Microsoft is buying money-losing Skype for $8.5 billion. I continue to be amazed by how stupid Microsoft can be. eBay went that route too, and bailed. Skype’s been bleeding talent and quality for a long time. :loco:
This could be construed as a bargaining chip play vs carriers and competing smartphone platforms. MS needs all the leverage it can get. If they fail in mobile, and to a lesser degree in tablets, it’s game over. The very near future of computing is mobile and MS is right now in the unfamiliar position of being quite far behind.
Whereas the eBay purchase was about buying the technology, the MS purchase i feel is more about buying the user base and the leverage that brings with it.
I wonder, if this “move” will have an effect about Skype-Service on Ios devices.
Seriously, will they kick out Skype from the Apple App-Store ?
[quote=“MoTi”]I wonder, if this “move” will have an effect about Skype-Service on Ios devices.
Seriously, will they kick out Skype from the Apple App-Store ?[/quote]
Bingo. I don’t think it would happen exactly like that, but it’s a very credible threat. Skype + Bing bundle at the app level or even hold Skype hostage to get Bing in at the platform level… both are probable moves. I feel we might see Apple making more moves around their VOIP options above and beyond FaceTime in order to attenuate that credible threat and for Google to keep pushing GTalk as their VOIP option moving forward.
At the same time, the carriers are going to try to figure out how to keep from getting totally commoditized, so it’s going to be interesting to see where this goes.
Down the drain most likely.
It’s official.