In a blog post, John Luther, the Project Manager of Google's WebM Project, has announced that Skype now supports the VP8 codec. The VP8 support is already available for Windows users who are using Skype 5.5. VP8 will be used to encode and decode the Skype video call if both the caller and receiver have clients that supports the codec.

VP8 is a video codec that was developed by On2 Technologies. After Google acquired the company, Google had open sourced it. VP8 is currently used by the WebM Project - of which Mozilla and Opera too are a part - to develop a free and open video container to be used for HTML5.

This is what John Luther wrote about Skype's support for VP8:

Skype was one of the earliest supporters of VP8, and we're really excited that millions more of their users will experience the superior quality and performance of VP8 video calling.

VP8 and WebM have been under constant threat from the MPEG-LA. The MPEG-LA alleges that it violates patents of its members. Interestingly, Microsoft too is a part of the MPEG-LA.

So, right now we have a company that is being acquired by Microsoft supporting a video codec which Microsoft along with its other friends at the MPEG-LA is targeting with its patent pool. Interesting indeed.