When it comes to digital assistant and smart speakers, Amazon’s Alexa seems to be well ahead of the game. It is certainly the most popular smart speaker in the market, beating giants like Apple and Google to the game. And now it is upping the ante further higher up by integrating Skype.
This move comes against a backdrop of an understanding between Amazon and Microsoft whereby the two companies agreed to make their respective digital assistants available on each other’s platforms. That is to say, Cortana is available on Amazon Echo, while Alexa is also accessible via the Windows 10 platform which previously supported just Cortana.
With the integration of Skype onto the Amazon Echo, you can start and control both video and audio call via the Amazon’s smart speakers. You may wonder how Microsoft stands to gain from this partnership, as it is easy to see how Amazon is gaining. Well, Amazon’s push to have users make orders from their smart speakers will provide a way for Microsoft to achieve product integration in ways it has never achieved with the launch of Xbox One and Kinect, which already have Skype control.