Microsoft Starts Integrating Skype Into Office
Microsoft announced its plans to buy the popular peer-to-peer VoIP service Skype in early 2011 and the acquisition closed last October. Since then, though, Microsoft mostly left Skype alone and continued to run it as a stand-alone product. With the release of the next version of Office, Microsoft is now integrating Skype closely into its office productivity suite. Skype will, for example, now power the “presence” feature in Outlook and – just like Yammer, Microsoft’s most recent acquisition – will become a default part of every version of Office.
It’s not clear if Microsoft is building other parts of Skype (including video chat) directly into its Lync communications platform for Office. According to Microsoft, though, Skype users will be able to “integrate Skype contacts in Lync.” Chances are that today’s announcement is just the beginning of Skype’s integration into more Office products.