Why Verizon and Skype's backdoor deal hurts Android

In February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Verizon and Skype announced a partnership that would put Skype on most of Verizon's Smartphones including BlackBerry and Android devices.

But this isn't Skype like you'll find on an iPhone, Symbian phone or computer.  Verizon's brand of Skype, which rolled out to BlackBerries and Android phones on their network in March, uses the smartphone's voice line to make calls rather than a data connection.  When you use Skype, you incur monthly minutes on Verizon just like a normal call.  What's the point?

The normal Smartphone user's version of Skype

Compared to the normal Smartphone user's version of Skype, this is almost completely useless.  Even worse, if you even have Wifi enabled, Skype won't open on a Verizon phone.  That means you have to pretty much kill the Wifi use on your phone if you want to use Skype.

But what kills me is that "for some reason" after this partnership, Skype isn't building an application for  Android (or BlackBerry) for other carriers, even internationally.  It looks like they've effectively given up on two of the biggest smartphone platforms to close this deal with Verizon.

Certainly, in the long term, Android (by far the fastest growing smartphone platform)  compatibility is important.    One possibility is that prepping for an IPO has Skype thinking short term.  Lucrative carrier agreements are good to have on the books, even if it means signing away two of the biggest platforms that your customers want to use.

As a consumer, I've pretty much given up on Skype as they've put the carriers in front of their customers and haven't done much in the way of innovation since they got picked up by eBay.  That is unfortunate because at one time, they owned the world's VoIP.