Skype moves onto Intel MID

January 9th, 2008

Skype is very slowly taking over the world! Since the purchase by Ebay there seemed to be very little advance in the VOIP platform from its new owner until very recently when it seemed that the original VOIP system was at last stretching its legs and spreading onto as many platforms as it can get its hands on including your cell phone and now Intel’s Mobile Internet Device (MID).

Skype can now be used on the following platforms:

Most smartphones
Nokia Internet Tablet devices (N800/N810)
Sony Mylo 2
PlayStation Portable (PSP)
A number of in-house phones
3 Skypephone
Intel’s MID platform.

The MID gadgets are currently only conceptual built as an example of what the Intel chips are capable of. The devices run MILP OS (Mobile Internet Linux Platform) as do many mobile phones now which allows for easy development and integration for phone’s software developers and for third-party software writers.

The software is said to be scheduled for release in the first half of 2008 which just happens to coincide with the release of Intel’s Ultra Mobile Platform based on the low consumption Silverthorne processor. The ‘Menlow’ update to this software is due to reduce power usage by 75% over the previous incarnation running on a Celeron M chip.

In preparation for this release Intel has signed up the following manufacturers to make MIDs:

Asus
Compal
HTC
Inventec
Quanta

And you could be seeing the platform on mobile devices soon from the following phone companies:

BenQ
Fujitsu
Hitachi
Lenovo
LG
Panasonic
Samsung
Toshiba

It seems that the days of paying hundreds of dollars for a contract with a mobile network provider may be numbered as city-wide WiFi eventually becomes a reality and Skype becomes usable on every phone produced by a major manufacturer. But then that would give the big network companies a considerable incentive to lobby cities to slow down the implementation of long-range WiFi or to not adopt it at all.

It’ll be interesting to see who wins and whose political career is enhanced/diminished by the conflict.