Skype skipping Windows Phone 7 app for Android, iPhone
updated 02:10 pm EDT, Thu May 13, 2010
Skype deals blow to Microsoft's mobile OS
Skype's Asia-Pacific VP Dan Neary hurt Microsoft's mobile OS plans today by stating that the company wouldn't develop a version of its VoIP app for Windows Phone 7. The company would instead focus on its Android, iPad, iPhone and Symbian ports. Neary didn't explain why Skype had decided against the new app.
The decision may have to do with Windows Phone 7's current OS policies, which don't currently allow true multitasking. Where iPhone 4.0 and most other platforms will allow VoIP calls in the background, Microsoft's new OS may only suspend the app and would disconnect the call if a user switches away.
Without the app, Microsoft is likely to have a perceived setback versus virtually every other competitor and may be the least advanced as other kinds of apps, such as Internet radio, will work more efficiently. Windows Phone 7 was conceived as a 'reboot' of Microsoft's OS strategy to create a touchscreen smartphone OS but, aside from first-party apps, is considered in some ways a step back from Windows Mobile.
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iPhone, industry, Microsoft, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, Skype, mobile phones, Windows Phone
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2000
Why not WM7?
Because it's an also-ran before it even comes out, that's why!
Unless RIM really pulls out a miracle to make the Blackberry OS more relevant, the mobile OS market is going to end up a two-horse race: iPhone OS and Android. Sure, RIM will still be around for a long time because of its entrenched position in corporate mobile email, but that's boring. iPhone and Android will be 'where it's at' for the forseeable future.
Microsoft spent a couple years mocking and/or ignoring the competition, while letting their own sub-par product languish. Windows Mobile was a t*** for years before the iPhone, and it remains so with WM6.5, which I have used and is basically a fresh coat of paint on an outhouse. By the time they get WM7 into devices on store shelves, it will be so late-to-market as to be completely irrelevant.
The fact that developers of major apps feel that the potential market for their apps on WM7 is going to be so small as to be ignorable should not be shocking to anyone.... except maybe the delusional folks at Microsoft.