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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Microsoft nearing $7 Billion purchase of Skype

disolitude on 10 May 2011
brendude13 said:

Seriously? What is it with Microsoft and buying people out, do they want world domination or something?

Basically, they are ripping off other companies and shoving their noses into an industry that doesn't want them, just so they FORCE people to use their software and hardware. I am sick to death of having Microsoft shoving inferior (and blatantly copied) products down my throat.

Bing wasn't needed, yet I am constantly getting my it shoved in my face, why do they feel the need to even advertise it.

Let's just hope this falls flat on it's face, along with all of other Microsoft's shenanigans *cough* ZUNE xD *cough*.


All I see here is uneducated and biased rabble...

Look up aquisitions by Google and compare it to Ms and you will see that MS doesn't buy companies nearly as much as they should.



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Vetteman94 on 10 May 2011
Mr Puggsly said:
Vetteman94 said:
Mr Puggsly said:
SpartenOmega117 said:

No!!! Skype is one of my favorite apps. Hopefully Microsoft doesn't force apple or sony to remove it

Obviously MS wants to keep it available to the masses. I'm more curious about how Sony feels about offering a service owned by MS.

The same way they feel about putting Windows on Sony Viao computers

Good point, Sony handles PCs and Playstations exactly the same.

/sarcasm

That would make sense since they are in the same division



dsister on 10 May 2011

I know Disolitude already disproved it, but MS isn't that competitive. That's why there is Office and IE for Mac. Thinking this would be MS only is kind of foolish 



Sig thanks to Saber! :D 

Darth Tigris on 10 May 2011
d21lewis said:

I expect to be able to call people from my 360, then.  And maybe a skype based Kinect game.  They could combine the name Skype and Kinect like they combined the names Kinect and animals to create Kinectimals.  What's a cool name?  I guess they could call it "Skynect"

 

......Sky...Net?  OH MY GOD!!!  It's happening again!!

HAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!!  That's just great ....... and scary.

OT: So how does this compare to Google Voice?  I've been using GV for almost a year now and I don't have too many complaints.  But if this integrates better with my 360 and (soon to purchase) Windows Phone and PC, I'm curious about making a transition.  But only if I can keep my number.  I don't want to change numbers yet again ...



disolitude on 10 May 2011
dsister said:

I know Disolitude already disproved it, but MS isn't that competitive. That's why there is Office and IE for Mac. Thinking this would be MS only is kind of foolish 


MS isn't like Apple for most of their products and services, as much as they like to pretend to be ;)

If money is to be made, they will never lock down software to a single platform.



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welshbloke on 10 May 2011
disolitude said:
fps_d0minat0r said:

one question....

couldnt micorosft make something better than skype for that amount of money??

i mean just look at it....its a way of talking through the internet, surely it would cost way less than 7bn to make something similar.


They probably could and do it better...but there is no guarantee that it would have the 150 million users that Skype has.

Microsoft basically bought 150 million users with 8.5 billion dollars. Skype had 30% growth every year for the last 4 years, and once it hits mainstream services like Xbox live and is native in Windows 8...it should easily double in a few years.

Maybe 150 million active users but they have also purchased the registrations of 665 million Skype users. I agree the true benefit will be when they integrateSkype into Microsoft products such as the new Office 365 product (replacement to BPOS). Lync which is the product they did build themselves although good in some areas falls down in many other places. Also this kinda of opens up Skype which if anything was one of its problems now Microsoft can market two products and cater for both the consumer and the business user.

They effectively have purchased a recognised IP telephony name (A name they do not have themselves in any great degree) and coupled it with the bigger brand that is Microsoft.

Like all things time will tell if this was a smart investment but I think like the Nokia deal this will prove to have been a smart move for Microsoft.



W.L.B.B. Member, Portsmouth Branch.

(Welsh(Folk) Living Beyond Borders)

Winner of the 2010 VGC Holiday sales prediction thread with an Average 1.6% accuracy rating. I am indeed awesome.

Kinect as seen by PS3 owners ...if you can pick at it   ...post it ... Did I mention the 360 was black and Shinny? Keeping Sigs obscure since 2007, Passed by the Sig police 5July10.
loves2splooge on 10 May 2011
disolitude said:
fps_d0minat0r said:

one question....

couldnt micorosft make something better than skype for that amount of money??

i mean just look at it....its a way of talking through the internet, surely it would cost way less than 7bn to make something similar.


They probably could and do it better...but there is no guarantee that it would have the 150 million users that Skype has.

Microsoft basically bought 150 million users with 8.5 billion dollars. Skype had 30% growth every year for the last 4 years, and once it hits mainstream services like Xbox live and is native in Windows 8...it should easily double in a few years.

Plus it's hard to build something from the ground up. There are other Voice-over-IP competitors than Skype on the market. But since Skype has the largest Voice over IP user base, it's seen as the safe bet. That's why I go with Skype. If I go with some other smaller, cheaper competitor and then I find that their service is inferior (since I use Skype to call landlines and mobiles, which costs money, I wouldn't want to waste buying credit on a service that sucks), that's going to leave a bad taste in my mouth. It's similar to how people sign up for a cheap cell service and then find out that the coverage and/or reception sucks balls. You get what you pay for. That's not always true but a lot of the time it is. There's a reason why here in Canada Rogers/Bell/Telus are so expensive compared to say Wind/Mobilicity. Maintaining a national cell network in a huge country like Canada doesn't come cheap (and plus the CRTC are nazis when it comes to foreign investment. But that's a rant for another topic). And I'm willing to bet that Skype's infrastructure isn't exactly cheap to maintain either. It costs lots of money to connect all those calls to landlines and mobiles worldwide and to buy out all those telephone numbers across multiple countries so that they can offer that Online Number service (sadly isn't available in Canada yet). Microsoft has the resources to invest in this infrastructure but it takes time to build up a user base obviously.



Slimebeast on 10 May 2011

Wow that's so much wasted money.

Instead they could take a fraction of that and invest in first party games development for Xbox.



brendude13 on 10 May 2011
disolitude said:
brendude13 said:

Seriously? What is it with Microsoft and buying people out, do they want world domination or something?

Basically, they are ripping off other companies and shoving their noses into an industry that doesn't want them, just so they FORCE people to use their software and hardware. I am sick to death of having Microsoft shoving inferior (and blatantly copied) products down my throat.

Bing wasn't needed, yet I am constantly getting my it shoved in my face, why do they feel the need to even advertise it.

Let's just hope this falls flat on it's face, along with all of other Microsoft's shenanigans *cough* ZUNE xD *cough*.


All I see here is uneducated and biased rabble...

Look up aquisitions by Google and compare it to Ms and you will see that MS doesn't buy companies nearly as much as they should.


How can I be biased against Bing!?

The re-directions to Bing, forced default search engine, click a link in a Microsoft program and it will take you to a bing search, the god awful adverts, It makes me want to RAGE! 

What is the point of making another search engine in the first place? Bragging right? More money in their pocket? Most probably...

And I use my Skype on my PSP to talk to my Dad who lives in Spain, it would be extremely out of order to buy out Skype just to take this feature away from the competition, which is what I predict is going to happen.

After buying Windows Vista for a rediculous amount of money only for it to be crippled by bugs and viruses in a week just before Windows 7 was unveiled, I will always be a Microsoft hater, even if the XBOX 360 is OK.



disolitude on 10 May 2011
Slimebeast said:

Wow that's so much wasted money.

Instead they could take a fraction of that and invest in first party games development for Xbox.


They could but would that give similar return on investment? Besides are you really short on games to play on a 360? I am so far behind on games its not even funny...

I just finished Bullestorm and have Marvel VS Capcom 3 in my 360 now. Still have to get to Mortal Kombat, Brink, Portal 2...