Skype may be on iPhone and iPod Touch by the summer of 2008.

I speculated that this was going to happen a week ago, but now it is clearly better than speculation. The new iPhone/iPod SDK has been officially announced, and it will be released to developers in June. There will be nothing in it to prevent Skype, with very little alteration to its core library, from running all its features over the WIFI network that is built into both iPhone and its little brother the iPod Touch. You won't be able to run VOIP/Skype on the iPhone's cellular network, but that was not something that could be done anyway.

Let me say it all again... Apple and AT&T are not going to prevent Skype and other VOIP applications from being installed on the iPhone. In fact, they are going to encourage such developments with $100 Million in seed capital!!!

The SDK is, in my view, going to change forever the course of Skype's development. It is also going to change forever the course of AT&T's development. And as for the future of other cellular companies, and other VOIP companies? Forget it. It's the beginning of the end.

There were lots of other juicy items in the iPhone SDK annoucement, including a big effort to make it acceptable to "enterprise IT". More about that later I hope.