The reason behind this acquisition is signaling to the market, and to Microsof's competitors, that MS is still strong and wants to play as a leader in the market.
This acquisition is not justified by business reasons, it's a matter of game theory ;)
Why Microsoft bought Skype
71–80 of 95 posts
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was true 10 years ago but a lot has changed and it's fairly damning evidence of just how much the US has stood still on Internet access in the last decade. Consider iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP: http://www.iinet.net.au/broadband/plans.html 200GB/month ADSL2+ for $50/month (+$30/month "phone tax"). In NY I have Time Warner Cable 50Mbps but it's basically capped at 250GB and I think I pay $80/month for it.…
But if the overseas pipes are the bottleneck, improved local infrastructure would mean more are fighting to use them.
[deleted]
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was true 10 years ago but a lot has changed and it's fairly damning evidence of just how much the US has stood still on Internet access in the last decade. Consider iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP: http://www.iinet.net.au/broadband/plans.html 200GB/month ADSL2+ for $50/month (+$30/month "phone tax"). In NY I have Time Warner Cable 50Mbps but it's basically capped at 250GB and I think I pay $80/month for it.…
But if the overseas pipes are the bottleneck, improved local infrastructure would mean more are fighting to use them.
Yes but if there's internal fibre inside the country and it's comprehensive then the scope for more effective usage of local caches and CDN's, not to mention outright locally hosted content becomes pretty damn strong.
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're still the ones who make the most used OS in the world. They're not the ones innovating and creating new markets and paradigms. But were they, ever ?
I've waved the "What did Microsoft ever invent?" flag plenty in my life, so let me try and advocate for the devil: Microsoft basically invented the hardware-agnostic software platform. Before Microsoft, there were a variety of hardware platforms, each with their own libraries and languages... not unlike the situation today with phones. Developers had to choose what to target... not only Mac vs PC, but different video…
Microsoft basically invented the hardware-agnostic software platform
I'm trying hard to understand what you're talking about and its not working. Windows has run on the "PC clone" for almost its entire existence. IBM pioneered the original PC as a fairly easily clone-able platform, meaning it wasn't hard to reverse engineer the bios. It was one hardware platform, one hardware standard, that multiple manufacturers could target (and it was created by IBM despite repeating more of the benefits). But that kind of thing had happened at least since Boroughs (I think) created the first IBM compatible mainframe.
Windows runs on PCs. It doesn't run on Mac, on mainframes or anything else - contrast that Linux, which truly runs on a huge variety of platforms.
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#75Here is what Microsoft should do with Skype and it's 140Million-member social network : Beat Facebook. Turn Skype into Diaspora. (Specifically, take Skype's persistent chatrooms into the next dimension) Integrate Skype with Windows Photo Album, Movie Maker, Spaces, blah blah. Mayke Skype a local application for managing your personal content -- photos, videos, thoughts, whatever. Leverage Skype's encrypted P2P infras…
Wow, that's a great idea for a company that users trust.
If only a company like that had bought Skype...
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Australia has small and expensive pipes to the rest of the world, and it shows up as caps and high prices. I'd be surprised if Australian telcos weren't working hard to degrade VoIP generally. For my own part, I use Skype for almost every outgoing phone call. I spend perhaps 5 GBP/month on threshold auto-credit. The biggest problems with it happen with concurrent upload activity, especially torrents.
This was true 10 years ago but a lot has changed and it's fairly damning evidence of just how much the US has stood still on Internet access in the last decade. Consider iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP: http://www.iinet.net.au/broadband/plans.html 200GB/month ADSL2+ for $50/month (+$30/month "phone tax"). In NY I have Time Warner Cable 50Mbps but it's basically capped at 250GB and I think I pay $80/month for it.…
Higher speeds seem a lot more ubiquitous in the US as opposed to here though. I live in one of the largest cities in the country, and my choices are dial-up, ADSL (to an exchange 5+km away), or cable from a single provider (who charges relatively highly for their services). From what I can see, the US appears to be much better in this regard.
I have family who are on 2GB plans for $50/mo, and they regard that as fairly good. The reason we're rolling out a (government-owned) broadband network is because we need it.
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#77I don't believe that at all. Google doesn't need Skype. Microsoft bought Skype because they have large amounts of cash in Europe that they cannot repatriate without taking a huge tax hit. For some strange reason, Ballmer has that obsession with hyperactively pursuing the same consumers that Google and Apple have. That's why he didn't see anything else to buy in Europe (Actually there isn't a whole lot). But there is…
Would Microsoft be able to afford SAP? According to Google Finance, they have a market cap of $77.04bn and Microsoft would have to pay a hefty premium over this.
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:SAP
Also, what would the European Commission say about this? I don't think they would look favourably on this. They're not exactly fond of Microsoft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_compet...
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was true 10 years ago but a lot has changed and it's fairly damning evidence of just how much the US has stood still on Internet access in the last decade. Consider iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP: http://www.iinet.net.au/broadband/plans.html 200GB/month ADSL2+ for $50/month (+$30/month "phone tax"). In NY I have Time Warner Cable 50Mbps but it's basically capped at 250GB and I think I pay $80/month for it.…
Higher speeds seem a lot more ubiquitous in the US as opposed to here though. I live in one of the largest cities in the country, and my choices are dial-up, ADSL (to an exchange 5+km away), or cable from a single provider (who charges relatively highly for their services). From what I can see, the US appears to be much better in this regard. I have family who are on 2GB plans for $50/mo, and they regard that as fair…
I have family who are on 2GB plans for $50/mo, and they regard that as fairly good.
That's not good at all. I suspect that's the Telstra BigPond "ignorance tax" package. Almost any provider will give them a better deal.
Eg, I get 30Gb/month on Internode for $40. (I live in Australia)
I'd recommend looking at iiNet and Internode packages for them.
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're still the ones who make the most used OS in the world. They're not the ones innovating and creating new markets and paradigms. But were they, ever ?
I've waved the "What did Microsoft ever invent?" flag plenty in my life, so let me try and advocate for the devil: Microsoft basically invented the hardware-agnostic software platform. Before Microsoft, there were a variety of hardware platforms, each with their own libraries and languages... not unlike the situation today with phones. Developers had to choose what to target... not only Mac vs PC, but different video…
Just as an aside to your final point:
I think a case can be made that huge software companies generate gigantic sums of cash. They have to do SOMETHING with this cash. They could give it back in dividends but most investors would prefer they instead used their internal cash-multiplier machine because it probably runs better than their own would should they have to reinvest dividends.
So what do you do? Acquire.
Look at Microsoft. Look at Google. Adwords, Android, Chome, Maps, Voice, YouTube, etc, etc, etc, all acquired.
It still takes a talented company to marshal the resources and assets of these acquisitions into a successful, larger conglomerate. And in the cases where the sum is more valuable than the parts, THAT'S innovation just the same as a homegrown product or language.
Re: Why Microsoft bought Skype
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've waved the "What did Microsoft ever invent?" flag plenty in my life, so let me try and advocate for the devil: Microsoft basically invented the hardware-agnostic software platform. Before Microsoft, there were a variety of hardware platforms, each with their own libraries and languages... not unlike the situation today with phones. Developers had to choose what to target... not only Mac vs PC, but different video…
Microsoft basically invented the hardware-agnostic software platform I'm trying hard to understand what you're talking about and its not working. Windows has run on the "PC clone" for almost its entire existence. IBM pioneered the original PC as a fairly easily clone-able platform, meaning it wasn't hard to reverse engineer the bios. It was one hardware platform, one hardware standard, that multiple manufacturers cou…
I think you're too focused on looking at it from a technical perspective. I think what erikpukinskis is referring to is "hardware-agnostic software platform" as a business model/industry environment.
Maybe IBM did invent that, but it was accidental. I'm not sure they did though, I think MS did.