The Skype team has just published a post to announce the arrival of Skype video calling for Microsoft Edge browser. And no, it won’t be through a plugin. The news was also announced on the Windows blog.
Specifically, Skype inside Edge will be powered by the browser’s built-in ORTC API, that comes with EdgeHTML version 13.10586 or newer in Windows 10 version 1511 and up. For those unfamiliar, ORTC stands for Object-Real Time Communication, and is drafted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to enable voice calling, video chat and file sharing across browsers without the need for a plugin. The standard is also supported by most other popular browsers, excluding Safari; however, Edge is currently the only browser with the H.264 video codec necessary for browser-based Skype to work.
The experience will work, once it rolls out, across Skype for Web, Outlook.com, Office Online, and OneDrive, and can be previewed by signing into Skype for Web. The team also promises the coming of Skype to other browsers once they add codec support. Right now, it should work across Skype for Web on Microsoft Edge, or with the latest versions of Skype for Windows or Mac.
Further reading: Microsoft, Skype, Skype for web
