By Richard Martin

Somewhat lost in the run-up to the VON Conference & Expo was the news that Skype last week quietly deep-sixed its “Extras” program, essentially the Skype counterpart to the iPhone App Store.

“The Extras program was a storefront, attached to the Skype application, that allowed developers to publish and monetize their applications via Skype’s own channel,” wrote Alec Saunders, who is moderating a panel session at VON this entitled “Who Really Needs a Telepresence Room? Life-Size vs. Desktop & The Future of Video Conferencing.” “Announced in 2006, it was visionary for its time, but there wasn’t a lot of take-up.”

Bloggers have ripped this decision, saying it represents a step away from an open-platform strategy for Skype. Given all the changes at the VoIP pioneer this year, I’m less eager to call this a regression. Another panel at VON, “The Apps Race: Building a Developer Community in the New Telecom World” will examine the growing phenomenon of service providers, and device makers, opening their platforms to outside developers. Plus, of course, we have Christopher Dean, the chief strategy officer of Skype, delivering a joint keynote to both the VON and the Channel Partner audiences on Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 1:30. It’ll be a good time to find out just what this move means for the future of Skype – and the open-platform movement.