The Skype and Verizon Announcement Won't Change Anything

Skype and Verizon chose their words VERY carefully today when they announced their partnership to allow Skype on select Verizon Wireless phones.  Those carefully chosen words means that this announcement merely maintains the status quo in the mobile markets.  Nothing innovative, revolutionary, or otherwise game changing as the notorious bloggers would have you believe.


Here's a quote from the official press release

The two companies have created an exclusive, easy-to-use Skype mobile offering for 3G smartphones. Verizon Wireless 3G smartphone users with data plans can use Skype mobile to:
  1. make and receive unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls to any Skype user around the globe on America’s most reliable wireless network;
  2. call international phone numbers at competitive Skype Out calling rates; 
  3. send and receive instant messages to other Skype users; and
  4. remain always connected with the ability to see friends’ online presence.


Points 1, 3, and 4 aren't new features at all and it seems embarrassing to even try to include them in this announcement.  I can already accomplish those same exact things with Yahoo and/or AIM.  

Point 2 is the only line in the whole announcement that actually reads as a potential game changer, until the second word.  What's that?  "call international phone numbers at competitive Skype Out calling rates"  Obviously this was carefully worded to exclude all domestic calls.  There's no way that Verizon would sacrifice any dime of short-term revenue to actually make a major game changing announcement.

If Verizon was at all interested in changing the rules of the game in the mobile market, they would have announced a decoupling of voice and data plans for select devices.  They should have arranged a revenue share with Skype along with a higher priced data-only plan for the ability to use a VoIP provider for placing ALL calls.

I guess my expectations of real innovation are far too high.