Last week Skype introduced new features for its “Skype for Business” offering designed to make Skype manageable in a business environment. Do these tools finally give the green light for widespread enterprise deployment? Well….the answer is a decidedly “maybe”.

Skype initially announced its business offering last year, which was designed to let small groups centralize billing for Skype-to-PSTN connectivity services (SkypeIn/SkypeOut). With last week’s announcement Skype adds management and configuration tools, enabling Windows network administrators to use the Windows Installer to centrally deploy Skype and disable unwanted features such as file transfer capabilities (no such capabilities yet exist for centralized control of Mac or Linux clients). In addition, Skype announced enhancements to its business control panel, further improving centralized account administration capabilities.

Skype also started a bit of a marketing push, touting the success that architect firm Lewis and Hickey have had in using Skype to improve communications and reduce telephone costs. (See: http://about.skype.com/2007/01/skype_for_business_takes_lewis.html)