Now that eBay (EBAY) has admitted that it overpaid for Skype, it is time for the company to start trying to recover some of its investment. The best way for them to do that is by milking the Skype brand — like with the so-called Skype Phone.
It appears that UK mobile operator 3 is ready to launch an iSkoot-powered, Skype-branded phone on Oct. 29 in London, and is sending out press invites. 3 is being coy, but some folks can see right through them. 3 has been offering iSkoot-based Skype on some of its phones for a while now, though it isn’t clear how that experiment is going. It would be interesting to see what it looks like, and the idea of a device that has all of Skype’s functions built into a mobile phone isn’t all that bad.
Now where else do you think the Skype brand can be applied?
12 comments so far
10:51 AM PT
Toilet paper.
1:12 PM PT
[...] Fuente original [...]
2:20 PM PT
I have a Nokia E65 with Three in the UK. The contract includes 1000 Skype minutes for only 5 GBP (good deal!). It is very limited since you can only call skype users (skype out is not enabled) and you can’t chat. I would recommend Fring if you are interested on those features. In any case both need a lot of work to go mainstream.
6:39 PM PT
Om,
Not sure if I would call this as a true mobile voip. Apparently, iskoot software uses circuit switch network to connect their local gateway, and uses wireless data plan for signaling. It’s a little messy if they want to connect skype contacts from their local gateway using skype in or skype out as the user would be charged twice airtime. Local and the terminating airtime.
I guess fring looks very promising; this is a true mobile voip company.
Part of me says iskoot might be gobbled by ebay.
2:46 AM PT
[...] Om Malik from Gigaom.com thinks Three are launching the 3Skypephone on the 29th Oct in London, press invite are currently [...]
2:48 AM PT
Just seen the story that confirms the Skype phone will be available on the 2nd Nov and will be called the 3Skypephone. Read more here: http://www.three-uk.com/blog/
4:01 AM PT
I don’t know about the “3″ offering but the iSkoot I use on my Treo supports chat and allows calls via SkypeOut and to be called via SkypeIn. Maybe “3″ have dropped this feature to limit the amount of revenue lost. And as omfut says, it doesn’t use VoIP from the handset but from an iSkoot gateway that you call using your normal minutes, the call setup is done using the data path but GPRS is fine, you don’t need anything faster. Unlike omfut, I consider all of this positive since no 3G service offers QoS for the VoIP call except when using the circuit switched path and I don’t actually need 3G to using my version of iSkoot.
8:48 AM PT
Interesting, if not a bit forseeable move by ebay.
I still think that truphone is much superior to fring, skype etc. It`ll be interesting to see, how well Skype integrates with the mobile phone OS.
8:20 AM PT
basically I think we’ll need to testdrive a proper sample … in mean time see on http://www.skype-gadgets.com the picture and specs of this 3skypephone. direct url here http://webtown.typepad.com/webtown/2007/10/the-alledged-sp.html
6:43 PM PT
When I heard the huge amount that eBay paid for Skype, I commented that they must have gone off their rocker in over-paying for it because that script could be created at a price of about $5000! And yet they paid billions of dollars. What an insanity! It is good that they have finally pulled their heads out from the sand and admitted their folly.
5:22 AM PT
3Skypephone doesn’t do mobile VoIP
Many commentators didn’t realize that the 3Skypephone doesn’t really do mobile VoIP. Even experts thought at first that a 3G data flatrate would be necessary to use it. It was quite easy to get this false impression from the press release. But the mo…
11:30 AM PT
[...] peers? After all, their big plan is to drive Skype’s non-PC usage, as indicated by their recent expansion into the mobile market. They have also been aggressively pushing the Skype brand, making money by licensing it to hardware [...]
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