The picture on the left is an actual screen shot of the Skype start-up screen on my Nokia E71.

Pretty cool - is it not?

In December 2009, there was a posting on the Skype website announcing the first beta of Skype on the Symbian (read: Nokia E and N series) platform.

I have now taken the Skype client for a prolonged test-drive - this is a very good product.

Update after publishing this article:

What you read in this post is my experiences with the beta release of the Skype client - you can now download the release version from Skype For Symbian web page. The annoyances mentioned in this article is still present in the production version, and the main menu has a added feature. However, for all practical purposes, the behavior of the beta version mentioned in this article is the same as the released version.

One thing worth mentioning, is that Skype have added the ability to easily do Skype Out call from the main menu.

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Some good news from the read worthy Skype Journal: Skype SILK codec in the IETF standards process.

This IS major news. As Phil Wolff points out, one of the three obstacles for Skype is now being solved. In my opinion, the codec issue has been one of the most difficult for Skype - along with the Joltid issues.

From my perspective, one of the good thing about the SILK Speech Codec being put through an ITEF track is that the codec is now becoming open and usable for more than Skype users.

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There are some speculation going on regarding a new iPod Touch having a built in microphone and some more memory (i.e. 64 GB).

Ken Camp have written an excellent piece does not believe that the VoIP on iPod Touch will become a VoIP hit with pre-teenagers. This may be true in the US, but on this side of the pond I have more than one indication that Andy Abramson's views are very correct. It is true that youngsters do text a lot - but they still make a lot of phone calls. I take the bus to and from work each day and have the "luxury" of observing how the younger generation uses their mobile phones.

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In a recent press briefing from ooVoo, the company state that they want a piece of the growing market for desk top communication software.

What's new with their service is their business offering, which enables desk top sharing, but also the ability to have multi-point video conferencing. Skype does not yet support multi-point video conferencing, but have desk top sharing for free in their current offering.

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paidContent.org recently ran a piece on the current licensing dispute between eBay (owner of Skype) and Joltid (licensor of the P2P technology Skype uses).

If you did not know, Skype uses Peer-2-Peer technology as their transport medium of voice and video. I will not use this blog posting to go into the technical and juridical issues about how scary Skype can be.

This court case is extremely serious for Skype, just take a look at the SEC fillings. If you are unfamiliar about SEC, it is the watch dog of the US financial system.

What is interesting to take a look at is The Ecosystem that is flourishing around Skype.

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Question: If I where an ISP today, would I really venture into VoIP?

I was asked to work on that question for one of my customers. Most Euroepan ISPs are not doing VoIP as their core business - their core business is still selling and deploying broadband connections.

Some places in Europe we now see a shift from deploying VoIP in the residential market and into the business market.

Should the ISPs leave the business market to the pure VoIP operators, or should they venture into that market at all? For a lot of reason I do think ISPs can do a lot of business in that market.

If we look beyond the 12 month mark the picture may not necessarily be so clear anymore - at least not in the SME market.

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