A couple of Symbian and Windows Mobile Skyfire users emailed us this week to let us know that they had received notification that the browser was no longer going to be supported in Australia as of July 1. Which sucked, obviously. But despite the wording of the notification, it’s not the end of Skyfire in Australia.
The original notice received by the Skyfire users sounded kind of grim for fans of the mobile browsing solution:
Dear Skyfire User,
As of July 1st, 2010, Skyfire will no longer be providing service in
your country for the Windows Mobile and Symbian browser. In order to to
offer the best possible service level for our officially supported
customers and countries, Skyfire is consolidating the countries in which
it operates. We apologize for this inconvenience and hope you have
enjoyed the Skyfire mobile browser to date. Skyfire will work on your
phone until July 1st 2010 at which time, the service will be
de-activated and your browser will no longer function. You can direct
inquiries about this to geo@skyfire.com. Thank you, Skyfire Engineering
Team
Sounds pretty depressing. But there’s hope. In a blog post, Skyfire CEO Jeff Glueck explained the decision to cease its service outside of North America and Europe for its 1.0 version on Symbian and WinMo. It seems that they’re a victim of their own success, and have decided to focus on the 2.0 version of the software that is now available on Android, and is unaffected by the decision for Australians.
And while current WinMo and Symbian users will take no solace from it, Skyfire have committed to releasing Skyfire 2.0 on other platforms after Android and iPhone, which should see the software made available again in Australia when it eventually happens.