Skype falls short as a web conferencing tool for every-day business use

Skype scores low in a comparison of online business meeting tools

The Internet telephony and chat application Skype is not really suitable for online business meetings and web conferencing. That is the conclusion of the testing portal webconferencing-test.com, which has taken a closer look at the new version of Skype. Skype ranked near the bottom on account of its limited desktop sharing/screen sharing capabilities, and the lack of features for planning and inviting participants to online conferences.

Webconferencing-test.com chose to include Skype in its ranking system because the VoIP provider recently expanded its functionality to make it more attractive to business users. The main innovation is the ability to share desktops with other Skype users. While Skype version 5 now allows up to ten users to take part in a video call (previously only two), the new release is a disappointment when it comes to online business meetings: The far more important desktop-sharing feature remains restricted to just two users.

Skype also lost points because online meetings can still only be convened on the fly, and the system requires both Skype users to be logged on simultaneously. Because Skype does not offer web-conference planning, it comes as no surprise that users cannot send invitation emails, along with calendar entries, to their Skype contacts. Most other popular web conferencing tools provide this.

An overview of Skype’s performance across all assessment categories can be found at webconferencing-test.com. For a discussion of the background and details of the Skype test, see the test portal blog.