Skype Meetings Is Microsoft's New Free Video Conferencing Tool For Small Businesses

Microsoft is launching a free tool to make it easier for people to make video conference calls. The company on Tuesday released Skype Meetings, which is largely similar to using the traditional Skype app, but comes with features that make it easier to set up video calls and collaborate with colleagues. TechCrunch reports:The more fully featured Skype for Business product allows you to host meetings with up to 250 people and it's deeply integrated into Outlook, Word and PowerPoint. Skype Meetings, on the other hand, only allows for PowerPoint collaboration (screen sharing, laser pointer, etc.) and screen sharing. Video calls are also limited to a maximum of 10 people during the first two months. After that, the maximum number of participants drops to three people. Participants can join Skype Meetings from virtually any device with the help of a personalized URL and the calls are powered by the same technology as Skype for Business calls. That means you will get to take advantage of Skype's head tracking feature, for example, which ensures that a face will always be in the center of the screen, no matter where it is in the actual video image.

Comments

Re:OS Support?

[The-Ixian]

The "deeply integrated" comment is a little misleading.

Skype (all versions) is a stand alone product that does not require any other office product to function.

No, you do not *need* Outlook to run Skype (even the business version) or vice versa. Yes, they all query each other's APIs for status and stuff. But even the Outlook "integration" is nothing more than a standard plug-in (not integrated into the Outlook app itself).

As for cross platform. If you have an O365 subscription, almost all of their desktop apps (and Skype for sure) have web-based versions.