Skype to push VOIP with Xandros

Skype, the fast-growing internet telephony company has inked an agreement to bundle the Skype VOIP application with the Xandros Desktop Operating System.

Computers that runs under Xandros will cost as little as $200 and will be sold in mass-market retail places such as Walmart.com or Amazon.com just to name the big players.

The terms of the deals were not disclosed, but if Skype wanted to accelerate its meteoric rise, this is certainly a good way of doing it. Not that Skype has any troubles getting users: there are about 140.000 new users each day.

Skype is an internet telephony application that allows users to place free calls from PC to PC and cheap calls from PC to telephone. It has been successful because it’s easy to use (there’s no special configuration) and works even through firewalls, unlike many similar applications. The sound quality is quite good.

Its popularity is so great that Skype is rapidly becoming the nightmare of landline telephone carriers.

This latest move is probably a smart one from Skype’s perspective, they probably have little to risk and it’s certainly easier to get more users when the software is pre-installed (ask Microsoft…). In this instance, everybody is happy.

Press Release