http://ca.news.yahoo.com/microsoft-corp-says-buy-internet-phone-company-skype-121537012.html


So much for using Skype. :/

Oh god. This can only end badly.

Wouldn't stop me from using the service. Though I do all my chatting through AIM.

Ah crap. I hope they at least keep the free computer-to-computer calls element and don't decide it conflicts with Windows Live Messenger or something.

I'm sorry, how is this a bad thing?

Every single product released by Microsoft since Vista has been absolutely brilliant.

- The latest version of Office = the best office suit you can get, it's expensive but it's worth it unless OpenOffice takes a huge leap forwrd.
- Microsoft WebMatrix = probably the best FREE web development environment you can get. Great code editor, supports all major web packages such as Wordpress. Has it's own SQL database management. Love it ^_^
- Visual Studio
- Internet Explorer 9, I hate to admit it but the latest IE is really good.

Oh, and Microsoft has recently started to work more with open source developers and they plan to support unsigned applications in Windows 7.

They are also releasing more and more free products

Personally I'm worried about integration with other MS services I don't want, but also about Skype's latest increasing support for Linux and Android which will surely diminish now.

Possibly the end of an era. Possibly.

Why would you think that?

The same developers will be working for Skype and given Microsft's increased attention towards the open source crowd, I see no reason for them to put less emphasis on Linux and Android development.

It is however likely that they'll try to create a WP7 version of Skype as well, but I can't see how that's a bad thing.

You sort of mentioned why it's bad.

Android = competitor to WP7

Linux = competitor to Windows

Microsoft hasn't exactly been the bastion of competitive practice.

While I don't think they would annihilate possible revenue streams made possible with this acqusition since Skype well penetrated the PC voice communication market and even IM market, I don't use MSN/WLM, I don't use WP7, I don't use most of their products for a reason. They svck, and I like my options with other software/hardware/devices.

All I can see Skype turning into now is some software to soon be bundled with Windows renamed something like Windows Communicator Home Basic. I would have liked this better if they perhaps just made their own tool and competed with Skype instead of taking a program I use and certainly going to gut it.

I'm with Exorince on this one. I don't see how this is the end of the world? Microsoft is going to spend $8 billion on something and then abandon the userbase by making it an undesirable product? Huh?

I've spent most of my life hating Microsoft but even I can't deny that the latest Microsoft products are really good. So your claim that you don't use their products because "they svck" is completely unjustified.

They are rolling out increasing support for iOS, the most recent one being the Bing Maps SDK for iOS, so I see no reason for them to cut down the Android/Linux development for Skype. :huh:

The last thing you mentioned... well that's the only thing I'm worried about happening. I've been following the changes MS is making to the Live platform (the messenger and all those Live products) and it seems obvious to me what they are going to do; Transform Live into a complete communications app, combining IM, email and voice chat into one application and release it on all platforms. They've already announced that they will be porting most of the current features available in Live to the Windows Phone 7 platform.

To italics: That's why I don't use their "services" anymore. I don't like being force-bundled into other services I don't want. Less choice.. bad. Always.

To underline: Point taken.

To bold: This claim is not unjustified.. I don't use programs based on other people's opinions. I use them, and form my own. I don't care who hates or likes what regarding software or hardware. I dislike Microsoft for this very thing it's now going to do with Skype. Would be a non-issue if they left software like this alone and developed their own. Skype is a good product because it was highly recognized cross-platform voice chat and IM but already in their statement they've integrated it into all Microsoft platforms. I don't expect at all that Skype support they have for Linux or Android will hold up at all.

Looks like my only other decent and highly used option for the people I chat with is Google Voice.. when they come to Canada.

Well, I just hope they don't mess anything up.

So is this going to cause skype to be removed from the psp?

Well, if anything, the people from Skype who got all the money are going to be spending a nice long while in the Bahamas.

Both Google and Facebook were trying to buy Skype, I'd much rather have had one of them succeed.

Now I wonder what's gonna happen to Skype on Linux...


One word for you: Mono. Rather than porting CLR to linux themselves, they made someone else do it, the implementation was never equal to .NET, and they never brought Silverlight, but a barely-functional version known as Moonlight. Both of these projects are dying due to Attachmate reorganizing Novell, and MS hasn't lifted so much as a finger to keep them alive.

Most likely MS is gonna kill Skype by doing the same: doing nothing. Do that for a year or so, and Skype won't run on Linux anymore.


MS has only been supporting open source when it comes to their platform. MS's linux code was so people could run their software virtualized on Linux servers, MS's "open source" licenses -- most have clauses that only permit you to use the source code IF you only release your application on the Windows platform. There's the non-support of CLR on Linux I mentioned above, and finally MS still is the worst offender of making "cross-platform" appplications truly cross-platform. Office for Mac is seriously gimped compared to MS Office on Windows. Silverlight has a bunch of functionality on Windows that the Mac counterpart lacks -- I could go on forever about this for MODERN MS development.

I remember buying a commercial version of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGuslWpk5Mg&feature=related, and a couple months later Microsoft bought the company (http://www.calligari.com/), and releases Truespace for free, adding a plugin for their Virtual Earth service.

Caligari has been like a grave-site ever since; and Truespace is effectively dead; (Still a very powerful program though... well worth downloading... Not too great for TES modding though).

I don't find this as bad. Maybe if they intergrate something into it I don't like. And plus I don't think mircosoft will go as far as pissing off the skype community.

Oh, I don't know, how about Microsoft buying Skype (which is currently free to video chat) and making it not free? You'd put that past Microsoft?

Looks like a purchase in the same vein as "Danger". They want some cool tech but its going to die in the Microsoft Beurocracy when they realise they don't know what to do with it.

This could bite them on the backside. They're trying to make windows Mobile work, if they start pushing skype onto their handsets, I think the Mobile Operators are going to complain - hit their already vulnerable voice revenues and overload the data network.

Glad it went to Microsoft and not Facebook or Google. As ironic as it is, Microsoft is a company that's keeping competition alive.

Also, let's be honest, this acquisition is an order of magnitude greater than the ones people are bring up as examples.

Right, time to get a a TS server up and running...

I can't see anyone spending $8 Billion and just abandon it. The only thing I can think of it will become like Hotmail. When Microsoft couldn't make a dent into the email market, and Hotmail was the hotest thing out there at the time, Microsof bought it out and used. It's one of thier main programs now. So I am guessing Skype can be the same thing. You don't spend a Billion Dollars let alone 8 Billion dollars and do nothing with it.

No one is saying they are going to abandon it, but just make the non-MS owned platform versions of it svck/not nearly as good as that for their platform -- which they already do for pretty much all their software.

I am wondering how this will be implenented on the xbox? I guess you will have to be a gold member to use the function though. So money can still be made, but still, $8 Billion??? How the heck will they ever recoup that money?