Is Skype affecting Nokia's Windows Phone sales?

When Microsoft bought Skype in October 2011, it was seen by many as a way for Microsoft to expand its business into areas that were being taken over by Facebook and Twitter. Now a new report claims that the Skype purchase may be affecting the sales from another division, Windows Phone.

In a blog post by author Tomi T Ahonen, he states that during this week's Nokia shareholders meeting, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that " ... Nokia, together with Microsoft, is now attempting to convince carriers/operators to accept Skype against their wills, by marketing/pricing/sales gimmicks."

If true, this could mean that some wireless carriers feel that Microsoft's acquisition of Skype was a conflict of interest in terms of Microsoft also trying to sell Windows Phone-based devices, such as Nokia's Lumia series, to those same wireless carriers. Today, a shareholder in Nokia filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming that the company's move to Windows Phone was not going as well as advertised.

So far, no Windows Phone devices have Skype pre-installed. The 1.0 version of Skype for Windows Phone was recently released on Windows Phone Marketplace. However, it does lack a number of important features, such as being able to run in the background.