Folks, here's the latest and it might help someone else. I called support at Nokia. Typical. He talked past me, passed the buck. As it was Skype (3rd party software), his logic went, then I should contact them. But Nokia advertizes Skype enabled on this thing, and I tried to explain issues both with the installation manager AND with getting the device recognized by Nokia's software update wizard installed on my PC. If the guy was motivated, he could have found this link and got back to me. Somebody with the same issue:

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/...=445838#M79481

Thank god for you guys and for forum users. We are doing these company's research and development for them.
Wrote ticket to Skype and I'll see what they come back with. Ready to throw the gadget out the window! It would be an expensive toss though.

The Skype issue is rather sticky. I'm not in the position to comment much publicly but I can say that what the Nokia rep told you is true: Nokia's part in this (beside developmental support) is simply to provide an install link and everything past that point is Skype's responsibility. Think of it like the bundles that come with a brand-name PC, except that most of us are used to CDs and DVDs instead of install links.

The odd part here is that the Skype install works at least 95% of the time it's invoked. I'm not sure what's unique about your situation but I can say that it *sounds* too complex to easily troubleshoot-- by Nokia support or anyone.

My advice would be to reflash to square 1 and try installing Skype before doing ANYthing else. And take heart-- I don't think your problem is insurmountable. And if Skype continues to be problematic, it *may* be a symptom of something else wrong... including a hardware fault or wifi configuration issue, etc.

I thought he got it sorted out. anyway if not...... texrat is bang right

Fellas, thank you again. It's sorted out now. To cut a long story short, it got resoved this afternoon by getting the upgrade wizard to click into action (I'd advise the nokia people now to clarify also what they mean by the usb icon in top right of device screen, as that appears sort of top-right(ish) of desktop of device, once that appears also. Any newbie to the tablet might reasonably mistake that for the sign that we should be engaged with the upgrade software utility on the pc and that that will successfully find the device (rather than being merely engaged with what otherwise is only USB flash memory on the device. In anycase, the overall issue was resolved with Skype after the 20 minute upgrade of the operating system. I had no data to back/up restore, so I just basically upgraded the whole thing. This issue - or the idea of this as a resolution - is thwarted somewhat by Nokia's often out of date pages on it's web site. In fact, in many drop-down menues, only the N800 shows up, despite the newer model really being around for some time. Moreover, I've seen differing accounts of OS versions around the place in my travails, making it less than clear whether the device is up to date (out of the box). The re-install rendered skype installable.
Overall excited about the device, have watched the pricing for months, and I'm glad I'm over this headache. The skypes important.
Do you think that the web cam on the device will ever get integrated into skype functionality. It's a shame that doesn't seem to be the case right now, as skype visuals on the fly would be GREAT.
Thanks for your diligence, and I've been raving to friends about this forum, and the people here, and the neat stuff available through the open source creativity. CHEERS.

Skype video for Linux (x86) is still pretty new; it's likely that it will trickle down to the tablets, but it'll be a while yet.