Right on time (alright, a little early at 7:30 AM, even!) this morning the Skype 3.0 beta was up for download. Initial impressions?
- Pretty new UI, with lots of functionality exposed. For example, want to add someone to a call that’s already in progress? There’s now a pull-down widget that you can do this with.
- The Extra’s gallery has a great selection of companies with complementary products ranging from games to business applications like Unyte.
- The Skype Live chat system is now built into the tabs. Nice.Â
- Call transfer? It might be there, but so far I haven’t seen the UI, or had an incoming call that I can try this feature with, nor is there any documentation of new API’s on the DevZone blog.
- Outlook integration is installed, standard, as part of the upgrade. However, it doesn’t work with Outlook 2007. A surprising omission, given that Outlook 2007 beta has been out for months, that it went gold yesterday, and will be shipping by END OF THIS MONTH. Â
Here’s a shot of the xtra’s gallery, which is the new storefront for Skype Plug-In’s.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
