Microsoft to Slay Skype

Windows Phone 7 is barely ready for its first update and already Microsoft are rumoured to be developing a whole new paradigm for Windows Phone 8 – something that is very likely to feature a front-facing camera as part of the minimum spec.

Mobile video calling seems to be caught in a perennial “loop of tomorrow” – like the 1950s vision of a rocket pack for every man woman and child by the year 2000, it is a technology that gets a lot of press coverage at the prototype stage but never seems to catch on, mainly thanks to differing protocols and varying corporate targets.

However lining up Zune as an iPod competitor and Windows Phone 7 as an iPhone competitor has put Microsoft in a mind to change all of that, with Skype’s video-calling ability now seemingly in Redmond’s sights, something which might explain why there remains no Skype app for Windows Phone 7.

Expected to work in a similar way to the Apple FaceTime app for iDevices, and perhaps work in a closed loop system, the Windows Phone 7 video calling app will also tie-in with Windows Live, which raises interesting possibilities for a future Windows Live Messenger app for the platform. Currently there is no official Windows Live app for Windows Phone 7, something which might seem remarkable but ultimately is typically Microsoft.

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