Free Internet telephony firm Skype will allow its instant messaging to be built into Web sites and software applications such as music playing programs and multiplayer online games, it said on Wednesday.
The announcement by the Luxemburg-based firm, which has 51 million registered users of its free software to make telephone calls over broadband Internet connections, came a few hours after Google announced it would become a competitor of Skype. Through the new SkypeNet and SkypeWeb initiatives, Skype services will be fully integrated into Web sites and software programs, co-founder Janus Friis told Reuters days before the company marks the second anniversary of its foundation on August 29.
Until now, Skype users have needed to open the service in a separate window on their computer screen from where they can start a phone call or a text messaging conversation.
Skype can afford to open up, because unlike other big instant messaging companies, ranging from market leader AOL, with AIM and ICQ brands, to Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft, Skype's aim is not to drive customers to its own Web site.
"We're the only company totally focused on global Internet communications," Friis said.
The first endorsements from e-commerce Web sites and software firms should be expected in "the very short term", he said.
Google earlier on Wednesday announced it would start an instant messaging and voice messaging service.
Friis said he was ready for more competition and added that Skype, after its first two years, had grown twice as fast as Yahoo!'s messaging service.
Friis shrugged off suggestions that Skype may be acquired by bigger rivals, such as Google, which have more resources to take on big telephony operators that are now launching their own Internet telephony and messaging services.
"We have potential, as the only IM (instant messaging) company focused on communications and as a result of our fast growth. We're very happy with our prospects as a standalone company. "We've always meant this company to be for the long run. We're investing heavily in our infrastructure," he said.
Skype's users are scattered around the world, with 44 percent in Europe, 29 percent in Asia, 13 percent in North America and 10 percent in South America.
Its official base is in Luxemburg, but its management is mostly in London and software development is done from Eastern Europe.