March 23rd, 2009 | by Stan Schroeder3 Comments
The Wall Street Journal reports, without many technical details, that popular VoIP client Skype will today announce support for the SIP protocol, which in turns means it’ll open to corporate phone systems.
The new service will be called Skype For SIP, and it will enable companies to make calls from their office phones, to any other regular phone or cell phone, and all that at Skype’s cheap prices. Skype will initially test out the new service with a couple of selected companies, and then go commercial later in the year. The service is aimed at small and medium businesses; ones that have invested in a SIP-based PBX phone system. Prices are currently standard Skype rates, however it’s not certain they will remain the same after the beta period runs out. If you’ve got an IP-PBX system in place and you want to participate in the beta, you can apply here.
Skype claims that the economic downturn was the main reason for this initiative, claiming that now even relatively big businesses are looking at Skype to help reduce their phone costs. If you want to find more about the service, don’t go to Skype’s regular site; go to Skype.biz, devoid of flashy colors and thus tailored to the sensitive eyes of corporate customers.
