Being a business owner myself for the last 3 years I've searched the internet high and low for effective ways to manage, run and promote my business. One of the biggest helping hands I've come across recently has been a service called Skype allowing users to communicate easily through the internet.

The biggest hurdle i came across when dealing with over seas suppliers and customers was the fact that sending a simple email could easily be interpreted the wrong way, so we started using Skype as our main point of communication.
This allowed us to talk face to face ensuring mixed messages were eliminated, also cutting down on wasted hours with emails being sent back and forward.

Yes we could simply pick up our mobile phone or landlines and call our clients/suppliers but we had always been very conscious about keeping costs down and hence we turned to Skype. No more international call costs and worrying about the amount of time spent on our mobiles.

So why am i telling you this?
Being in the IT industry targeting home users has always been our passion, We've come to notice that people who aren't computer gurus can some times be lead down the wrong path, even the simplest things can be daunting or even a tad confusing. Many people have asked us how why and when about many different subjects, this is just one topic we found very useful in our day to day business practice.

A little bit about Skype....
Skype was born in 2003 and designed by two clever individuals, in a nut shell the service allows users to communicate with peers (other users) by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet.
Registered users of Skype are identified by a unique Skype Name, and may be listed in the Skype directory. Skype allows these registered users to communicate through both instant messaging and voice chat. Voice chat allows telephone calls between pairs of users and conference calling.

Due to the growth and success of Skype, Microsoft saw a rapidly growing community / money maker and purchased the product and software in 2011.
In 2005 Skype had 7.4 million user accounts, racking up over 10.8 million users per day. Today there are more than 700 million accounts... Imagine how many minutes per day that would equate to in phone calls.

Skype soon started offering other useful services such as competitive international call rates to any one with a landline, allowing users to have their very own SkypeIn number so the need for a landline was no longer and also cutting down on line rental, Video conferencing between multiple users, built in message bank allowing people to leave a message when not available, sending sms's to any one any were.... the list goes on!

Some thing to keep in mind...
For the basic use of Skype such as peer to peer calling and messaging its free however for some of their other features like SkypeIn, voice mail and conferencing you'll find a payment or monthly plan to be purchased.
To set up a Skype account its a simple as visiting www.skype.com and clicking the register button, it only takes a few minutes and you will be able to use the service immediately
There are of course other alternatives to Skype such as Viber (www.viber.com), Goober messenger (www.goober.com), VoxOx (www.voxox.com) and Google Voice (www.google.com/voice)
Whilst there are many other services available all offering very similar features, we've found Skype to be the best in terms of pricing, ease of use, and popularity.
In our own research we've found 9 out of 10 people using an online service to make calls and communicate use Skype