At its Future Decoded event in Mumbai, Microsoft today launched a new Skype Lite app aimed at low-end Android smartphones. The app is specially designed for countries like India where a lot of smartphone users in rural areas are still on slower 2G networks. At the same time, a lot of users have entry-level smartphones with low-end specifications, and internal storage ranging between 2GB to 8GB. While the Skype app for Android has a file size of about 32MB, the Skype Lite app is just 13MB, meaning users will be able to save some space on their smartphones. What’s more, the app also has a built-in Aadhaar identification feature.
While Indian telecom operators are rolling out 4G services across the country, not all circles have high-speed internet access. In fact, with most telecom circles still stuck on 2G connectivity, the Skype Lite app has been optimized to work on slower networks. By default, the app will compress data when you’re on cellular network. Besides the reduction in file size and under-the-hood optimizations, there’s a lot more that the app has to offer.
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Microsoft had been in talks with the Indian government since the past year for a go ahead to integrate Aadhaar authentication on its Skype app. Today the company gave a brief demo on how this feature works via a scenario involving an interview. The interviewer was easily able to authenticate the identify the caller using her Aadhaar number. Earlier, Microsoft also presented a scenario wherein Skype can be used by people to authenticate themselves for accessing government services that require Aadhaar-based authentication.
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As India moves towards a cashless and digital economy, Aadhaar is playing an important role. The government revealed that over a billion citizens had already enrolled for an Aadhaar ID.
Microsoft’s Skype Lite app will be available as a free download on the Google Play Store. This isn’t however the first ‘lite’ app that has been launched focused on Indian users. Facebook was among the first to launch a lite app, and it has over 200 million users. Recently, Google launched the YouTube Go beta app, which is again aimed at countries that don’t have high-speed internet connectivity.
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