It seems like Skype, which was recently purchased by Microsoft is looking to bring video calling to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform, as a recent job posting mentions the following “Building and optimizing the Skype Video Engine solution for Microsoft Windows and Windows Phone platforms.”
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Mango offers support for front facing video cameras, so it would make sense for Microsoft and Skype to offer video calling on Windows Phone 7.
The news comes from a new job advertisement of Skype in which they are looking for software engineers to work on Microsoft platforms. This strongly hints that Microsoft and Skype are finally getting serious about bringing Skype’s strong VoIP services to Windows Phone 7 smartphones.
According to Skype Careers:
”Skype Video Development Team is creating technology that enables high quality, multi-way, multi-modal, multi-platform video communications experience over the Internet. The video team is responsible for delivering the Skype Video Engine for Skype Desktop clients as well as Mobile and Embedded devices.”
This thing is of no surprise that Microsoft and Skype would do that and we know “Mango” evidenlty allows front-facing cameras and since Microsoft now owns Skype, deep integration into the desktop, Xbox, embedded devices and of course Windows Phone should be expected. But we should be glad that Skype looks to have already started down this route and are looking for more help, hopefully to speed things up now that the aquisition has gone through.
Until now, no clear date has been given for the integration of Skype’s services into Windows Phone 7. But it might be at the end of 2011 or early 2012 though.