HTC wants Skype on their Windows Mobile-powered Smartphones?
Sounds like they're just feeling things out for now, but apparently HTC, the Taiwanese company behind lots of those Smartphones and Pocket PC Phones which end up with somebody else's logo on them (like the Audiovox SMT 5600, the XDA III, etc), is reaching out to Skype about porting Skype's VoIP software to the next generation of Smartphones they're currently working on. Many of those phones will probably come with WiFi built right in, which means they're probably looking at ways to make it easier for people to make Voice over WiFi phone calls from their handsets, but we're not sure how far they'd get with that, since Skype (or any other VoIP software for making free Internet calls) would probably be the first feature a carrier would have removed from a phone before they'd carry it. And it's not just Voice over WiFi calling they're worried about, either. With a 3G handset you wouldn't even need to bother using your cellphone minutes (or finding a WiFi hotspot) to make calls, you could theoretically just use a VoIP softphone client (like Skype's or Vonage's) and make and receive "free" calls over your data connection.
