Today we released Skype 2.2 Beta for Windows Mobile. See the press release, download page and feedback options.

Lots of great stuff in this release, see the release notes for the full details. For me, the most interesting thing is Skype multiperson chat (group chat) that is now on Windows Mobile devices. It always bothered me that you can have great group chats on all our desktop versions, but as soon as you switch to the Windows Mobile versions and then someone tries to chat with you, they get some kind of silly error about your Skype not supporting multichats and thus you can't chat with more than one person at the same time. I'm a big fan of group chats and they are already truly excellent and we can and will take them a lot further. (I see from the release notes that we added this already on August on the Pocket PC version, but now it's available on more devices.)

I think the capacity to chat with someone on your handset, having the chat-capable Skype running simultaneously on multiple devices and all the chat communication seamlessly synchronizing on all those (between your handset and all the computer instances of Skype running) is actually a pretty unique feature. Give it a run -- you'll see that if you read a chat on your handset and later sign in to Skype from your computer, the chat won't pop up because you already read it on your handset (unless, of course, there have been new messages in the chat). I must say I haven't checked out all the other messenger/IM-type software, so there may be some other guys doing this, but not that we've widely heard of. We may think it's inconvenient to use the handset for full-fledged chatting (although some more able ones have a full QWERTY keyboard), but that may be a moot point when you these days hear stories about teens who have developed the ability to "blindly" send SMS-es to each other with their mobile in their pocket and them just "typing" stuff with the hand in the pocket, so the teacher wouldn't spot it during the class.

Another update is the [Skype for Windows Mobile download page](http://www.skype.com/go/mobile) that has a cool wizard for selecting your device and helping you identify the most suitable version of Skype for it. It's been a while since I checked this page and back then, we only had a few devices. We now say it has over 120 (I didn't count, I'm trusting the press release writers here ). See if yours is listed too.

If you would like to help us improve the product before its final release, see the feedback options. We'll post beta updates on the Garage blog.