Interesting to note that the market cap of Vonage is only 1.04B. They might have been able to buy up every single other VOIP company on the planet with the remaining $6 Billion.
Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
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Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#22Huh? I understand that Microsoft is sitting on billions in cash, but couldn't they just pay a dividend?
Paying a dividend will not save Microsoft. Even Microsoft realizes that.
Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#23Maybe I've missed something, but what has changed in the two years since eBay spun off Skype at a valuation of < $3B to make it worth more than $7 billion today?
The value of the dollar's dropped. Not by that much, but it's certainly changed. That, and ebay never figured out how to monetize it. MS likely has some plans in place to aggressively make money from it. I'm a skype subscriber, and probably will continue to be one, assuming they keep at least the same level of support for Macs.
> The value of the dollar's dropped.
Since the owners are almost all US-based (I think), fluctuation in the dollar against foreign markets shouldn't have much impact on Skype's pricing. Even so, the dollar's value against the Euro hasn't hardly changed at all: eBay announced their sale of Skype on September 1, when 1 USD = 0.7 EUR. Today. 1 USD = 0.6975 EUR.
Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#24There is always a persistent threat of Apple bringing Facetime to the PC desktop so that people on iPhones could call people with PC.
By purchasing Skype, MS could bring Skype to WP7 and offer it preloaded.
There used to be a time when MS could get traction simply by bundling their product everywhere. A competitor like Skype would be abandoned simply because they couldn't outspend MS. Imagine, $7b is a lot of money. You can give away $1b of free calls to get Live Messenger kick started, or run Lync for free. MS has lost that swagger that used to create their own reality.
Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#25The headline on the article's page says "nearly $8 billion".
Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#26Skype is losing tons of money and needed to get out with whatever users it had. Microsoft can then sync this up with their own communication clients for a joint play.
Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#27Maybe I've missed something, but what has changed in the two years since eBay spun off Skype at a valuation of < $3B to make it worth more than $7 billion today?
Rumors were that Facebook was going to buy it. Microsoft probably had to go up to $7 billion to top their offer.
Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#28Microsoft finally gets back in the game? I'm as big a fan of Google as anyone, but it's nice to see Microsoft win one.
Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
The value of the dollar's dropped. Not by that much, but it's certainly changed. That, and ebay never figured out how to monetize it. MS likely has some plans in place to aggressively make money from it. I'm a skype subscriber, and probably will continue to be one, assuming they keep at least the same level of support for Macs.
> The value of the dollar's dropped. Since the owners are almost all US-based (I think), fluctuation in the dollar against foreign markets shouldn't have much impact on Skype's pricing. Even so, the dollar's value against the Euro hasn't hardly changed at all: eBay announced their sale of Skype on September 1, when 1 USD = 0.7 EUR. Today. 1 USD = 0.6975 EUR.
I guess the sarcasm didn't come through - forgot my smiley face. Too many talk radio commercials telling me to buy gold were behind that knee-jerk observation.
I think the higher price is partially because MS may have a strong monetization plan in place and they don't want anyone else to get it.
Re: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7 billion
#30Interesting to note that the market cap of Vonage is only 1.04B. They might have been able to buy up every single other VOIP company on the planet with the remaining $6 Billion.
I'm sure integrating a truckload of companies all with wildly incompatible systems and personnel would work out more horribly then we could possibly imagine.