VoIP giant wants to succeed where 3G flopped.
Skype is planning to introduce video-chat to its mobile apps this year, and thinks it can solve the problems that prevented video calls from taking off on mobile.
"Before Skype, VoIP had a pretty mixed reputation," Nicholas Babaian, Skype's head of product management, mobile, tells ME. "We see the same opportunity in video-calling."
He explains that the key problems for 3G video calling were high and/or confusing costs, a poor user experience, and the fact that people rarely even knew if the person they were calling could handle video calls on their phone.
"We think we have a way for all those problems to disappear. We're going to make it completely free, easy to use, and you'll always be able to see who in your contact list can receive video. We think we can reset the bar on mobile video calling, and it's something we're going to do this year."
Meanwhile, Babaian revealed some stats showing Skype's strong performance on mobile already in its non-video version.
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"Our iPhone app has had amazing success - we've reached 12 million unique users," he says, while also talking about the success of 3 UK's Skypephone.
"We've already had over a billion Skype-to-Skype minutes on 3 UK, and we're now getting 100 million Skype-to-Skype minutes a month."
For the full Babaian interview, in which he talks about Skype's increasingly close partnerships with mobile operators and handset makers, click here.
