Skype 5.0 comes out of beta, Group video chat gets price tag

I am a big user of Skype especially over on WinExtra for our daily video news show and while I have tried the beta of Skype 5.0 I ended up having to roll back to the previous version 4 so I was kind of glad to see this announcement show up on the Skype blog, even though the news isn’t all roses.

With the release of version 5 Skype has moved the new group video chat, and live support, to a subscription model. From their announce on the Skype blog:

Group video calling has shed its ‘beta’ label and officially joined our product line-up with the introduction of the new version of Skype for Windows.

It’s available as part of the new Premium package which offers group video calling together with access to live chat customer support.

You can buy a day pass for $4.99/€3.49/£2.99* or a monthly subscription for just $8.99/€5.99/£4.99† per month.

If you sign up for group video calling in the first month, you’ll receive a 33% discount on 3 and 12 month subscriptions. In addition, you’ll get a 25% discount off an HD webcam.

The new version of Skype for Windows also includes a number of improvements to video stability and quality, and we recommend that you download it now.

Here’s hoping that whatever problem with the software that cause the service to go down for an extended period of time has been fixed.