VIDEO CES 2012: Skype coming "soon" to Windows Phone

[Mitchell_A]

At the Consumer Electronics show in this past week, Skype's VP of Products, Rick Osterloh discussed that Skype is (still) coming to Windows Phone 7 - "soon".

This is the third time officials have said the application will be coming to the mobile platform. Originally, Microsoft announced that Skype would come to the platform Fall 2011. This timeline was eventually pushed to EOY 2011. That was also a date that has come and gone. However, in the attached video it is made clear that the app is coming soon.

Since then, a few speculations have surfaced on the internet. People seem to be agree that we should hear more about this at MWC in February, but also that Skype will initially be released as app, but be fully integrated with Windows Phone in the Apollo update (end of 2012?).

To add a little extra something to this news, Paul Thurrott, Microsoft will not only add Skype to it's WP app portfolio "soon", but also the top 25 apps on both iOS and Android - by the end of the first half of 2012. This news should surely impress any Windows Phone user.

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[Mitchell_A]

According to a tip from internal sources at Microsoft, WP7Labs says that beta testing is already taking place at MS and external closed testing will begin "soon", hopefully with release not too long after that.

I'm still not expecting to hear more until MWC at the end of next month.