Chrome, Firefox, and Opera are in the process of implementing WebRTC
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC) which may remove the need for a
dedicated client for audio and video chat. They are trying to use royalty
free video and audio codecs and although Opus is a clear leader for audio,
not everyone is set on VP8 for video.
Of course there is no word if Apple is going to support this and in typical
Microsoft fashion, they are trying to curb WebRTC's adoption:
"Microsoft, the owners of Skype, have presented an alternative proposal
called CU-RTC-WEB to the W3C WebRTC working group. The WebRTC implementation
by Google relies upon their VP8 open codec, while the Microsoft proposal
utilizes the patent encumbered ISO/IEC standard format H.264."
Let's just hope it doesn't end up like the WebM vs H264 stalemate where
Google and Mozilla are pushing open formats but Apple and Microsoft are
pushing proprietary formats for native playback.
