GigaOm last night already predicted an announcement was forthcoming, but now it’s official: Skype has announced that the beta version of Skype for SIP has been certified as interoperable with Cisco’s Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business.
This will enable SMBs who manage their networking and communications needs with the Cisco solution to communicate more efficiently by directing their outbound calls to mobiles and landlines over Skype’s VoIP service.
The integrated solution will also allow employees to receive inbound calls from Skype users (now over 480 million strong according to the release). Earlier this year, similar arrangements were struck by the eBay company with Shoretel and SIPfoundry’s sipXecs platform.
Interoperability with Skype for SIP, which was first announced last March, means that small businesses can take advantage of the Skype’s generally low-cost global calling rates when their employees call landlines and/or mobiles across the globe. In addition, if a company buys and associates online Skype numbers with their Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series system, it can then receive inbound calls via Skype from business contacts and customers calling from landline and mobile phones, from anywhere in the world.
Om Malik says Skype is also about to announce a similar agreement with Avaya, a large enterprise telephony equipment provider.
Suddenly, Skype looks a lot more attractive than it already was.
Bend over long distance carriers.
“Bend over long distance carriers”… You bet!
And with http://www.ring2skype.com you don’t even need SkypeIn, you can get a local number in NYC, London, and 100 other cities, forwarded to your Skype, wherever in the world you are, for free! I wonder if Skype knows about this…
Yay for closed systems! I know Skype is generally pretty good quality but WHY??? Why can’t something like this be set up for XMPP access? You know, an open standard that you can run on your own or use someone like Google for.
Let the Skype infighting kill it so we can move on to something not tied up in proprietary crap!
But you cannot be reached on your Skypename, right? That would be even more interesting, since Skype-to-Skype calls are completely free.
Well, the cool thing about http://www.ring2skype.com is that you have your Skypename AND real phone numbers. All of these numbers are forward to your Skype, so you can answer from your computer (or Skype for mobile) if someone calls you.
No matter where in the world you are or how long do you talk. It’s always free.
Hey skype Buzz,
Yes on Ring2Skype.com you can have your incoming call diverted to your skypename for free!
Please fell free to ask me any further question you may have.
Yours
Jason
Skype is no doubt the best voIp service and works really good even on low bandwidth.
This is game changing . Now skype has moved from web to actual landlines . This existed earlier but then you need skype phones.
There goes the monopoly of big carriers out of the door !!
the attraction of the SIP link should be generic interop. this linking to specific products should be unnecessary. the point should be you can now use skype with any SIP device/platform.
That’s a great (and overdue) addition to Skype. Project Gizmo has supported SIP for years now.
Does this mean than one can use Skype as an alternative for Cisco IP Communicator? (there are no Linux alternatives)
Theoretically, if Skype is based on SIP, then it should be able to work with any standard SIP devices without any problems.