MS are buying skype to wound the competition

Microsoft have a few motives to buy Skype

- cripple then destroy non-windows skype clients (mobile, Max, Linux, etc).

- prevent another competitor acquiring skype.

- acquire software patents to continue their recent patent trolling harrassment of competitors

History shows that Microsoft has unethical intentions.

Oh joy.

I'm guessing the Linux port of the Skype client will get even attention then.

I just don't see...

...how acquiring a user base that has their webcams pointed at their crotch improves the over all Windows experience.

Colour me as mystified.

MS plays in more than one world

To assume a Skype acquisition, if it were to happen, is some kind of statement about or even connected to Lync is a stretch. MS plays in more than one market space. Lync is a product targeted at enterprise collaboration. Skype clearly falls into the consumer market. A Skype buy for MS would likely have much more to do with providing better voice comm services around their consumer products like messenger or whatever they call it now.

Another great service down the tubes

It's a pretty good bet that Skype will be hobbled by MS for that disaster of a mobile OS Win MoPho7.

What will MS do with your data? Will they start thrusting ads through Skype at us. They can never leave things alone!

Hmmm

Guess an update to the linux version to reintroduce OSS support (or better still; finally support real UNIX) will be out of the question then.

This is getting personal

First, MS' quisling gets to the top of Nokia, defenestrates Symbian from his top-floor office and wheels in the half-eaten dog's breakfast known as Windows Phone as its replacement on Nokia smartphones.

Then a leading video-calling app (no, really) with a proven track record in cross-platform support, gets Borged by a certain corporation whose entire modus operandii is to enforce an IT monoculture.

It's as if they know what will get to me most. I'm beginning to think a tinfoil hat might suit me.

(BTW: anyone suggest a Skype alternative which would work across Windows, Linux, Mac and Symbian? Form an orderly queue...)

And my horoscope predicted that today will be my lucky day...

What a crock of bull. I had a tough day and now this.

Hope this sparks a new revolution- and we'll see mushrooming growth of SIP providers. The bring-your-own-client model is much more open, and there are SIP clients for almost every desktop and cellphone out there. Heck, there are dedicated SIP phones in the market (plugs into LAN or taps into WiFi and then acts like a regular phone).

Gates-as-Satan. I'd prefer Ballmer-as-Satan for destroying the one VIOP codec app I use, but close enough.

Interesting stat

$8bn divided by 170,000,000 Skype users is ~$50 per subscriber.

Another talented group (even if somewhat clueless) gets the anti-Midas touch...

...so expect Skype to die in ~2 years or less - just like everything else MS acquired got destroyed in a couple of years.

It's Microsoft and its deadly, abhorrent internal culture, this complete lack of tolerance for external creativity and breathtakingly over-managed processes what turns any gold into complete sh!t after a while.

In case you don't remember just google (no, I didn't say bing) the royal failure of Danger/Kin, Ozzie w/ Groove, Ensemble Studios, FAS or *ANY MS Game Studios acquisition (Bungie only survived by getting out of MS at the last moment), the WebTV junk, gazillion different acquisitions added under Live brand, only to be shut down in a year or so, now-defunct in-game ad company Massive, LinkExchange, forever loss-generator and notoriously insecure Hotmail and finally, of course, the biggest and most ridiculous, absolutely spectacular failure is buying aQuantive for 6 BILLION and selling it for 500 MILLION two years later.

It's an amazingly clueless management, right there, led by the arrogant, chair-throwing, bald, fat pri... I mean Ballmer; can anyone name another company never sacking anyone with such a horribly track record?

Everyone needs to shut up.

Ballmer knows what he's doing. Aquiring skype is the final, crucial _CRITICAL_ key. The next search engine microsoft launches will now CRUSH google.

They dont stand a chance.

ahaha. wow. Im sorry. I cant post this and maintain sincerity.

Videoconferencing: the next killer app, since 1985.

Skype's closed, distributed architecture has no place in the enterprise, so you can forget it as a replacement for Lync.

I'm hoping Microsoft will stuff it up as they usually do, because any mass centralized directory model is about as trustworthy as Facebook.

Their best play is to fold Skype into Xbox Live, but that isn't worth eight billion dollars.

Another eBay failure

If this Skype deal does go ahead at anywhere near this price you can bet that eBay’s Chairman Ho won't be mentioning it on his CV, which he will undoubtedly have to update in the not too distant future—I hope.

My God, who would employ this cretin? Regrettably, I think that when the time comes we will be surprised how this fool Donahoe and his Bain Tool Kit will slide into another senior position somewhere. Intel, for instance, has this headless turkey on its Board!

Enron / eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.