AfterDawn: News

It's official: Microsoft to buy Skype for $8.5 billion

Following two nights of speculation, Microsoft has confirmed it will be purchasing Skype for $8.5 billion in cash.

The deal has already been approved by both boards of directors.



Skype has 170 million "connected users" and those users ran over 207 billion minutes of voice and video in 2010.

Microsoft says:

The acquisition will increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications, bringing benefits to both consumers and enterprise users and generating significant new business and revenue opportunities. The combination will extend Skype’s world-class brand and the reach of its networked platform, while enhancing Microsoft’s existing portfolio of real-time communications products and services.

Skype will be added to the Xbox 360, Kinect, Windows Phone, Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live "and other communities."

The service itself, will continue to run independently.

Concludes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world. Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 10 May 2011 11:57

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• 7 comments

• 1nsan3

  no more free pc to pc calls m$ will charge for every single minute used to any landline or pc lol. i would laugh if everyone dropped skype! theres 7 billion down the crapper.
  

  For Sale:
  
  Parachute, Used Once, never opened small stain.
  Best Offer!

  10.5.2011 18:45 #1

• brockie

  this is crazy money the company has been making losses.

  10.5.2011 19:17 #2

• KillerBug

  This isn't about profits; it is about a stranglehold on communications. They are adding it to everything the make...it is going to be built into windows 8, and will probably be on windows update...maybe even office update. That is a lot of users.
  

  
  

  10.5.2011 23:07 #3

• xtago

  Within 1 year skype won't exist and will be shifted to the MS live platform.
  
  and while the above is happening another Skype company will pop up and grab most customers.

  11.5.2011 12:25 #4

• Schmick

  Biggest waste of money ever. Not a good reflection on Microsoft's developer and marketing departments either, if the don't think they could make their own (profitable) rival service for that sort of money...
  
  I'd rather just use a standardised SIP phone anyway.
  

  ^ PEBKAC ^

  11.5.2011 21:00 #5

• pmshah

  Damn ! The service will go the way Hotmail did!
  
  Now I have to start looking for alternatives.

  13.5.2011 08:07 #6

• SierraTch

  If Free PC access goes away, then Logitech VID may get a boost. This would be a mistake on Microsoft's behalf to destroy the whole reason SKYPE has been successful for years. In 2004, I attended Monday Morning meetings using SKYPE, It's a tool I have set many clients up with and I would be lost without it (but I'm not going to pay for it, so Logitech VID might be the alternative even though it doesn't do a lot what SKYPE does).

  13.5.2011 12:45 #7