Kype takes baby steps on Windows Phone

Nine months afterwards Microsoft announced it was acquiring the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) provider, Skype announces its debut on Windows Phone, which Tony Cripps, principal analyst at Ovum believes fills one of the obvious application gaps on Microsoft's latest smartphone platform.

The moment in its initial guise

"For the moment in its initial guise, Skype for Windows Phone offers a fairly typical Skype experience on smartphones running as a standalone application. We expect this to change in future iterations with Skype becoming a more pervasive part of the Windows Phone software platform and experience, with its functionality integrated tightly with applications and services across the phone increasing its utility.

"In addition, this is an important step in Microsoft's strategy to make Skype a ubiquitous - and unavoidable - part of its product portfolio, integrated wherever it makes sense to do so. A pervasive Skype has much greater potential to disrupt existing models of communication than one in other words dependent on users proactively choosing to install it.

Social glue helping to drive usage of the service

"In this capacity it could begin to act as a social "glue" helping to drive usage of the service and furthering sales of Skype-enabled Microsoft products considerably in future. It could in the long run help blur the lines between business users and consumers with Skype increasingly seen as simply a convenient tool to communication available anywhere."