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Microsoft Creates Skype Lite Especially For India (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the great,-another-skype-app dept.

There's a new Skype app in town, and it is made just for India. According to a report on CNET: Microsoft is the latest US tech giant to help keep Indians connected. Skype Lite is a new version of the company's popular video and voice-calling app that's "built in India." Skype Lite functions much like its big brother Skype, but it's designed to work well on low-speed, 2G networks, which are still prevalent in India and many developing nations. It uses less data and battery power than the fully fledged app, and at 13MB it's around a third of the download size. Skype Lite, available for Android, also uses India's controversial Aadhaar biometric authentication.

6 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. US release by JoeMerchant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For those of us who would be happy using less bandwidth stateside, can we choose to use it?

    1. Re:US release by sunderland56 · · Score: 2

      Yes, but even a Microsoft engineer should be able to remove that for a US release.

    2. Re:US release by green1 · · Score: 2

      You're implying that the Microsoft engineer didn't put it there on purpose in the first place. Seems somewhat unlikely that they "Accidentally" created a specific authentication system designed to prevent this from being used outside of India.

      MS doesn't want anyone else to use this app. It probably has less spyware and tracking built in to make it lighter weight. They've decided they'd rather these people use it than use nothing (or worse, a competitor), but they don't want to risk anyone using this instead of the full garbage laden app.

      It's the same mindset that makes software piracy ok in those countries, they'd rather people use their software without paying in those countries where the average person can't afford the ridiculous price of the software, rather than use a competitor and get used to working on a different platform.

  2. Why only for India? by Zemran · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When most of the world has to put up with crap connection speeds once they get out of the city.

    --
    I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
  3. Unintentional reveal by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Skype Lite functions much like its big brother Skype..."

    This is what we call an "unintentional reveal", where the truth is accidentally shown alongside other stuff.

    "Big brother" indeed, especially now that all Skype conversations will travel through Microsoft servers for data mining and keyword flagging purposes.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  4. Proprietary software makes anonymity unverifiable by tepples · · Score: 2

    Data is gathered and sent encrypted and in a completely anonymous fashion

    Unless an application is downloaded from a repository that builds from public source, such as F-Droid, the end user has no way to verify this.

    at no time is personally identifiable data shared with marketing companies or sold.

    The end user has no way to verify this.

    There will always be the tin-foil hat crowd that attaches some type of nefarious motive to such product improvement efforts

    I think the fear is that a hostile government could subpoena private information in crash dumps and the like for a fishing expedition.