Skype announced today the release of some very cool toolbars including one that interacts with Microsoft Office. When you’ve got it installed, you can click on any phone number inside a Word, Excel or Powerpoint file and Skype Out will call that number! It recognizes fax numbers too, and won’t call those. Very cool.
Beta versions of toolbars for Outlook, Outlook Express and Thunderbird were released in beta last week. Those do the same thing with numbers in emails and make it easy to follow up emails with Skype IM. Two weeks ago the company released public versions of Firefox and IE toolbars that will call numbers on web pages and add country codes based on the page host’s ISP.
The company says it estimates that 30% of Skype users use it for business and these toolbars are targetting that audience.
Of course these are all for Windows only! The closest thing to love for Mac users is this Tuesday’s version 1.5 of Skype for Mac.
None the less, innovation continues – even post acquisition. Speaking of that acquisition, see also, even if just for laughes: Skype Founders Use eBay Cash To Atone For Their Kazaa Sins