Skype for Windows Phones

For years we’ve been watching movies about the future and one of the most common futuristic themes has been video calling. Marty McFly had a video screen for communicating in 2015, Darth Vader spoke to the Emperor though a hologram, and countless other movies have had other variations of the same idea, but as extravagant as the methods of communication were on those movies, in reality, video calling is much simpler then the 1980s predicted.

There’s no need for a huge system to make these types of calls, and I remember the quality of the calls in those movies was suspect, as if we didn’t really expect the technology to be that good, but it is.

Microsoft debuted the official Skype app for Windows Phones this weekend, and I’ve already had the opportunity to witness its awesomeness. A friend of mine took a call on Saturday from another friend who was vacationing in Maldives, almost 9,000 miles away. It took a couple attempts to make the connection; the growing pains of learning new software. But then we had a great, jealousy inducing view of the beach.

Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for Skype back in May 2011, a hefty sum, but if users of Windows phones are going to be able to have video calls to the other side of the world without incurring massive charges, Microsoft has a great chance of turning that acquisition into a very profitable one as more and more users opt to buy Windows Phones in favor of iPhones and Blackberrys.

Between Skype, Twitter, VoIP, and countless apps giving us cheap or free methods of communication, it really is becoming a small world. Just ask vacationers in Maldives.