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Nokia buddies up with Skype

By Tim Conneally | Published February 17, 2009, 12:37 PM

Nokia N97Today, the world's top cell phone manufacturer and top soft phone client announced they have partnered to bring Skype to Nokia's N-series of handsets.

Nokia's N97, which the company yesterday pegged for launch in June, will be the flagship Skype-enabled N-series device. The N97's address book will incorporate Skype contacts and enable presence for both voice and instant message chats when the device is connected to a 3G signal or Wi-Fi.

Last year, Skype debuted its Java-based Skype Lite client for mobile phones that enabled compatible devices with mobile VoIP, breaking the software into a market that CEO Niklas Zennstram called a challenging market that was taking much longer than expected to enter. The 3 Skypephone that was released in 2007, for example, was not a true mobile VoIP unit, and employed a proprietary workaround to deliver the service.

Skype debuted the Skype Lite client for Android at CES this year, which brought the open source operating system into the ranks of the over 100 Java-friendly handsets that offer the software.

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foxfyre
Feb 18, 2009 - 11:34 AM edited

Partnering with Skype is long overdue.

But now skype STILL has to develop a user customizable interface that also features configuration menus that are less confused than even MS Office Word.

Skype - definitely one of the most FUBARed UIs in the industry.

In fact, its hard to imagine how they manage to make the ICQ UI look elegant.

The irony is that they could simply copy Yahoo Messenger and instantly be 100% closer to the goal of a usable UI - with still more room for improvement.

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preston181
Feb 18, 2009 - 8:25 AM

I have a Nokia N810. Skype is already on it. The voice quality is surprisingly clear. Microsoft better get a handle on the mobile market if they want to have a chunk of it.

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iLoveKannada
Feb 18, 2009 - 5:34 AM

thanks for news Skype simply Rocks ......world gone depend on Skype much more now then ever before.

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