Introducing the Skype Web SDK

Released as a public preview earlier today, the Skype Web SDK is a client-side SDK uniquely suited to developing web applications using the features of Skype for Business.

The Skype Developer Platform for Web ("Skype Web SDK") is a new set of JavaScript components and HTML controls that enable developers to build new web experiences that seamlessly integrate a wide variety of real-time collaboration models leveraging Skype for Business services and the larger Skype network.

Skype Web SDK: Getting Started This course will show developers how to utilize the Skype Web SDK to add Presence, Contacts, and Instant Messaging functionality to a web site or application using just a few lines of JavaScript and jQuery code.

Learn More and Download

The Skype Web SDK Public Preview is now on MSDN and includes a number of useful samples.

• Skype Developer Home Page
• MSDN
• Skype SDK Bootstrap (as used by the samples)
• Samples

Please remember the code is a Public Preview and not intended for use on a production environment, and is also subject to change at any time.

Opportunities with the Skype Developer Platform

Announced at the recent Office 365 Summit, the Skype Development Platform, the capabilities supported appear to be comprehensive and inclusive of those offered by the earlier UCMA and UCWA frameworks.

Daniel Jonathan Valik, Senior Technical Product Marketing Manager and Srividhya Chandrasekaran, Senior Program Manager, recently discussed what can be expected in the new Skype Developer Platform.

[Video from Channel9.MSDN.com]

In addition to support for multiple core collaboration services like presence, chat, audio, and video, this enables web experiences that can connect to a broad spectrum of users, browsing platforms, and device endpoints.

Presence and chat services are provided using new REST-based web services, which allows your SDK Web app to be accessed on any browser such as IE, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. The net result is a powerful new model for building immersive collaboration experiences using the power of Skype and Skype for Business.

Tutorials

I'm writing a few small tutorials on how to get started with the SDK – feel free to reach out if you're looking for help or seeking a particular tutorial. These will be published once the SDK is officially released.

• Skype SDK fundamentals
• Building a Presence Dashboard
• Sending an Instant Message with the Skype Web SDK
• Adding a Presence Widget to your web site (coming soon)
• Building a basic Web Chat application (coming soon)

Capabilities

The Skype Web SDK is an evolving SDK that will grow over time in terms of capabilities and modalities supported. Once released, it will support a surprisingly wide range of capabilities including:

• All key Skype modalities (Chat, Video, Voice and Content Sharing)
• Cross Platform Extensibility (Desktop, Web, Mobile)
• Network independent – works with Skype, Skype for Business, On-Premises and Office 365^[1]
• Standards Support – SIP, SDP, WebRTC (in the future)
• Support for IP and PSTN voice

The SDK is part of the overall Skype Development Platform, a RESTful API that is designed to work on all platforms and frameworks.

• Operating System agnostic – works on iOS, Windows, Android.
• Language Independent – works in any browser that supports JavaScript (i.e., all of them!)
• Topology Neutral – works for hybrid topologies, on-premises, hosted, Office 365

What does the SDK include?

The SDK will include the JavaScript library itself, plus a collection of web controls and samples. The SDK utilises the UCWA framework, which I've written about in the past.

See my series of UCWA tutorials to learn more about that framework.

As you can see, the intention in time is that the Skype Web SDK will act as an abstraction layer above the existing Lync and Skype development APIs, providing an easier to use and more functional single-API-to-rule-them-all.