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Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled Skype Lite, a lighter version of Skype, specifically made for India and connecting it to Aadhaar to work in low bandwidth and devices that have limited storage space.
Previously being tested as Skype Mingo, Skype Lite consumes less than 13 MB space and is targeted at the vast Android phone base in India and can be authenticated using Aadhaar and will be availalble in nine Indian languages.
Skype, which was once the defacto standard for Indians to connect with their kin abroad on video calls, has been on the verge of extinction, thanks to lighter weight WhatsApp video calls, Google+ video calls among others.
Skype also hasn’t been able to create a revenue model since the time Microsoft acquired it for $8 billion, investors often considering it a failed acquisition.
Post the acquisition of Skype, Microsoft integrated it into its productivity offering Office 365 for enterprises, giving it as a complimentary feature along with the larger package.
However, Skype Lite could be Microsoft’s attempt to gain the lost marketshare in messaging arena while at the same time look at ways to make money from the video and audio calling service.
One of the key features launched with Skype Lite is Bots. The feature allows third party software vendors to integrate their artificial intelligence apps that can respond to queries such as What’s the temperature right now to What’s the top news for the day.
“While we haven’t yet decided on the possible monetisation methods for Skype, Bots could be a way to do it,” a Microsoft executive told BusinessLine .
Skype Lite was not only made for India, but a lot of the features that went into the app were actually developed at the company’s Hyderabad campus.
Features such as segregating pesky promotional SMSs from your regular SMS, is a feature already seen in some handsets sold in India including those from Xiaomi. Skype has integrated the feature for Skype Lite wherein all your SMS, promotional SMS and Skype messages can be combined in the same app and segregated for ease of access.
To make Skype Lite actually light, the company got rid of video emojis that it launched last year. The app also adjusts video quality based on whether you’re on cellular network or Wifi.
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