Two months after Amazon announced that Skype video calling would become available on its Echo Show smart display, Microsoft has brought Skype calling—audio and video—to the Alexa platform.
“Use Alexa to call friends and family on Skype or call mobiles and landlines in up to 150 countries worldwide,” a Microsoft website describing the integration explains. “[You can] reach friends, family or colleagues with 100 minutes of free calls per month for two months when you link Skype with Alexa.”
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Amazon announced Skype video calling coming to its second-generation Echo Show as part of a broader wave of product announcements in September. As I noted at the time, the news was yet another nail in Cortana’s coffin. But Microsoft has embraced Alexa even more since then: The software giant is even selling Amazon Echo smart devices from its retail and online stores now.
Last week, Mehedi reported on how Skype calling would work on Echo devices. And there was a bit of a hint there that this functionality would extend beyond the Echo Show and include smart speakers as well as smart displays. Now, we can see that this is true: Skype integration can work with any modern Alexa-compatible device.
Ah well.