One of the companies to show off their wares at DEMO '06 this week has been EQO. Torsten was kind enough to post coverage of EQO's announcement, and you can hear more about it from the podcast of their presentation here.

EQO's mission, and it's a good one in my opinion, is to move users more toward the nirvana of ubiquitous access to their communications contacts.

"Too many people are disconnected from their online buddies when they leave the PC behind," said Bill Tam, CEO of EQO Communications, "Our goal is to allow the countless number of online communities worldwide to stay connected using mobile handsets and for users to, virtually, take their buddies with them."





"More and more people are using their mobile phone as their primary - in fact in some cases their only - phone," said Bill Tam, "So propagating online identity to such ubiquitous devices makes a lot of sense, and helps people to remain in touch with others and retain control of their communications."

I saw EQO's release cross the wires this AM and decided to give it a try as my employer leans heavily on Skype AND mobile telephony as our teams crisscross the world these days. I loaded it up on my Nokia 6682, and with a quick set up sequence had EQO's Windows client on my laptop and an EQO app on my handset as well. The Windows client binds EQO to your Skype account and up pops your buddy list when you launch the service on your mobile. Sweetly done.

EQO in effect uses SkypeOut to have Skype call the buddy in question and then call you back, making the mobile link-up to the Skyper you have called. Confusing? A little, but it works. One word of advice: when testing at home, for God's sake turn down your audio on the recieving end PC or you may be knocked down by the feedback. Duh. It was a little early.

EQO claims a text messaging capability is on the way. Also, this is Windows only at the moment, but a Mac version is on the way as well.

More coverage of EQO and the early user experience from Stuart Henshall at Skype Journal.