Microsoft has announced a free browser version of Skype specifically designed for the small businesses. The service is named as Skype Meetings.
This new online meetings tool provides small businesses with real-time audio and HD video conferencing.
Skype Meetings is essentially a stripped down version of the Skype for Business solution.
Skype Meetings includes collaboration features like the ability to share screens and content during meetings.
With Skype Meetings, you can quickly set up meetings and share a personalized URL that participants click to join the meeting. During the meeting, participants can IM, share their screen or PowerPoint presentation or use the laser pointer and whiteboard features to make it more engaging and productive. The meeting organizer also gets professional meeting controls such as the ability to mute the audience in order to be heard.
Anyone in the U.S. with a business email address and whose organization doesn’t already have Office 365 can sign up for free Skype Meetings at www.skype.com/meetings. Once you sign up, you can set up meetings for up to 10 people for the first 60 days and up to 3 people thereafter.
Skype for Business is integrated with other Office 365 apps to enable you to do things like schedule a Skype meeting from your Outlook calendar, see your colleagues’ presence, and initiate an IM or start an audio or video conversation within apps like Outlook, Word and PowerPoint.
