Andy Ihnatko: Why did Microsoft Buy Skype?

Tuesday, May 10, 2011
By OP Editor

Why would Microsoft offer to pay $8.5 billion dollars for Skype, a barely profitable company?

Steve Ballmer Microsoft Skype

Andy Ihnatko describes the three reasons for big tech company A to buy company B.

  1. “Company B is profitable and underpriced.”
  2. “The acquisition allows Company A to ‘level up’ instantly without having to spend years engaged in a long, expensive and uncertain dungeon crawl.” (Example HP buying failing Palm).
  3. “Company ‘B’ has such lovely parts… or has a product that Company ‘A’ is tired of trying to compete with”

Microsoft’s reason to buy Skype is most likely the third:

“There’s also a hell of a lot of value in simply owning one of the world’s largest social-media networks… Microsoft just bought a fairly comprehensive database of who knows whom all over the world.”

OP Editor note:

  • Skype has over 663 million registered users in 2010.
  • Facebook has over 600 million active users as of January 2011.

Hum, time to look for Skype alternatives.


Related Posts

  1. Skype Alternatives (Microsoft Buying Skype for $8.5 Billion)
  2. Skype Firing Executives After FTC Approved Microsoft Purchase
  3. Skype Withdraws VOIP Apps From Microsoft WiMPs (Windows Mobile Phones)
  4. Microsoft Improves Firefox, Adds H.264 Video Codec Support
  5. Skype for iPad Available Now

Tags: Microsoft

2 Responses to “Andy Ihnatko: Why did Microsoft Buy Skype?”

  1. Don

    The only company that out ‘Microsoft’ than Microsoft itself is Google, the evil Apple thief’s, the both of them!


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