Skype, one of the go-to apps for any mobile platform these days, is taking a wait-and-see approach to Microsoft’s latest mobile platform while it focuses on iPhone, iPad, Android, and others.
At a press briefing in Sydney, Australia, Skype’s Asia Pacific vice president, Dan Neary, said that a Windows Phone 7 client is “ on the roadmap,” but that “the question is how quickly we’re going to get to it.” Further turning Skype’s back on Microsoft for the meantime, Neary continued: “We feel that the best areas for us to develop are on the operating systems that we currently support – iPhone, Symbian, BlackBerry and now Android.”
That certainly isn’t a “no, not never,” but Skype is clearly not leaping out of its chair to start Windows Mobile 7 development. The VoIP company seems to be bearish on Microsoft’s mobile platforms in general. Back in February, it discontinued Skype for Windows Mobile 6.5 altogether, citing a poor user experience across the myriad of Windows Mobile devices.
Perhaps more interesting to owners of Apple’s mobile gadgets, Neary stated at the press event that Skype is due for iPad by summer. The company is also pushing hard into video chatting, as it unveiled a five-way video calling beta for Windows, and Neary hinted that Skype might support video-chatting if it arrives on Apple’s next iPhone (which we may have already seen), expected to be released this summer.