Chapter 2: Using Skype in Windows 8.1
In This Chapter
Finding Skype
Getting signed up for Skype
Connecting with Skype
Getting along with Skype
Everybody knows Skype, the instant text-messaging, long-distance, telephone-killing video-chatting program. Not everybody knows that it started as something of a hacker’s fantasy, about a decade ago, in Estonia. Two of the key players in getting Skype to market, Janus Friis from Denmark, and Niklas Zennstrom from Sweden, spent their earlier years getting Kazaa — the notorious filesharing program — off the ground.
Microsoft bought Skype, lock, stock and barrel camera, in 2011, for a paltry $8.5 billion — yes, that’s billion with a “b.” The brass moved to Redmond, but most of the techies are still in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.
It's taken Microsoft a couple years to get around to it, but Windows 8.1 ships with a Metro Skype app fully built-in. You just have to find it, set it up, and use it — but only on the Metro tiled side of Windows 8.1, ...
