Satya Nadella announces 'Skype Lite' for India
On the second day of Future Decoded event, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled the 'Skype Lite' application designed exclusively for Indian users. It is the data friendly version of Skype which enables "messaging, audio and video calling even at lower bandwidths." Sized at 13MB, Skype Lite is an Android-only app which supports Indian languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Marathi.
Future Decoded conference
Microsoft's 'Future Decoded' is the company's annual flagship technology and business conference. The tech-business convention is a platform where world-class subject matter experts talk about transforming businesses using digital technology. 2016 Future Decoded event was held in London. The 2017 edition of the summit was scheduled to be held on 21st and 22nd Feb, in Mumbai, India.
Event schedule
The conference focuses on how "digital technology empowers people and organizations across governments, education, banks, hospitals, e-commerce, entertainment and manufacturing companies." Day 1 is the technical day and Day 2 the business day.
Key note speakers
Future Decoded India event was estimated to be attended by 1,500 top business and government executives. Key note speakers of the conference include the likes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, Microsoft CTO Norm Judah, Tata Motors CEO Guenter Butschek, Apollo hospitals Joint MD Sangita Reddy, CMD of Havells Anil Rai Gupta.
Features of Skype Lite
Apart from the standard audio-video chat and instant messaging features, Skype Lite includes built-in data saving functionality, easier image sharing by means of compressing pictures thus ensuring less data usage, automatic switching between networks, and a dark theme as opposed to the regular white background. Skype Lite also comes with Aadhaar support for OTP-based verification, for those services that work with Aadhaar id.
More announcements - Project Sangam
Microsoft also launched 'Project Sangam', an open cloud-based service targeted at helping the government train and assist people in improving their career prospects. It is integrated with their new 'LinkedIn Lite', to find employment after the users complete training. Project Sangam is said to be instrumental in imparting necessary skills to people of India. The programme will commence from Andhra Pradesh.
