Internet telephony and communications company Skype has introduced a service designed specifically for small businesses with fewer than ten employees.
The company claims Skype for Business – which includes a website dedicated to business support and features in the Skype for Business Control Panel that simplify management of grouped users and pre-paid services – can help small businesses “manage communications, improve productivity and reduce costs”. Other features include integration with the Microsoft Outlook toolbar.
Skype estimates that 30% of its 75 million users are businesses and that more than half of all companies using its service have less than 10 employees.
Commenting on the launch, CEO and co-founder Niklas Zennström, said Skype was “dedicated to being the champion of [small] 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”.
Ireland managing director Alistair Shrimpton argued Skype enabled companies to “build a fantastic business network” with customers and suppliers.It was particularly attractive to smaller companies because they were more cost-conscious.
“Being able to talk to colleagues and business contacts for free is a fantastic asset. They can make enormous savings by adding Skype to their communications armoury.”
Using Skype for Business, administrators can centralise the management of companywide paid services and usability tools. Group administrators can make large credit purchases to one account and automatically distribute Skype credits to accounts across the company.
Skype also outlined a number of products available for small businesses from Plantronics, Actiontec, Linksys, Polycom, US Robotics and SoundStation.
In addition, there are several third party services available for small businesses from companies like Salesforce.com. Convenos and Vapps. For example, users can make Skype calls from within Salesforce.com using AppExchange.
Skype software is available to download from Skype.com but is often bundled along with free call minutes with associated hardware sold through retailers such as PC World.
With Skype, calls to other Skype users over the Internet are free but the company charges for calls to and from landline and mobile phones, voicemail and call forwarding services. The cost to forward calls to mobile or landline phones is just over 2.5c a minute.
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