It’s Upgrade Madness Week at Skype

This week Skype has released final “Gold” versions of three of their software offerings: Skype for Windows Mobile 3.0; Skype for iPhone 1.1 and Skype for Windows 4.1, their primary client.

Skype for Windows Mobile 3.0 goes Gold: From Peter Parkes:

It includes two cool new features: SMS and file transfer. Sending SMSs using Skype is a great way to reach friends and family instantly anywhere in the world – Skype’s low rates mean that you won’t have to break the bank to do it. And file transfer lets you send files quickly when you’re on the move.

Download here. Check out the Release Notes.

Skype for iPhone 1.1. While available for the new iPhone 3G S and the iPhone 3G, most important is that this release requires that you have performed the OS 3.0 upgrade to the iPhone 3G (initially sold last July); it should be offered automatically when you next connect your iPhone to iTunes on a PC. This upgrade adds features such as Cut/Copy and Paste along with many other improvements.

As for the iPhone for Skype software, it adds voicemail and SMS features as well as some improvements to the user interface. It also adds support for several languages such that the language support comprises: Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish and Traditional Chinese as well as various English versions.

This one needs to be downloaded from the App Store via iTunes or as an upgrade on the device.

Canadians are still awaiting a resolution of a G729 patent issue before Skype for iPhone becomes legally available in Canada. Canadians have to be developing a syndrome about being left out of certain Skype offerings freely available in the rest of the world. And  now many of us early adopters would like to be able to take advantage of Rogers’ iPhone upgrade offer.

Skype 4.1 for Windows goes Gold. By far the most useful new feature of Skype 4.1 beta has been the screen sharing where I have easily shared spreadsheets, performed PowerPoint presentations and reviewed Word documents, as long as the sharing in only with one other Skype user. (Remember this screen sharing is done via the Skype for Video channel for which only one-to-one video calls are permitted.) It also includes sound and video quality improvements. (The screen sharing is a catch-up to a feature available on Skype for Mac 2.8 beta for several months.)

Bottom Line: incremental improvements that provide evolution, not revolution, of the feature sets. My biggest issue is a request to restore complete support for Public Chat sessions where enhanced marketing support of this feature would drive new adoptions (or is it that Skype cannot figure out a business model for Skype for Public Chat? – purely my speculations).

Other posts:

• Rogers steps for up iPhone 3G customers. Early adopters of the iPhone 3G have a significant upgrade offer until July 31, 2009. I am given to understand similar offers are available in several other countries.
• Dan York: Skype launches version 4.1… (yawn)… still only Windows… still a fragmented product strategy

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