During the annual business networking event, Future Decoded, which is held by Microsoft, the host announced the new version of Skype. This a video conferencing, VoIP, and instant messaging app is now targeted to developing countries. Skype Lite is an Android app, that retains the main functionality of a “big brother”, such as video calls and SMS messaging, but also includes optimisation for use with a slow network connection and monitoring of traffic consumption. The product is about to be released in India. It will available in 8 languages.
Microsoft supplies the software with additional functions that might be useful in conditions with limited Internet access. These functions allow a more convenient preview of the content, such as news and blog articles. In order to minimise traffic consumption, Microsoft added compression algorithms. Photos, video, and other files will be reduced in size before being sent. The messenger itself occupies only 13MB of storage on a device.
The corporate giant noted that Skype Lite was created in India and for India. The main target of this product is rapidly developing the mobile market in this country. Even though India currently has the fastest development in telecommunications in the world, these are only early stages of development. According to Counterpoint Research, 300 million people in India have smartphones, while county’s population is 1.25 billion people.
There is no information when the product will become available for different countries. Although, it is unlikely that Microsoft will limit distribution to Indian market only.