Skyping In to Meetings 

As air travel becomes increasingly inconvenient and time-consuming, it stands to reason that more people are going to substitute conference calls and Web conferences for face-to-face meetings. And when they do, the next thing many might want to do is connect via Skype and save the cost of a phone call - especially if it’s an overseas call.

At least, that’s what Scotts Valley, CA-based Convenos thinks. The company, which provides on-demand collaboration applications, this week announced a partnership with VoIP audio conferencing supplier Vapps to integrate Skype callers into conference calls through Convenos Meeting Center. The Standard Edition of the product supports 20 connections and Professional Edition, 99.

And Convenos isn’t the only company that thinks people want to use Skype for conference calls. Pleasanton CA-based Polycom recently announced the Skype certified Polycom VoiceStation(tm) 500 conference phone.

I’d love to tell you more about all this, but neither Convenos nor Polycom returned my calls. Maybe their phone systems were down.

And is ‘to Skype’ a verb?