Third-party technologies enhance Skype

Skype Technologies' strategy of welcoming third-party vendors is spawning numerous extensions to its popular Internet telephony service, which is beginning to branch into videoconferencing, data collaboration and mobile wireless calls.

Santa Cruz Networks on Wednesday launched vSkype Beta, group videoconferencing and collaboration software that lets Skype users meet online with as many as 200 friends or business associates who also use Skype. On Tuesday, a Norwegian company, IPDrum, introduced the Mobile Skype Cable, a wire that connects a cell phone to a Skype-equipped PC in order to link Skype to the cellular network for mobile calls.