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Microsoft has announced that a preview of Skype video calling and messaging for Outlook.com is starting in the UK.
“With Skype coming to Outlook.com, we’re bringing two of the world’s largest communications services together in one place,” said Microsoft’s principal program manager Douglas Pearce.
“To start, we’ll provide the preview to a select set of people in the UK and then the U.S. We’ll gradually make Skype calling available to all our Outlook.com customers as we update the experience based on your feedback.”
Skype for Outlook.com requires a one-time download of a plugin for your browser, available for the most recent versions of IE, Chrome and Firefox.
After downloading the plugin, users can connect Skype to Outlook.com using their Microsoft account.
Customers with an existing Skype account can merge it with their Microsoft account and add all of their Skype contacts to Outlook.com
“We all face those situations where it’s just easier to jump on a call to talk something through. Sometimes that quick call can accomplish more than a long email reply. That’s why we are bringing Skype audio and video calling to your Outlook.com inbox,” said Skype’s senior director or product marketing Simon Longbottom.
Skype will roll out to Outlook.com inboxes across the UK from Monday, with the US and Germany getting the preview in the coming weeks.
To find out more details about the rollout and to view a step-by-step guide to setting up your Skype account on Outlook.com visit the Outlook Blog and the Skype Blog.
