Re:Bill Gates says he advocated Skype takeover
by johnrob on Tuesday May 17, 2011 @06:27PM
(#2558202)
MS has had its own video conferencing via MSN messenger for years. I don't see the value of spending 8.5 billion in order to get Skype's tech - I would think that money would be better spent on a very fat pipe on which to run the live video.
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1. Skype offers the best product in its market (and is the market leader)
2. Skype has 110m+ active users, and 660m+ overall users.
$8.5b is too much, in my opinion, but Microsoft obviously believe that it's a fair price to pay for the reasons above (among others, of course). The value gained is tremendous. What Microsoft does with that value remains to be seen.
Swype's tech? Who wants that? Now Skype' name/brand/subscribers/creditcards on the other hand...
Re:Bill Gates says he advocated Skype takeover
by skeletonjelly on Tuesday May 17, 2011 @07:31PM
(#2558426)
*Skype. Swype is the Android keyboard.
Re:Bill Gates says he advocated Skype takeover
by clistctrl on Tuesday May 17, 2011 @08:10PM
(#2558527)
I think they spent 8.5 billion dollars for the skype brand. It also reduces competition. In the article it sounds like Microsoft Research has a good amount of tech of their own. I almost wonder if Microsoft Research has the next big thing, and they're planning on using skype to put it out there.