Internet telephony and chat service Skype, owned by eBay, today announced a potentially game-changing move, opening up to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) standard for its VoIP services. As evidenced by the discussion going on at Techmeme, the beta program being rolled out by the company marks a clear initiative to target enterprise customers and open up to new revenues.

According to the Wall Steet Journal, the new beta software - uncreatively named Skype For SIP for Business users - is expected to allow employees to make domestic and international calls using regular office telephones (PBX systems) instead of using a computer and a headset for VoIP calls, which 35% of Skype’s customers use for business purposes apparently. The software will also give corporate customers the ability to receive and manage inbound calls from Skype users to SIP-enabled PBX systems, enabling them to offer click-to-call functionality on websites.

Pricing hasn’t been announced yet in beta stage, but in the meantime standard rates will apply. That translates to about 2.1 cents per minute for calls to cellphones and fixed lines, and free for calls from computers to phone systems.

Read More @ TechCrunch

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