With VoIP now starting to take hold with American consumers, service providers are now stepping up to deliver the next big thing: Voice and Video over IP, which enables live video communications between two end users.
One of the first to the punch on this was
Skype, with
the release of Skype 2.0 in December 2005. Now the top VoIP provider has released the beta version of Skype (
News -
Alert) for Mac 2.0, thus introducing video to Skype’s Mac community. The service lets Mac users make free of cheap video calls which can be viewed in the Skype window or full screen. Best of all (and also logical) it can connect with any other user, regardless of platform, which means more than 113 million Skype users can make free video calls to people across the globe using both PCs and Macs.
“Skype’s goal is to make Internet calling streamlined and simple for everyone by providing innovative features and an intuitive design,” said Stefan Öberg, director of product management for Skype, in a
press release. “Our community is made up of both Mac and Windows users. We couldn’t be more excited to bring these two groups together, literally face-to-face.”
Video calls with Skype for Mac 2.0 require a Macintosh computer with Mac OS X v10.3.9 Panther or newer, a G4, G5, or Intel (
News -
Alert) processor running at a minimum of 800 MHz, 512 MB RAM, 40 MB free disk space, and an Internet connection.
In addition to the release of Skype for Mac OS X 2.0, Skype announced today the release of Skype for Mac OS X 1.5 Gold.
Skype, which is owned by eBay (
News -
Alert), is a fully proprietary, end-to-end (or peer-to-peer) VoIP service offering a broad range of calling features including voicemail, call forwarding and personalized ringtones. Calls to other Skype users are free while calls to traditional land lines and mobiles are offered at affordable rates.
Skype is not a replacement for your ordinary telephone and cannot be used for emergency calling.
To learn more visit
skype.com.
What’s the number one VoIP conference in terms of attendance? What’s the leading VoIP expo for exhibitors in terms of lead generation? And which VoIP industry event will feature special attractions for service providers, resellers, and the enterprise and SMB market as well as an overview on the Future of IP Telephony? Answer: INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & Expo, WEST, which runs October 10-13, 2006. See you in San Diego!
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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.
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