Ten years ago, NASA’s Stardust mission successfully brought back interstellar dust from a comet and the cloud existed only in the sky. That same year, Skype launched a new innovation – free video calling. Yes, it really has been a decade since Skype changed the way people connect with their loved ones. 6 years ago, we innovated again with one-to-one video calling on mobile phones. Today, we are excited to announce the next evolution – group video calling on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows 10 Mobile. To get a sneak peek, pre-register below.

Please join us as we celebrate ten years of Skype video calling! You are the reason Skype is the video calling app of choice for consumers around the world. You encouraged your friends, family and colleagues to give Skype a try and have changed the way you communicate, generating nearly 2 trillion minutes of free Skype video calls over the last decade, from every corner of the earth. Two trillion video minutes sounds like a lot – and it is. In fact, with that amount of time, you can use Skype to read to every child in the world for 10 hours, every family can be together over Skype for more than 7 hours and there’s still time left for the entire world’s workforce to have an hour-long interview via Skype. Thank you all for being with us on our journey so far. When we launched video calling, it helped people to keep in touch when they were travelling and to stay connected with friends and relatives without having to worry about cost, distance or time. Since then, Skype video calling has been used in truly amazing ways to help people do more together, on any platform or device. Couples keep it on all day when they’re apart, soldiers use it to be there for the birth of their child and explorers connect with students from the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of the ocean. Skype video truly transcends borders; from teaching doctors in Botswana to perform laparoscopic surgery to helping people stay connected with their loved ones during natural disasters.

A lot has changed since 2006 when Skype was only available on computers. Now, over 750 million people have downloaded Skype on their Windows Phone, Android device, iPhone and iPad, meaning that Skype is one of the most popular free apps ever on the iTunes Store and Google Play Store. You can now use Skype on Skype.com, Outlook.com, Xbox, Windows 10 Mobile and collaborate on Office Web Apps. We’ve also brought you other ways to enjoy video with video messaging, real-time speech and instant message translation and group video calling – where we’ve seen a 10x growth in less than 2 years.

To celebrate 10 years of video calling, get ready to welcome group video calling on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows 10 Mobile – everywhere, completely free. We’ll be rolling out this new feature to our hundreds of millions of mobile users in the coming weeks, but if you want to preview before everyone else, hit the link below, provide us with some details and we’ll do the rest. Thank you!

http://blogs.skype.com/2016/01/12/ten-years-of-skype-video-yesterday-today-and-something-new/