Microsoft has just announced that Skype for Web, Outlook.com, Office Online, and OneDrive now support plug-in free voice, video, and group video calling on its Edge browser. It was made possible by using the ORTC media engine that Microsoft recently introduced in Edge.
“We"re lucky to have so many industry-leading engineers within the Skype and Microsoft Edge team,” reads the announcement. “They have combined their knowledge to deliver the very best plug-in free calling experience during this Preview period. Because the Skype and Microsoft Edge teams work so closely, it means you"ll be able to take advantage of plugin free calling in certain calling scenarios from Microsoft"s Edge browser first.”
The scenarios mentioned that don"t require a plug-in include:
- One-to-one, group voice and video calls to and from Microsoft Edge.
- One-to-one calls from Microsoft Edge to the latest version of Skype for Windows and Skype for Mac are plug-in free.
Microsoft says that this is just the beginning of it fulfilling its commitment to support WebRTC in Skype. The company plans to bring "seamless" calling to everyone, not just Microsoft Edge users. To achieve their ubiquitous aims, it"ll continue to work on enabling audio and video interoperability in Chrome and Firefox.
Source: Skype blog