Skype comes to Symbian, but Nokia N97 & Blackberry users still waiting

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 29 December 2009 02:56

Business IT - Technology

Months after they were promised, versions of Skype for the Nokia N97 and Blackberry smartphones are still not available. However a version for Symbian based Nokia phones has just been released in beta.

Skype announced in February 2009 that it would have an N97 version of Skype available in the third quarter and it announced in April that it would have a 'thin' Skype client available as a free download for BlackBerry smartphones in May, initially a beta version for the BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Curve. However neither has yet appeared.

In a posting on 28 December on Skype's blog site, Russ Shaw, general manager of Skype's mobile business, apologised for the delay, saying "They're on their way, but unfortunately we've faced delays beyond our control in getting them to you. The BlackBerry app is in private beta testing at the moment, and we're working hard to create the best possible Skype experience on both of these devices."

However Skype did quietly release on 10 December a beta version of Skype for Symbian that works on Nokia Symbian S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 and Feature Pack 2 devices, including a number of popular E and series handsets.

It supports free Skype-to-Skype calls and calls to other phones over 3G or WiFi networks Shaw said: "Once we've completed our testing on a wider range of phones, including touchscreen handsets, we'll release the gold version."


Meanwhile Skype has progressed its plans for tight integration with Nokia devices, announcing in November Skype on the Nokia 900 . According ot Shaw "It's the first example of our deep integration work with Nokia - Skype is fully built in to the phone's operating system with no additional downloads required."