I don't understand why Microsoft took so long to do this. If they had been faster after Google Hangouts, it never would have gained a beachhead. Xbox One could easily find a secondary market as a conference room device; a Microsoft version of Airplay and Chromecast (ideally open to Mac and general web as well) would take more engineering, but would have been awesome too.
I hope open protocols will catch up already. XMPP/Jingle has user side multiplexing for a while (MUJI), but it requires decent bandwidth. It's a deferred XEP for some reason though. Also, most clients lack support for it. Server side multiplexing wasn't standardized for some reason, so XMPP servers didn't come up with anything common so far.<p>Skype remains just another proprietary walled garden communication network which in addition can't be trusted. It should be avoided.
I hope TextSecure/Whisper will get to have video-calling, too, soon. People need to stop using insecure platforms like Skype that make mass spying so easy.
It used to be free a few years ago too until it became 'premium' in early 2011. [1] Difference is that now Skype features more ads than in 2011, even if you have multiple monthly subscriptions (A no-ad version is now a considerable perk of the premium version).<p>[1] - <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/1157435/skype5.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.macworld.com/article/1157435/skype5.html</a>
I use Skype everyday to communicate with family abroad. I have a camera mounted on my television. The quality of Skype is abysmal. Most of the time, you do not have HD video.<p>When I switch over to using facetime, the video quality is amazing. I don't know what happened to Skype, but its quality is by far the worst available on the market.
I'd written Skype off as malware after it continued to put a browser extension on my computer that parsed every single page I visited without my permission. Even after removing the plugin it would regularly disappear. This behavior is not okay.
Finally!<p>I've used many video conferencing solutions but I have the impression that Skype is going to be the most convenient (largely because we're already using Skype as a team). Sqwiggle[0] is pretty neat as well (<i>Edit: I had to mention that, AFAIK Sqwiggle doesn't support group video conferencing</i>).<p><i>[0] <a href="https://www.sqwiggle.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sqwiggle.com/</a> </i>
Does anyone else refuse to use Skype because Microsoft was complicit with PRISM?<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...</a>
Nice! Paying a premium for this was a bummer, but it does still work better than all of Skype's competitors, in my opinion. The primary problem of Hangouts and whatever else is out there is audio echo. I don't know if that problem is simply unsolvable in Flash or what, but Skype has handled it much better. All you need is one person on your Hangout call who doesn't mute their mic and the experience is a disaster, unfortunately.
I see another player that Skype is going after - WebEx. Most uses for WebEx are simple video chatting. Most times no one need the dozens of other features that WebEx offers in their bloated product. In true innovators dilemma fashion, I can see Skype now truly eating into WebEx's market from the bottom up.
Funny - because just last week I setup new dummy google plus accounts for various family members in Europe and India so we could use hangouts without polluting our regular gmail accounts with Google+ nonsense.<p>We won't need that anymore - We were perfectly happy with Skype, but missed group video.
Just happy that screensharing is free again ... I was forced to go create a Google+ hangout account just to get access to this functionality. Glad I can just go ahead and delete that now.
cool. anybody using conference call equipment for skype? We have tried some logitech quipment to connect 2 offices (<a href="http://www.logitech.com/de-de/product/tvcam-hd" rel="nofollow">http://www.logitech.com/de-de/product/tvcam-hd</a>) which didn´t work out very well. any recommendations?
Another neat fact - announced in a Youtube video! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4C1DGzHiis&list=PLaLRbjVhH6kJOvE3V28UbfkuF_4xaA2MR" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4C1DGzHiis&list=PLaLRbjVhH6...</a>
Too little. Too late. My team and me moved from Skype to Hangouts and then to Fuze already. We're very happy with Fuze. More here: <a href="https://www.fuze.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.fuze.com/</a>
That title/URL is bugging me, I was thinking in a more cynical world it may read something like:<p>"skype-is-concerned-of-competition-and-matches-features"<p>About the spying, I feel sorry for any poor sucker watching my life! :¬D All that effort for such little excitement.