EQO has some competition: Soonr
Soonr is another application that enables the ability to use Skype from your mobile phone. Both require Skype and a special agent application to run. Unlike EQO, which requires a specific application on your mobile phone as well, Soonr uses the web browser built into most phones. This is good in the sense that it’s very easy to support a wide range of phones. There is less variation between web browsers on phones than there is in J2ME implementations on phones
Soonr appears to have a lot of the same functionality as EQO. However, there are some downsides to Soonr’s approach:
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Chat isn’t instantaneous, at least receiving them. This is because you must manually “refresh” the page to see chat updates from the other person.
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More data is used with Soonr’s approach, which is a concern for people who aren’t on unlimited data plans on their mobile phones.
Soonr also has some other interesting features, which includes the ability to look at other information on your computer desktop such as your Outlook inbox/calendar as well as access other files on your desktop. These features aren’t working on my system, but it is an interesting idea. I do have other methods for accessing this data, so this isn’t a critical feature for me.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what approach ultimately wins.
