Skype

Hello. We’re Skype and we’ve got something we would like to share with you.
What we’ve got is a simple bit of software we want to give you. It’ll let you make free calls to your friends all over the world. And we don’t want any money for it. It’s free.

You could think of us as the big, free Internet telephony company. We prefer to think of ourselves as a big group hug, even a present. Yes… that’s it… we’re a present… but without the ribbon.

Our software’s quick and easy to get started with. Download, register, install, plug in your headset, speakers or USB phone and start calling your friends. The calls have excellent sound quality and are highly secure with end-to-end encryption. You don’t even need to configure your firewall or router or any other networking gear. It just, you know… works.

And it doesn’t just work on Windows, like some other software you may know. Skype is also for Mac OS X, Linux and PDAs using Pocket PC, with a native look and feel for each platform. Talking, sending instant messages or even file transfers work between different platforms like a charm.

If there weren’t enough ways for you to contact your friends, we have a little thing called SkypeOut. It lets you make calls to old-fashioned phone numbers all around the world. Landlines, mobile phones... it works with almost all of them. SkypeOut is not free but it is pretty cheap, actually.
You can also forward your Skype calls to a traditional phone or mobile. It won’t cost others any extra to call, and you simply pay the standard SkypeOut rate to call the number that you forward to.

Skype Voicemail

Sometimes talking on Skype isn’t possible when the person you’re trying to call is offline or busy. That’s why we have Skype Voicemail. For a small fee (€ 5 for 3 months or € 15 for the year) you can send voicemail messages to anyone on skype. It is like sending a chat but with the sound on. You can record messages and send them to your friends without disturbing them. You can pick up messages when you’re away or busy on another call and you can keep the messages for as long as you like. In fact, you don’t have to be online at all for someone to leave a message. People will be able to contact you when you’re sleeping, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, knitting, playing with the cat, ignoring people, practicing your tap dancing… and we could go on here. When you can’t or don’t have the time to talk or pick up the phone, Skype Voicemail does it for you.

With SkypeIn, you can get your own, regular phone number. So if your friends who aren’t using Skype want to call you by dialing a regular number, you can still receive the call in Skype. No matter where you are.
So, if you have a Chicago-based SkypeIn number, but you’re living somewhere in the suburbs of Paris, your Chicago area friends - or anyone! - can just dial your SkypeIn number, and your Skype on the other side of the world starts ringing... and your friends are only paying whatever their phone company charges them for making a phone call to Chicago.

Of course people from everywhere in the world can call your SkypeIn number; but if your SkypeIn number is in the United States and they call from another country, they pay for the international nature of the call. And if you have friends in many places, you can get up to 10 SkypeIn numbers in different places and keep them guessing as to where you really are!
SkypeIn makes it much easier and less expensive for those of your friends, family and business contacts who are not necessarily connected to the Internet to call you and share that urgent news, or to just tell you that their cat had nine (9!) kittens.