Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Now you can Skype straight from your Outlook.com account

By
now you can skype straight from your outlook com account dt
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Back in April, Microsoft began rolling out a preview version of Outlook.com with Skype integration to users in the U.K. We were told that the company had plans to roll it out to users in the U.S. and Germany within the following weeks with a worldwide availability by summer. Well, summer is coming to an end, and we still don’t have worldwide availability. However, Microsoft announced today on its Outlook Blog that Skype is launching in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Canada, and Brazil today, and will continue to roll out the integration to users in other countries “in the near future.” 

If you’re not sure if Skype’s available yet in your Outlook.com account, check to see if a banner drops down on the right-hand side of your Outlook.com screen. There, you’ll be able to send instant messages to both your Skype contacts and your Messenger contacts. To Skype with your contacts, you’ll need to download a plug-in. Once you link your Outlook.com account with Skype, a prompt will appear to install a plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and or Chrome. 

Recommended Videos

According to a recent Ipsos Public Affairs poll, quoted by Microsoft in its blog post, “76 percent of people say their email conversations frequently or occasionally result in a follow up phone or video call, or other means of communication.” Clearly, Microsoft’s Skype integration in its Web-based email service is its way of taking on Google’s Gmail, which offers both text and video chat within the same Google Hangouts window.

If Outlook.com isn’t your jam, and you prefer to use the desktop apps, Skype will be joining the Start Screen apps in the soon-to-be-released Windows 8.1. 

Do you use Outlook.com? Let us know what you think of the new Skype integration in the comments below. 

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jennifer Bergen
Jennifer Bergen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jennifer Bergen is the Computing Section Editor at Digital Trends and is in charge of all things laptops, desktops, and their…
Microsoft is bringing ChatGPT to your browser, and you can test it out right now
Microsoft's redesigned Bing search engine.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed in a private briefing with the press that a ChatGPT-powered version of the Edge browser and Bing search engine is available now. The overhauled search and web browsing experience is designed for natural-language questions, replacing critical aspects of the browser with AI tools.

That might sound familiar. Google and other search engines have been leveraging AI for several years to compile search results, but Microsoft's take is different. It's "your AI copilot for the web," offering up new search, answer, chat, and create functions.

Read more
Microsoft’s DirectStorage can now boost your game loading times by 200%
Person using a gaming monitor.

Microsoft's DirectStorage 1.1 update is here, and it's definitely one that gamers won't want to miss.

With the new version of the API, Microsoft promises up to 200% faster game load times -- all thanks to GPU decompression. Here's how you can try it out for yourself.

Read more
Microsoft Edge now warns when your typos can lead to being phished
Microsoft Defender SmartScreen helps protect users against websites that engage in phishing and malware campaigns.

Microsoft has detailed its latest effort to protect against various types of fraud that can happen via a method as simple as spelling a website URL incorrectly.

The company has announced as of Monday that it is adding website typo protection to its Microsoft Defender SmartScreen service, to aid against web threats such as “typosquatters.” These types of cybercrime can include phishing, malware, and other scams.

Read more