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Yahoo plans to upgrade IM phone services
Yahoo Inc., through the voice of Chief Executive Terry Semel, has announced that it will launch a service that will permit Instant Messaging users to dial out to conventional telephony or mobile one.
The move is regarded as Yahoo's counterattack to Skype's recent upgrades, because the resulting service would a lot like Skype. Yahoo's announcement is made in a moment in which the company is not prepared to launch such a service, nor even to describe it.
How it should work: Yahoo Messenger users will be able to rent one or more phone numbers from Yahoo to receive phone calls through the instant message (IM) interface, according to Jeff Bonforte, the company's senior director of voice product management.
Yahoo Messenger initiated calls within the US will be billed at 1 cent per minute, while calls to 30 other countries with heavy telecommunications traffic in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia will cost under 2 cents per minute, Bonforte added.
To use this features, customers would have to purchase prepay card of either $10 or $25. The credit on them, unused, never expires.
Yahoo plans to diversify the service, add new feature and innovate. "This is just the beginning for Yahoo" in the voice space, Bonforte said.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Yahoo Inc., through the voice of Chief Executive Terry Semel, has announced that it will launch a service that will permit Instant Messaging users to dial out to conventional telephony or mobile one.
The move is regarded as Yahoo's counterattack to Skype's recent upgrades, because the resulting service would a lot like Skype. Yahoo's announcement is made in a moment in which the company is not prepared to launch such a service, nor even to describe it.
How it should work: Yahoo Messenger users will be able to rent one or more phone numbers from Yahoo to receive phone calls through the instant message (IM) interface, according to Jeff Bonforte, the company's senior director of voice product management.
Yahoo Messenger initiated calls within the US will be billed at 1 cent per minute, while calls to 30 other countries with heavy telecommunications traffic in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia will cost under 2 cents per minute, Bonforte added.
To use this features, customers would have to purchase prepay card of either $10 or $25. The credit on them, unused, never expires.
Yahoo plans to diversify the service, add new feature and innovate. "This is just the beginning for Yahoo" in the voice space, Bonforte said.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
