Microsoft buying Skype for $8.5b

Skype is currently the biggest telecommunication company in the world... Let's see Bill kills it.

Bross said:

Skype is currently the biggest telecommunication company in the world... Let's see Bill kills it.

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Ding Ding. Bill has retired ages ago..

Bross said:

Skype is currently the biggest telecommunication company in the world... Let's see Bill kills it.

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Bill wont kill it no more atleast

With MS acquiring skype and MS being major investor in Facebook, FB will be in a strong position to start the next telecom revolution along with skype.

As far as what I could see, FB+Skype bringing in social+telecom prowess to reality and MS+Skype adding into the Enterprise Telecommunication business of Microsoft.

Iam not much bothered about the second one, but the first possibility really excites me!

Imagine an App closely integrating FB API and Skype API allowing FB users to make Skype Video calls directly from their FB accounts and much more ofc. The social phenomenon of FB integrated to skype would be most coolest phenomenon ever done in the history of telecom industry!

Now since these companies have a common investor, FB wont bother building all the infrastructure needed to build a system like skype rather they will build their audio/video calling application to extend the FB chat platform on top of skype itself.

This will be safe investment for all the 3 companies and will be another major communication revolution.

So if you are smart grab the opportunity, both the companies have apis!

Build an app, get few 100 million users using it and sell it for few millions if not few billions to MS or FB! Both will gladly acquire it

Hell ya, I heard you, Iam already building one, its no rocket science, wanna be an investor?

jsmith00075 said:

Thank god it wasn't bought from Facebook or g00gle..

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I'm surprised Facebook didn't make a move honestly, adding voice communication to the site could be huge. I assume they could just use something like phono (I think it's called, javascript phone calls) if they wanted to, but always thought they'd add that form of communication between users eventually.

Either way, I think Microsoft will ruin Skype now. Ads all over, limited Skype to Skype free calls, etc.

I think Microsoft will ruin Skype now

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Atleast they are trying to do something. People always say something. Nobody invests money just to ruin it. Business doesn't run if you are negative minded.
BTW which operating system do you use. I m sure you are using Windows.

I didn't know MS was interested in FB. Let's hope they won't turn skype into the same cluttered slow current hotmail. But they somehow will need to get that 8.5b back. I just don't want to think about ads based on your voice chats.

tukim said:

I'm surprised Facebook didn't make a move honestly, adding voice communication to the site could be huge. I assume they could just use something like phono (I think it's called, javascript phone calls) if they wanted to, but always thought they'd add that form of communication between users eventually.

Either way, I think Microsoft will ruin Skype now. Ads all over, limited Skype to Skype free calls, etc.

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Like Skype would be better with g00gle? The lame ads queen?

Look for Skype to have government backdoors built into its encryption if MS buys it. MS has had agreements with NSA for years that led to the backdoors built into the XP, and especially Vista and Win 7 OS to enable the feds to access any PC. They never figured out a workable solution to break SKype's encryption, so they are letting their corporate lackey buy it for them. NSA previously bought most all of the "anonymous" webmail companies like hushmail et al, to get the access it couldn't hack into.

Better to buy than nationalize, don't you think? But if that conspiracy theory is true, than the other one, where NSA has quantum computers must also be true so they don't really need to buy anything since they can crack any encryption

zebrahat said:

Look for Skype to have government backdoors built into its encryption if MS buys it. MS has had agreements with NSA for years that led to the backdoors built into the XP, and especially Vista and Win 7 OS to enable the feds to access any PC. They never figured out a workable solution to break SKype's encryption, so they are letting their corporate lackey buy it for them. NSA previously bought most all of the "anonymous" webmail companies like hushmail et al, to get the access it couldn't hack into.

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I just researched a bit about NSA. That sht is pretty much everywhere.. Are these backdoors even legal? I mean I am in EU I don't give a fck about NSA and they have no power over me here.

Knoxgates said:

Atleast they are trying to do something. People always say something. Nobody invests money just to ruin it. Business doesn't run if you are negative minded.
BTW which operating system do you use. I m sure you are using Windows.

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Skype wasn't doing anything? From what I recall it is the largest Swedish-based application ever developed. And I specifically meant ruin it from my perspective or the end-user, as I assume we'll see more ads, and possibly higher costs involved considering they just dumped $8 billion and will need to make that up fast from a business perspective. I hope I'm wrong though.

And dual boot, Customized XP and Ubuntu.

jsmith00075 said:

Like Skype would be better with g00gle? The lame ads queen?

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I said nothing about Google. They already have a form of "vocal" communication available.

i just heard about this. its just crazy!

Microsoft_Skype+Facebook.....still they can't beat google ?

xashishx said:

Microsoft_Skype+Facebook.....still they can't beat google ?

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Beat it in what way?

Knoxgates said:

Atleast they are trying to do something. People always say something. Nobody invests money just to ruin it. Business doesn't run if you are negative minded.
BTW which operating system do you use. I m sure you are using Windows.

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Agreed. Microsoft surely has big plans for Skype, plans that were worked on months before talks even started. For every person that thinks Microsoft has some sort of evil agenda, there's at least ten people that think Microsoft is doing a good job, otherwise the company wouldn't be where it is today.

Twilight Wanderer said:

Agreed. Microsoft surely has big plans for Skype, plans that were worked on months before talks even started. For every person that thinks Microsoft has some sort of evil agenda, there's at least ten people that think Microsoft is doing a good job, otherwise the company wouldn't be where it is today.

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Well that doesn't really prove anything only that there are more "ignorant" (aka stupid) people on the earth

Skype, created by the founders of KaZaA, who got hit HARD...

My mindset, as yours should be when reading this:
It pays to keep on "keeping on".

Microsoft bought Skype for 8.5 billions? what a bunch of idiots! i downloaded it for free!

its a great deal to be honest, but dont you think the price is too high . Some of these companies would pay anything just to have their stamp on a product.

Does anyone know what the breakdown was of stock/cash?

Unfortunately, Microsoft is fixated on trying to get into the web game. First they had MSN Search, which they attempted to re-brand Bing.com and spent, I believe, several hundred million dollars doing so - to no avail. They're market share still sucks.

Now they purchase pretty much the only leading VOiP software, which is a good move, but at a very steep price. Let's not forget that Skype is a freemium service, and most users remain on the free side of freemium.

I've been using Skype for four years, and have only ever once bought Skype credits.

Aside from in-client display ads, I don't know how else they can monetize it aside from display ads. At the end of the day, it all comes down to profits, not market share, and I don't see how Skype is ever going to turn profitable.