Nokia: Skype must change or die

Skype is doomed in its present form, according to Nokia - but mobile-to-VoIP is where it's at.

According to Nokia chief strategy officer, Tero Ojanperä, Skype must branch out or die. "Someone needs to make money... [Skype] cannot survive on voice calls alone, it needs to find a business model," he said.

Nokia's Timo Luukka, director of product marketing in the enterprise mobile devices business unit, added: "It's non-standards technology. Right now, it's a laptop consumer phenomenon. We're seeing what we can do with it... let's see where it goes. The danger zone with them is how far they can support it when it 'horizontalises'.

"It's up to users how much are they willing to accept quality. Corporate users need [VoIP of a] quality that's a minimum of today's telephony."

While Skype looks to be aiming to move Nokia's way - CEO Niklas Zennström recently said a Skype client is in production for Symbian phones, the operating system Nokia's smart phones run on - the Finnish vendor has its own interest in the world of IP.

Nokia today announced a partnership with Avaya which will give users of Nokia Series 60-based smart phones and Avaya IP PBXs to have a single business number and voicemail, as well as PBX-style call logging for the smart phones and SIP capabilities.

The partnership will also allow smart phones to connect to an Avaya IP PBX over a wireless LAN.

The equipment maker also announced a partnership with Cisco to licence that networking giant's technology.