We've heard a lot of skepticism about Skype being suitable for use in a business setting. There are some things you couldn't do with Skype before, but Skype 3.0 for Windows is a great step forward towards gaining more traction in the business community with its advanced administration options. And even before that, many businesses have actually found Skype great for their purposes as is, or in connection with the [Skype for Business Control Panel](http://www.skype.com/products/skypegroups/) that lets you easily manage and track Skype-related costs. By the way, Skype won the in the VoIP product category of [Small Business Computing Excellence in Technology Awards](http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/news/article.php/3655761), perhaps indicating that it's not totally unknown in the small business space.

To celebrate and promote our business use, we're doing a bit of a business push to highlight some businesses that are successfully using Skype, and encourage others to follow the examples. See the general release about [new Skype for Business features](http://about.skype.com/2007/01/skype_means_business_saving_mo.html), or see how [Skype helps](http://about.skype.com/2007/01/skype_for_business_takes_lewis.html) the international architects firm Lewis & Hickey in their daily work. Or you can take a look at some other case studies like [Tractor](http://www.skype.com/business/casestudies/tractor/) or [Edison Ford](http://www.skype.com/business/casestudies/edison_ford/).

### Where to go from here?

Just remember [skype.biz](http://www.skype.biz) as your destination for "all things Skype and business". More specifically, you can take a look at the [Skype business security site](http://www.skype.com/security/business/) to learn how to manage and control the use of Skype in your network of Windows-based computers, or look at the [Skype extras for business](https://extras.skype.com/categories/4). Plus there is [Skype for Business Control panel](http://www.skype.com/products/skypegroups/) for business payments, cost reporting and management. UPDATE: we have received some questions about using the Control Panel -- [see here for comments](http://share.skype.com/sites/business/2007/01/three_faqs_about_the_control_p.html).