Pretty huge news in our book: Skype has published a free mobile application for Symbian in the Ovi Store, basically enabling over 200 million Nokia handset users to easily download the program and start making free Skype-to-Skype calls from their phones.
If I were a carrier, I’d probably be feeling rather nervous right now – and / or infuriated.
Skype for Symbian, which you can also download the app straight from the Skype website, will run on any Nokia smartphone using Symbian^1, the latest version of the Symbian platform (see list below).
It’s not the Skype wasn’t already available for Symbian, but its appearance in the Ovi Store will certainly increase awareness of its existence – as well as that of the Ovi Store, for that matter.
We recently reported that Nokia’s Ovi Store now serves more than 1 million downloads per day as of January 2010 (yesterday they said that number increased to 1.5 million per day or 22 downloads per second), and if the success of the Skype app for the iPhone is any indication, the addition of Skype will lift those numbers up significantly.
The app does everything you’d want a Skype app to do, as it includes support for making free calls to other Skype users over Wi-Fi and 3G, instant messaging, picture and video sharing – the whole nine yards.
This is the long list of phones that can now accommodate the installation of the Skype Mobile app: Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia 5530 and the following non-touch devices: Nokia E72, Nokia E71, Nokia E90, Nokia E63, Nokia E66, Nokia E51, Nokia N96, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8Gb, Nokia N85, Nokia N82, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8 Gb, Nokia N79, Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 classic, Nokia 6210 Navigator and Nokia 5320.
Skype says it will even be updating the app soon to make it function on Symbian mobiles from other handset makers, including Sony Ericsson.
Bad news for carriers, good news for most everyone else.