According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is set to acquire VOIP company Skype for almost $8 billion. This would rank as the largest acquisition in the history of Microsoft, bringing to mind their failed bid for Yahoo three years ago.
It is unclear to me what, exactly, Microsoft would be gaining with this purchase. Skype is a great service for video-conferencing and internet telephony, but it is already having problems with profitability and security. And these core technologies are widely available and cheap to deploy without buying the core technology. eBay purchased Skype in 2005, and has found little to do with it since then. Then again, they have also invested relatively little, since then.
Perhaps this will give Microsoft something to compete with Apple's FaceTime and Google's GoogleTalk. Or maybe it is just a landgrab for Skype's millions of users, who can easily and quickly switch providers in a heartbeat.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Microsoft to buy Skype?
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2 comments:
The purchase has been confirmed and Skype and Microsoft put out a press release.
I do wonder if this will affect existing customers, or if mostly Microsoft will just bundle Skype with Windows 7 and Windows phone.
I hope the deal will turn out to give more goodness on users experience. I am looking forward to Microsoft to compete Gtalk.
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