Microsoft and Skype

Just an immediate place holder because, as it happens, I won’t have chance to properly research the topic for another day or so.

Skype has never made a profit (apparently), but Microsoft has thought it’s worth $8bn to acquire it from its third set of owners so far (founders, then eBay, then private investors, now Microsoft).

At first sight it doesn’t seem a brilliant fit. But is Skype the next generation of windows Messenger? Here are some questions that I haven’t yet got time to find the answers for:

• what does this tell us about Microsoft’s cloud services strategy for both consumers and business users?
• is Skype about to go Microsoft proprietary?
• is Skype about to become far more acceptable in the corporate space?
• will Skype consumer services continue to be free and cross-platform?

More later, when I’ve time to research. In the meantime, read the Guardian’s report here (10th May 2011)

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