One manager, many Skype accounts

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 26 October 2005 18:50

Your IT - Home IT

Skype has announced Skype Groups, enabling one person to buy and distribute Skype's premium services to multiple Skype accounts.

"From our research, we know that approximately 30 percent of our 61 million registered users rely on Skype for business purposes," said Niklas Zennström, Skype CEO and co-founder. "We responded to their needs with Skype Groups, which will increase customer satisfaction by making it even simpler to purchase premium services."

Skype Groups, launched in beta in September, centralises the management of prepaid services. Group administrators can make large credit purchases to one account from which they can distribute credits to an unlimited number of Skype callers, as well as purchase SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail premium services for group members. All administrators can register a group at no charge and can purchase Skype credit through Moneybookers and bank transfers; select administrators can also use PayPal and credit cards.

From a recent survey of beta users, Skype found that small businesses in a variety of industries are using Skype Groups to lower operating costs. 25 percent of respondents are in the software and services sector, 11 percent are in business services and eight percent are involved in technology hardware and equipment.