Skype targets small businesses for cheap internet phone calls

   

Skype, the pioneering web communications outfit has just introduced a new service - "Skype Groups", enabling one person to buy and distribute Skype’s premium services to multiple Skype accounts.

Skype gives small businesses the market advantage against larger competitors by lowering operating costs and increasing productivity with voice calls, instant conference calling, group chat, file-transfer, free toll-free calling and Skype Toolbars, which lets callers make one-click calls to phone numbers directly from Outlook and Internet Explorer.

“From our research, we know that approximately 30% of our 61 million registered users rely on Skype for business purposes. We responded to their needs with Skype Groups, which will increase customer satisfaction by making it even simpler to purchase premium services,” said Niklas Zennström, Skype CEO and co-founder. “In particular, businesses that outsource or have distributed teams will find Skype's services incredibly valuable. No longer do managers have to juggle multiple communications plans among multiple providers; with Skype Groups, all employees are on one global platform at a fraction of the cost.”

From a recent survey of beta users, Skype found that small businesses in a variety of industries are using Skype Groups to lower operating costs. 25 percent of respondents are in the software and services sector, 11 percent are in business services and eight percent are involved in technology hardware and equipment.

You can download Skype here.