Partner news and products

There are plenty of online directories available for travellers looking to book a hotel room. But the difference with Voiceoverhotel.com is that all the hotels listed include their Skype Name, so you can make a free Skype to Skype call or start a Skype chat and speak to the hotel directly before you make your booking.

• Customers can call or chat with the hotel via Skype.

For businesses looking to differentiate themselves from the competition or any business that wants to make it easier for customers to contact them, adding a Skype Name or Skype Button to your website and email signature, means your customers can contact you for free at the click of a button.

With over 260million registered users around the world, some of your customers and potential customers are bound to be using Skype, so why not give them the option to contact you for free?

PrettyMay Call Center for Skype (PMCCS) is a 100% software-based call center solution for Skype. It allows small or medium sized businesses to quickly and affordably implement a Skype PBX (aka PABX) system with auto-attendant, interactive voice response (IVR), extension transferring, call recording and personalized voicemail capabilities - and a lot more as well.

How does PMCCS work?

Your customers contact you by calling your Skype Name, a Skype Button displayed on your website, or a SkypeIn number , PMCCS automatically answers the call, and leads the caller into the built-in IVR system, then transfers the call to the appropriate agent or staff member depending on the button the caller pressed.

You can have up to 30 simultaneous Skype or SkypeIn lines supported with the PrettyMay Call Center for Skype. The diagram below shows how the system works for inbound calling.

Pretty May can also be used to route outbound calls via Skype. Find out more here

You can follow these step by step instructions to see how to set up and install Pretty May Call Center for Skype.

You can find out more by visiting the Pretty May Website

Convenos Meeting Center is an easy and intuitive solution for web conferencing and collaboration. They have designed a Skype Extra which is designed to work seamlessly with Skype.

You can access Convenos Meeting Center through the “Do More” menu on Skype or in the online extras gallery to share presentations, files, applications or your desktop while on a Skype call.

Key Benefits:

• Easy to use collaboration platform
• File, application and desktop sharing
• Flat-fee subscription pricing
• Free integrated audio options including Skype

Skype Extra highlights:

• 3-click access from Skype Contacts
• Instantly share presentations, applications or desktop
• Eliminate audio conferencing costs
• Create scheduled meetings
• Maintain permanent workspaces

Visit Convenos for additional details or start your 30 day free trial here.

How to use the Convenos Meeting center Extra for Business:

1) From your tools menu in Skype; go to “Do More”.

2) Select “Get Extras”

3) Click on “Business” then find “Convenos Meeting Center Extra”

Visit Convenos for additional details or start your 30 day free trial here.

One of the most popular business features on Skype is our free conference calling.

With Skype it is really simple to set up a conference call with up to ten people at once. You can invite other Skype users for free and also include people using phones and mobiles into the conference at standard SkypeOut rates. Check out our user guide to see how to start a free conference call.

But some users want additional features, and this is where our partner Highspeedconferencing.com can help. They have developed a great solution which takes conference calling to the next level.

Additional features you get with Highspeedconferencing.com include:

• You can have up to 500 people on a HighSpeed Conferencing call (including Skype users and non-Skype users)
• A bridge number for others to phone to join the conference call.
  • Local dial in access provided in 6 countries. (USA + EU)
  • Toll-free access provided in 8 countries
• Call Recording
• Hand Raising – run a Q&A/Seminar session without needing an operator
• Invite by email non-Skype users to join

HighSpeed Conferencing is the only audio conferencing service available to Skype users that offers high-definition (HD) voice quality. There’s no degradation of audio quality, no matter how many Skype users participate in a conference call. And with unlimited usage during a conference call, you can talk as much as you want. Some people stay on the conference bridge all day.

The HighSpeed Conferencing plug-in is available from the ‘Do More/Get Extras’ section of the Skype ‘Tools’ menu. There is a free 30-day trial of the HighSpeed Conferencing premium service. Visit Highspeedconferencing.com to find out more.

Onstate CallCenter is a Skype for Business Extra that allows SMEs to create a simple, low-cost, and scalable call center and customer contact management solution using Skype.

This week they have announced the availability of North American toll-free numbers which can be connected to any OnState agent, anywhere in the world. The service will be expanded in the future to include European toll-free numbers.

The Onstate CallCenter for Skype, which starts at $30 per month, per agent, enables businesses to create a customer contact solution that includes:

• Management-free Infrastructure
• Skills-Based Routing
• Performance Reporting
• Live Business Chat
• Click-to-Call Web Integration
• Voicemail
• Global Local Phone Numbers
• Call Recording and QA
• Workforce Management

You can access Onstate CallCentre from within Skype, by going to ‘tools’, ‘do more’ and selecting ‘Get Extras’. You will find it under ‘business’. Or you can read more and download it online in the Skype Extras Gallery.

There is a lot of excitement in the industry today about the announcement of a new Skypephone from mobile operator 3.

Why is there so much excitement? Because for the first time ever, a mobile operator is allowing Skype users to make free Skype-to-Skype calls and send free Skype instant messages directly from a mobile phone.

If you are already using Skype for business, or considering Skype as a way to reduce your company’s phone bills, the 3 Skypephone provides complete flexibility. Whether you are in the office or on the road, you can continue to stay in touch using Skype.

So, where can you get it and what’s the cost? The 3 Skypephone will be available this year in the UK, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Macau and Sweden. Skype-to-Skype calls are free from your 3 Skypephone as long as you are on contract or your pay-as-you-go 3 credit is topped up monthly. In the UK the 3 Skypephone is £49.99 on a pay-as-you-go tariff or free on a contract.

If you have a number of people in the company who use Skype, then providing each of them with a 3 Skypephone means you need never pay for internal company calls, they can be completely free from anywhere; the office, the home or on the road. Now that must be good for business.

See the press release for more details.

Here is a special offer on a Skype Extra for Business users. It’s from a company called Skylook, who make a great product that can help you get organised and make you more productive.

One of the most popular features of Skylook is call recording and archiving in to Outllook. This means you can record important business calls or conference calls and save them for later use. You can also attach them to an email and send to others.

Special offer for our readers:

Skylook are offering a special 20% discount off the RRP of Skylook ($USD 99.95) to Skype business users. To claim your discount use this coupon when purchasing Skylook: SKYLOOK4B2007 (offer expires 31/08/07) For help on how to use this coupon see skylook.biz/coupon

How to record and archive calls using Skyplook

1. Download and install Skylook from www.skylook.biz.

2. Start Microsoft Outlook. If you are running Skylook for the first time, you will see the Skylook licensing wizard and the Skylook Welcome wizard. Configuring Skylook to record and archive your Skype calls is easy - when you see the pages below, fill them out as shown:

3. Start a call from Microsoft Outlook or directly from the Skype application. (Skylook will still record calls that you do not start from within Microsoft Outlook). (NOTE: Recording this way also works for incoming calls and for conference calls started directly from the Skype application).

4. Recording will start automatically, as indicated by the Skylook call window, which will appear at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen:

5. You can see more detail about the recording by clicking the “Show Details” button:

6. In Microsoft Outlook, click on the “Skylook Conversations” folder. Your conversation, with the attached MP3 is listed as an item in the folder.

7. To listen to the recording, click on the item. A “Play” button appears in the toolbar:

8. Click the Skylook play button to listen to the recording.

Salesforce.com is a market leading CRM applications, which allows you to manage and share all of your sales, support, marketing and partner information on-demand. We now offer tools to integrate Skype with the salesforce.com application.

Skype for Salesforce provides seamless Skype integration into salesforce.com and aims to improve workforce productivity and communication by voice-enabling the CRM process. Besides saving money on telephone bills, this will also enable salesforce.com users to build stronger relationships and improve the way they manage their contact with colleagues, customers and prospects.

Skype for Salesforce enables users to easily make and receive Skype calls or initiate text chats directly with other people whose Skype contact names and presence indicators can now be added manually or imported automatically into salesforce.com. SkypeOut™ calls can also be initiated with a single click. Conference calls of up to 10 participants can now be conducted using Skype for Salesforce and can accommodate any combination of Skype and non-Skype users.

Skype for Salesforce can be downloaded for free and installed through a simple four-step process from salesforce.com’s AppExchange

FaceTime Communications, recently announced a new partnership with Skype to deliver end-to-end security, management and control of Skype within a corporate network.

FaceTime’s managed Skype solution provides IT and network administrators with the ability to manage the use of Skype on their network with granular controls to choose which elements of Skype software its employees can use. For example, a company may allow voice services but not file sharing or supernode capabilities.

This follows on from the launch of Skype 3.0 for Windows – Business version, which we released in December 06. The business version of Skype comes with MSI installer making it easy to deploy in a corporate network. The Facetime solution now makes it easier to control the features of Skype which effect it’s behavior within your network.

Using the Skype IT Management Framework, FaceTime offers new IT-oriented controls to manage Skype in an enterprise environment, as part of FaceTime Internet Security Edition. Centralized policies can easily be set and controlled at the systems administration level and applied transparently to each employee’s desktop so that his or her Skype experience adheres to IT policy. For example, IT managers can choose to allow or disallow various Skype elements for the entire company, for groups or departments, or on an individual basis, including file transfer, voice calling, video calling, voicemail and voice recording.

In addition, proxy settings and listen port settings can be calibrated and turned on or off for users. Administrators can also prevent users from broadcasting their presence online. Web presence settings can also be enabled or disabled, to prevent users from exposing their availability to potentially malicious users. IT can set parameters to deny users from becoming supernodes or relay nodes, and a real-time bandwidth usage indicator provides a constant measure for IT to determine Skype’s impact on network traffic.

For more information on using Skype in a corporate network, see our Business Security Section and download the Network Administrators Guide

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Symantec and Skype have partnered to deliver PC security solutions to small office and home office Skype users for a secure PC environment. Skype business users can benefit from a 30% discount on the Norton Internet Security and other Symantec Norton branded products at store: www.symantecstore.com/skype.

Symantec’s Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus 2007 products, which are suitable for both home users and small offices, have been Skype Certified™. This confirms that Symantec’s Norton line of security products meet Skype’s strict standards for security, quality and usability.

Here is a new hardware bundle which will be of interest to many business users. Skype, SMC and Fon have put together a package that includes Skype credit, a wifi phone and a wifi router for £99 / €139 / $159.99:

You can read more about this package on the Skype Gear blog, including full reviews of each device.

Wifi phones such as this one are great business tools as you no longer need to be tied to your PC in order to make and receive Skype calls. Wifi phones look like a mobile phone and can be used wherever you have a wifi connection, be that at home, at the office, or at the airport.

VistaPrint Limited, the leading online supplier of high-quality graphic design services and customized printed products to small businesses and consumers, has partnered with Skype to provide business cards to Skype users at no charge. The cards high-quality, full-color and include space for a Skype name so all your colleagues, family and friends will know to contact you for free on Skype. Great combination, free business cards and free calls with Skype!

The good folks at VistaPrint will also give all Skype users a 25% discount on all other products in their store. The Skype - Vistaprint store can be found here

Polycom and Skype just announced a new USB speakerphone. We often say that the hardware being used can have a tremendous effect on the call quality, and Polycom devices are optimized for high-quality calls.

Rich Tehrani offers some comments from a business perspective.

Initially this announcement will be a huge legitimizer for Skype in the enterprise. More enterprise customers will consider Skype since Polycom has indirectly put a seal of approval on its software. Virtually all corporations have Polycom speakerphones (Polycom has over 90% of speakerphone market share) so they may now be more comfortable using Skype service.