Microsoft adds ability to call phones to Skype for Web

Microsoft is adding new capabilities to its Skype for Web, as well as its Skype for Business services. Skype for Web users can now call cell phones and landlines directly.

Microsoft has updated its Skype for Web offering with the ability to call mobile phones and landlines.

Users can make international calls directly from Skype for Web to cell phones or landlines using Skype credits or subscriptions, company officials said on March 14.

To access Skype for Web, users can go to Skype.com or web.skype.com and sign in and connect. Skype for Web, which is still in beta, alleviates the need to download the Skype app before conferencing and/or instant-messaging others.

Microsoft also added the ability to watch a YouTube video directly from inside Skype for Web via a video link. The ability to add people to a conversation, even if they're not on Skype is another feature Microsoft has brought to Skype for Web, execs said. And if users are signed into Skype for Web, they now will receive notifications even if they're in another tab or app.

In other Skype news -- though on the business side of the house, not the consumer one -- Microsoft last week expanded the availability of its PSTN conferencing to 17 additional countries, bringing the total number of countries where PSTN conferencing is available to to 32. Microsoft officials say that number will be nearly 100 by the end of June 2016. PSTN conferencing is public switched telephone network conferencing.

There's a new Cloud Connector Edition of Skype for Business Server coming in April. The Cloud Connector Edition will allow users to connect existing phone lines/number to Office 365 using optimized, preconfigured virtual machine images.

In addition, Microsoft and conferencing equipment vendors also launched a new initiative, codenamed "Project Rigel" to bring the Skype Meeting experience that will be featured onMicrosoft Surface Hubs -- whenever they are finally available-- to any meeting room with a display or projector. Via Project Rigel, Windows 10 devices will be able to control Skype for Business online meetings and remotely connect users starting in the second half of 2016.

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Microsoft Corporation Adds “Office Online” Extension To Chrome, Announces Skype Updates

Microsoft has introduced a number of new features, including cross-app integration for Skype and a new Chrome extension for Office Online

Oct 30, 2015 at 10:39 am Est

Microsoft has announced on its Office blogs that, among other new features,
the company will finally be launching a Chrome browser extension for Office Online.
The company is committed to improving the experience provided to its customers on
 Mac, Office Online, Windows,Android and iOS. Users can get get the Office Online Chrome extension to freely open Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Sway, OneNote and
OneDrive documents from the Chrome browser.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has also promised to regularly incorporate customer feedback in its updates for MS Office. In the Office blog post, authored by
Office Corporate VP Kirk Koenigsbauer, Microsoft announced the introduction of an improved Navigation pane which will facilitate scrolling through extensive documents
on the online version of Word. Excel Online now sports better formatting options, while PowerPoint Online now performs better.

Office’s Android apps feature considerable improvements, with the Office apps’
“footprint” reduced by as much as 40%. Microsoft has promised to introduce more reductions in the footprint, while the process of signing onto the Microsoft service has
been streamlined as well. The Office apps are also compatible with Android for Work
and Android M now. Office 365 subscribers can take advantage of PowerPoint’s
Presenter View on the platform, allowing users to see speaker notes on a presentation
on an Android device.

Office’s Mac updates see improved Visual Basic Editor features based on customer feedback. From Project Viewer, users can Add Modules; A Dialog can be used to add Library References , while debugging can be carried out using shortcut keys.
Visual basic carries two new commands in the form of AppleScriptTask and GrantAccessToMultipleFiles, and also has “a new conditional,
MAC_OFFICE_VERSION.”

Microsoft has also provided better integration for Skype using Office Online,
which will be available globally to customers with a Microsoft account in November.
Skype provides video and audio integration on the online versions of Excel, PowerPoint, Word and OneNote. Outlook.com also gets the upgrade which allows users to chat up Skype contacts directly from the apps. Skype hopes to provide better integration and collaboration by allowing users to co-author documents. The IM history is linked to the relevant document, which is a helpful feature. Microsoft plans to bring Skype’s in-app integration features on the desktop version of Office 2016 as well.

Microsoft will roll out the features over the coming months and encourages feedback withOffice UserVoice. Office.com/2016 contains all the information about the new
Microsoft productivity suite. The latest additions are interesting, but are not necessarily things that were needed as such. Given the speed of computers these days, switching from one app to another is not as difficult or time-consuming as it used to be, and some users (like myself) would prefer to use distinctly separate applications for distinctly separate functions. The ability to place a call from Word is nice, but one can just as
easily open up the Skype application on the side and continue the conversation while working on a Word document in another window.

That said, there could be some potential time-saving uses for the in-app integrations. Microsoft’s Office Online offering has certainly been given a boost with the latest
features, while the introduction of an extension for Chrome is particularly interesting. It goes show how Microsoft is acknowledging Chrome’s popularity and how the company
is willing to restrict Office Online’s presence to just its Edge browser and the
now-defunct Internet Explorer browser.

For Microsoft, it represents another improvement for Skype this month after the
company earlier launched an upgraded Skype for Windowswith a built-in translator, released an iOS version of Skype for Business and more recently introduced video messages with filters for its Skype apps. With Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)
beefing up its Google Docs offering, Microsoft needed something stronger to
fight back and it appears that Office Online has enough to keep customers hooked
on to the iOS, while the Chrome extension allows Microsoft to add more customers
to its Office Online offering.

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