With Skype in transition mode, now is the time for Apple to release iChat A/V for Windows

OK so this is an opinion piece covering why I think making iChat for Windows could increase iPod and Mac sales. Quicktime and iTunes have Windows versions, and now that Skype has helped better popularize the audio chat space (something that didn't strike us audio iChatting folks as anything quite new), Apple should capitalize on the Skype buzz and finally get iChat on PCs.

At a minimum, this would make it a viable cross platform option instead of Skype. But more importantly, Apple could then better tie iChat to iTunes & Quicktime on both platforms. Imagine getting 'voicemail' via iChat A/V that is instantly saved to a Voicemail playlist in iTunes - much like sorted Podcasts. Or being able to save your audio chats or video chats as multimedia files, saved and managed within iTunes (now that it supports both). You could pre-record demos or videos and then setup a multi-person demonstration where all participants view the same presentation etc (creeping a bit into Macromedia Breeze territory here).

There are many possibilities for taking the collaborative and multimedia strengths of iChat to the next level by upgrading it and making it cross platform. Of course iChat does not have the phone to client capabilities that Skype has, however iChat has Apple's mark of simplicity and could target that niche described in the previous sentence.