Skype courting traditional wireless carriers

After years of stealing telecom service share from traditional providers, Skype is looking to cozy up with carriers. The company recently broke free of legal entanglements between its former parent, eBay, and its founders. Its chief operating officer resigned, heading to the U.S. to "pursue career interests within the global Fortune 500 technology, telecommunications and media industry."

And under its new owners (an investor group that includes Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz), it is focusing in the near term on carrier partners. Its CEO, Josh Silverman, has hinted at possible deals in the works with Chinese mobile operators in particular but is more explicit about the timing.

"You should expect to see [more carrier deals] in 2010," Silverman told Dow Jones Newswires. "The attitude of carriers has shifted a lot in 18 months, and we think that is a trend that is going to continue."

Not only have carrier attitudes shifted a lot — toward third-party voice services on their networks — the entire landscape has as well. Skype competitors come in all shapes and sizes now, from little-known mashups and features on existing services to the big kahuna, Google, whose acquisition of VoIP start-up Gizmo5 this month seems aimed at taking advantage of Skype's long-lived corporate distractions.

Source: Telephony Online