14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has officially ended its partnership with TOM in China earlier this month, so the company was seeking for a new partner to help it make Skype available to users in the country.
Today, Redmond officially announced that Guangming Founder (GMF) is the new partner that’ll support it deliver “Skype across multiple platforms, including PCs and mobile devices.”
After signing the strategic partnership, the two companies have also released an updated version of Skype, even though it’s not yet clear what the improvements included in this new build are.
“Skype has been at the forefront of changing the way people communicate and GMF is a strong partner with a deep and rich understanding of mobile technology. Our shared excitement about communications and vision for the future will pave the way for us to enrich real communications in China,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The software giant said that Skype would be available on Windows 8.1 as a Modern app, on Windows clients as a desktop tool, Android and iOS. No Windows Phone version is offered right now, but Microsoft promises that it’s going to be released soon.
At the same time, the company has promised that all Chinese users would receive instructions on how to upgrade to the new released version of Skype, just to make sure that everyone gets this build.
While Microsoft hasn’t provided any specifics on this Skype version, it remains to be seen whether the company has actually managed to address wiretapping claims aimed at the joint venture with TOM.
Earlier this year, the TOM-Skype partnership has been criticized for its collaboration with local authorities, with some sources claiming that the two companies handed over private details and user conversations to government officials.
Of course, Microsoft has quickly denied such reports, saying that it only offers user account data based on federal requests and no conversation is logged on its own servers.