Microsoft to Acquire Skype

[RhinoBull]

Microsoft to Acquire Skype

Now go ahead and spit out your opinions.

[kleinma]

Lot of money, but hard to say what the returns will be. Skype is a pretty strong brand name, and MS could do things right if they integrate it properly into their other offerings. I assume xbox and kinect will play a key role.

[techgnome]

Yup... I was just reading that XBox and Kinect will get (in short) get Skype.... I have mixed feelings... MS doesn't exactly have a great track record to fostering the growth of companies they've consumed. I suppose it's better than trying to build something themselves and failing miserably at it and keep trying to play catch-up with it.... So I don't know...I expect it to be integrated into Live Messenger somehow as well...
-tg

[abhijit]

A product similar to skype could be built by a company like Microsoft in a short period of time.

Is MS trying to compete with Google Voice?

[Hack]

So, will the new one be Skypeosoft or Microhype?

[dilettante]

Don't worry, they'll rewrite it in .Net and performance will be so bad it'll soon disappear from the market.

Probably bundled in Windows Next/8 but never again seen afterward.

[stlaural]

I guess they could also integrate it to Office Communicator because right now voice calls on communicator are so bad compared to skype.

[JuggaloBrotha]

I guess they could also integrate it to Office Communicator because right now voice calls on communicator are so bad compared to skype.

I wouldn't be surprised if they integrated it into Windows Live as well. I'm willing to bed they'll convert all the skype users into Windows Live users and do away with skype altogether.

[abhijit]

I wouldn't be surprised if they integrated it into Windows Live as well. I'm willing to bed they'll convert all the skype users into Windows Live users and do away with skype altogether.

I envision a very similar scenario. So why spend $8.5 billion?

[JuggaloBrotha]

I envision a very similar scenario. So why spend $8.5 billion?

To have legal claim to skype's voip technolony & to increase their user base.

[techgnome]

because technically skype competes with Live Meeting.... I didn't even think about Live Meeting until someone mentioned problems with MOC ... we just moved from Live Meeting to WebEx for conf meetings where we do presentations... granted we're not doing face to face meetings this way ... but anyways...

Something tells me this isn't good.

-tg

[abhijit]

because technically skype competes with Live Meeting.... I didn't even think about Live Meeting until someone mentioned problems with MOC ... we just moved from Live Meeting to WebEx for conf meetings where we do presentations... granted we're not doing face to face meetings this way ... but anyways...

Something tells me this isn't good.

-tg

Webex is the preferred way at our shop too. Before webex, we used netmeeting, but that was a million years ago.

[EntityX]

Webex is the preferred way at our shop too. Before webex, we used netmeeting, but that was a million years ago.

I bet your bandwidth was really lousy a million years ago.

[moti barski]

MS didn't actually buy skype for that amount, it was one of them stack exchange tricks, what they payed they will now make in stack fluctuation.

google also does that stuff, theire "former" employees open start ups that are bought by google only to beef up theire(google's) stack value

[baja_yu]

MS didn't actually buy skype for that amount, it was one of them stack exchange tricks, what they payed they will now make in stack fluctuation.

google also does that stuff, theire "former" employees open start ups that are bought by google only to beef up theire(google's) stack value

I'm no wall street expert but the first paragraph of the article does say "$8.5 billion cash"

[abhijit]

I bet your bandwidth was really lousy a million years ago.

Since nobody else had discovered the internet, our bandwidth was awesome.

[abhijit]

MS didn't actually buy skype for that amount, it was one of them stack exchange tricks, what they payed they will now make in stack fluctuation.

google also does that stuff, theire "former" employees open start ups that are bought by google only to beef up theire(google's) stack value

Their "stack" value will be a "heap" of rubbish, after this acquisition!

[Nightwalker83]

I thought I heard they had acquired it.

[pcuser]

A product similar to skype could be built by a company like Microsoft in a short period of time.

I think it has more to do with the "170 million connected users and over 207 billion minutes of voice and video conversations in 2010" then it does with purchasing the source code for an application like this for $8.5 billion.

I hope this doesn't get pushed on me as an "IMPORTANT" update that's in the same category and group of updates that patch serious security flaws in my operating system.

[RhinoBull]

A product similar to skype could be built by a company like Microsoft in a short period of time.

When it comes to investment of that magnitude you don't just buy product - you buy business without reinventing it and return on investment should be fairly straight forward since it's already (and very well) established.
There are lots of acquisitions happening now so this one was just a matter of time [I think]...

[ADQUSIT]

Don't worry, they'll rewrite it in .Net and performance will be so bad it'll soon disappear from the market.

Probably bundled in Windows Next/8 but never again seen afterward.

hmm. But Microsoft mostly use only C language to rewrite things. But i dont think so that MS will re write. if it rewrites, so why dont it makes the new and the better than that..

[abhijit]

hmm. But Microsoft mostly use only C language to rewrite things. But i dont think so that MS will re write. if it rewrites, so why dont it makes the new and the better than that..

He was being facetious and I hope, so were you!

[ADQUSIT]

He was being facetious and I hope, so were you!

i think he is serious, not facetious.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Lot of money

Yep that was my main thought on the whole matter !!

i think he is serious, not facetious.

Thats because you either don't understand his sense of humour or you have not seen his other posts, he was not being serious !

[techgnome]

I think both dilettante and Abid were serious in their posts... sadly, dilettante is probably right... they WILL try to rewrite it in C# and WPF and it will suffer miserably (look at *koff*VS2010*koff*) ....

Abid - MS doesn't use just C... in fact, they probably haven't use C in a long time, having long since adopted C++ at least... also, C# is (from what I understand) the de-facto standard language in MS... As they move along, more and more things are being written in C# and WPF ... VS2010 being one of those... the ide interface is a WPF application. The compiler itself is C# and many of the tools in VS were done in VB. So to assume MS would re-write Skype as a WPF.NET app isn't out of the real of possibility.

I HOPE that MS will understand what they've got, will create an independant group to maintain and update skype and let them have carte blanche and for the most part leave them alone. But... as I stated before, I fully expect to see skype rolled into the Live suite ... and forced into a mold that it won't fit properly in.

-tg

[ADQUSIT]

yup needsomeAnswers, i know he was joking.

[TheBigB]

I don't even think VS2010 turned out horrible. Then again, I only really started in VS2010...
Where they did horribly screw up though is Windows Live...

[ADQUSIT]

I think both dilettante and Abid were serious in their posts... sadly, dilettante is probably right... they WILL try to rewrite it in C# and WPF and it will suffer miserably (look at *koff*VS2010*koff*) ....

Abid - MS doesn't use just C... in fact, they probably haven't use C in a long time, having long since adopted C++ at least... also, C# is (from what I understand) the de-facto standard language in MS... As they move along, more and more things are being written in C# and WPF ... VS2010 being one of those... the ide interface is a WPF application. The compiler itself is C# and many of the tools in VS were done in VB. So to assume MS would re-write Skype as a WPF.NET app isn't out of the real of possibility.

thank you sir for my assistance, actually whenever i found some Microsoft product in wikipedia, so most of the time the language in which that product is written is C. but many of them i have seen have been written in, C, C++ and C# as well. by saying that Microsoft will rewrite SKYPE in C language, i was not really mean that it will really use the C language. i said in general sense, and i have seen that C++ and C# and WPF are using by MS. I DIDNT mention all the languages, rather than i just mention C, not in the strict sense.

Thanks

[kleinma]

When it comes to investment of that magnitude you don't just buy product - you buy business without reinventing it and return on investment should be fairly straight forward since it's already (and very well) established.
There are lots of acquisitions happening now so this one was just a matter of time [I think]...

return on investment would be easier to swallow if skype didn't lose money last year....

Of course MS could consolidate skypes operations and get it to turn a profit, but only time will tell.

[capsulecorpjx]

Microsoft overpaid, by a huge amount.

[Lord_Rat]

Microsoft overpaid, by a huge amount.

Indeed. SKYPE! HAHAHAHAHAHA

They don't even support push-to-talk keys. Among other things. But that's so basic and they still miss the target after all this time.

But I guess they hit something ... a paycheck maybe??

[kleinma]

Too early to claim if it was a good or bad move. Only time is going to tell that.

Perhaps skype is only really worth 4 billion as it stands, but in the hand of a competitior, could cost MS much more than that. Certainly could account for the high pricetag.