on AppExchange (appexchange.com)
- Vapps: High-speed conferencing service enables Skype customers to create moderated calls for up to 500 Skype, wireless or telephone participants (highspeedconferencing.com)
- WebDialogs: Unyte allows Skype enabled businesses to share documents, presentations, applications and/or PC desktops with anyone connected using a Web browser (webdialogs.com/unyte)
Skype already offers small companies the market advantage by lowering operating costs and increasing productivity. Existing Skype features that increase productivity in the workplace include:
- Presence: Colleagues can see at a glance whether their co-workers are online, are forwarding their incoming Skype calls, or are unavailable. This allows callers to form ad hoc conference calls or online meetings instantaneously, a competitive advantage over the old ways of organizing a conference call
- Mobility: Skype customers can log into any computer, laptop or PDA anywhere around the world and access their Skype account and contact list
- Contact List and Global User Directory: Skype eliminates the need for address book maintenance with its central contact list – callers can send contacts and share entire groups of contacts in their buddy list with others
- Privacy: Skype calls are end-to-end encrypted for superior privacy Ease-of-use: With Skype, there is no expensive equipment to buy
Skype created a sensation when it was launched in 2002 by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the two technologists who created the Kazaa file-sharing program. Conventional telephone companies, already reeling from falling long-distance prices and rising competition, feared Skype and other programs that routed calls over the Internet would siphon off their best customers.
Skype is geared toward worldwide Internet communications and offers a number of free voice and video services. Ebay acquired the Luxembourg-based company in 2005, as part of a $2.6 billion deal that the e-auction house brokered in a bid to create a more powerful presence by combining its own service and PayPal platform with Skype communication capabilities.
Skype is not the only voice over IP provider going after the small-business market. Vonage has two small-business plans starting at $39.99 per month. Web portals America Online and Yahoo have introduced voice and file-sharing capabilities with their instant messaging clients. Yahoo has integrated its client with Microsoft’s Live Communications Server. And AOL plans to add more features designed for business users to its IM client later this year.
Skype’s most high-profile product is the free program that lets users make free voice calls from their computers.
The new services could help Skype tap deeper into that market and recoup some of the US$4.1 billion eBay paid for the company.