Skype COO blasts EU telcos

SKYPE COO, Scott Durchslag, blasted European telcos for trying to block his company's path and delivered a "call to action" to form what he described as "win-win" partnerships with mobile operators and announced an alliance with text-to-speech outfit SpinVox.

During his keynote at CeBit, Durchslag said Skype was "holding our hand out" to telcos and mobile operators in a bid to spread Skype far and wide in the smartphone market, despite attempts by certain telecom firms to stop it. Reminding the audience of Skype's Nokia partnership announcement at MWC in Barcelona two weeks ago - where the Finnish handset maker agreed to integrate the VoIP service into its N97 device - Durchslag said he hoped this would be just the beginning. "We're pragmatic, we're willing to structure deals" he said.

Durchslag expressed the hope of one day combining Skype with other software applications in order to achieve a seamless, interactive, cross platform experience, in the near future, or in his words "bringing it all together".

Skype, said Durchslag, already worked on Android, on Java and on Windows mobile, but said its desktop offering remained its core business. µ