Skype announces service for iPhone and BlackBerry…

Tweet Pin It NEW YORK (April 06 2009): Skype, the Internet telephone unit of eBay Inc launches its service for iPhone users on March 31 and is planning for BlackBerry in May as part of its effort to expand beyond desktop computers.

Skype has been pushing to make its service work on the most popular advanced phones with an aim to expending its more than 400 million users who were mostly lured by the promise of cheap and sometimes free calls made using its computer application.

Skype Chief Operating Officer Scott Durchslag said he has high hopes for the application's success on Apple Inc's popular iPhone as he expects Skype's most feature-rich mobile offering to appeal to new and existing customers.

"The No 1 request we get from customers is to make Skype available on iPhone. There's a pent-up demand," Durchslag said in an interview before the CTIA annual mobile showcase in Las Vegas.

In May, it will launch Skype for Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices, which popularised mobile email. It has already announced Skype for Nokia phones and for phones based on Android, Google Inc's mobile system, and Windows Mobile, from Microsoft Corp.

CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood said the new applications give Skype a chance to boost its mobile phone position, which has been weaker than that of social sites such as Facebook, Twitter or News Corp's MySpace.

One of Skype's unusual iPhone features is the fact that it allows subscribers use to the phone numbers in their existing iPhone address book so they do not need duplicate lists.

Skype's iPhone application will be free to download and will allow free calls between Skype users. As with Skype on the desktop, fees will be charged for calls to traditional phones.

The service will also work on later versions of Apple's latest iPod Touch device, which has Wi-Fi links but no cellular connection. The iPod Touch launched September 2008 has a microphone, unlike the first iPod Touch launched in 2007.

While Skype video is very popular with desktop customers, Durchslag said that the company is still considering whether it will offer video for the iPhone or other phones. CCS's Wood said that if Skype can replicate the popularity of its desktop video feature on the cellphone it would help a mobile category that has been slow to take off, as well as boost its own status in cellphones.