Outlook.com has integrated Skype service

On August 20, according to foreign media reports, Microsoft announced on Monday that Outlook.com's integrated Skype service is now available to U.S. customers. This service will also be available to users in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Microsoft’s plan to integrate Skype services into the Outlook.com website was announced several months ago. In the past year, Microsoft has been improving its Outlook.com e-mail service. The Outlook.com website quickly added new features such as Google chat and opt-in email after its launch in July last year.

Skype is Microsoft's main messaging platform and will replace the messaging application in Windows 8.1. For Microsoft, they want to position Skype on the mobile VOIP platform and integrate Skype into many existing products and services. Microsoft recently even announced the closure of MSN Messenger and encouraged users to migrate to the Skype messaging service that replaced the platform.

Of course, there are Microsoft products Lync.Lync is also a VOIP service. Although Microsoft has two brands that run the same service, Skype has public brand awareness. Microsoft hopes to attract more users by integrating Skype into e-mail clients such as Outlook.com.

At present, Outlook.com's integrated Skype service is still a "preview version" and is not yet an RTM (release to the manufacturer) version, although Microsoft said in the blog of Outlook.com that the service will be fully available.