4 ms·

That's a good read. The best way to prevent a wrong purchase is not to purchase it. I admire Chan's courage and slyness to sabotage that deal, he must have save

That's a good read. The best way to prevent a wrong purchase is not to purchase it. I admire Chan's courage and slyness to sabotage that deal, he must have saved Google a few billions of dollars: Google has enormous data centers, and capable teams, lots of loyal Gmail users, there's nothing that would benefit Google by buying Skype. Those reasons also hold for Microsoft. I feel sorry for Microsoft as they just burnt a few billions for no gains --- that enormous amount of money should have been spent to hire talents and put into R&D.

dspillett 15y ago
It depends what immediate plans they have. If they want skype-like voice/video features for integration in some product(s) soon it may make more sense to buy in the already working tech and just add what is needed for the integration. Designing, building and testing their own code and infrastructure could be cheaper in the long run but would take far longer than just buying in the code, talent and infrastructure that Skype already has. Also the MS brand does not command immediate trust in many, so convincing users to use an MS product over something else is not as easy as it once was. As well as the code, people and infrastructure they've got the brand, a name that a lot of the general public already "trust" as they already use a product carrying that brand.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  It's not just about trust - it's about cross-platform as well. Whether they continue that or not, who knows? But the ecosystems they've built before have all been MS-only. Skype is inherently cross-platform, and that's something they wouldn't ever have built in-house.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    Not because they can't build cross-platform, but because they don't want to. Their first 2 announcements after the take-over will probably be about the integration with Windows Live (whatever that means these days) and the cancellation of the Linux client.
- bad_user 15y ago
  According to Microsoft, Windows Live Messenger has ~ 300 million active users. That may be less than Skype (I don't know), but Skype is mostly redundant tech for them. This was definitely a brand purchase - and such purchases may be worth it, but I can't think of a single product that Microsoft bought and that doesn't scream "Microsoft" all over -- so whatever trust in Skype consumers have, those consumers that don't trust Microsoft will probably leave Skype at some point.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- Duff 15y ago
  For big companies Microsoft owns email, and is in the process of owning voicemail, since it's part of Exchange now. They want to run your phone system too, but Cisco is the leader in that space at the Enterprise, and a bunch of telco/cable companies in the SMB space. So how is Microsoft competing? In the enterprise, they embed the phone (Lync) technology pervasively and throughout their platform. So, without doing anything, I can click to call from SharePoint, email or SMS from an Office app, videochat from PowerPoint. They're exposing the communications mechanisms everywhere. IMO, this Skype thing is intended to do the same thing, but on the consumer and SMB side. Unified communications for the millions of people using Hotmail/Live and Skype -- and for the millions of business people who DO NOT have UC today. Skype gives them consumers in Europe and small business everywhere. One of the holes in Office 365 is a voice offering for smaller companies -- the pricepoint for the full Exchange/Lync suite is really high unless you have 10,000+ seats. So you can give small companies with little money access to unified communications, buy accessories like handsets and speakerphones from the same partner (Polycom) and eventually graduate into the enterprise offerings.
brudgers 15y ago
>"Google has enormous data centers, and capable teams, lots of loyal Gmail users, there's nothing that would benefit Google by buying Skype. Those reasons also hold for Microsoft." Data centers and capable employees are not reasons one way or the other (unless the company suffers from NIH syndrome); they are simply facts. Loyal users are, on the other hand, a consideration - but there are fundamental differences between Google's customers and Microsoft's particularly in regards to Microsoft's B2B orientation versus Google's ad revenue based model. While peer to peer is problematic for Google's core revenue stream which requires consumers to frequently access Google's servers, peer to peer is perfectly consistent with Microsoft's core business wherein customers' contact with Microsoft's data centers is relatively infrequent and intermittent - e.g. Microsoft's revenue model works if a customer only contact with Microsoft servers is once a month on patch Tuesday. In the long run, Microsoft can certainly screw the pooch on the deal. However, the purchase leaves no doubt that Microsoft sees telephony as far more than mobile. One could argue that they have made Google Voice a distant second in the space, e.g. very limited geographic availability for user accounts.

dspillett 15y ago

It depends what immediate plans they have. If they want skype-like voice/video features for integration in some product(s) soon it may make more sense to buy in the already working tech and just add what is needed for the integration. Designing, building and testing their own code and infrastructure could be cheaper in the long run but would take far longer than just buying in the code, talent and infrastructure that Skype already has. Also the MS brand does not command immediate trust in many, so convincing users to use an MS product over something else is not as easy as it once was. As well as the code, people and infrastructure they've got the brand, a name that a lot of the general public already "trust" as they already use a product carrying that brand.

mgkimsal 15y ago
It's not just about trust - it's about cross-platform as well. Whether they continue that or not, who knows? But the ecosystems they've built before have all been MS-only. Skype is inherently cross-platform, and that's something they wouldn't ever have built in-house.
- bad_user 15y ago
  Not because they can't build cross-platform, but because they don't want to. Their first 2 announcements after the take-over will probably be about the integration with Windows Live (whatever that means these days) and the cancellation of the Linux client.
bad_user 15y ago
According to Microsoft, Windows Live Messenger has ~ 300 million active users. That may be less than Skype (I don't know), but Skype is mostly redundant tech for them. This was definitely a brand purchase - and such purchases may be worth it, but I can't think of a single product that Microsoft bought and that doesn't scream "Microsoft" all over -- so whatever trust in Skype consumers have, those consumers that don't trust Microsoft will probably leave Skype at some point.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
Duff 15y ago
For big companies Microsoft owns email, and is in the process of owning voicemail, since it's part of Exchange now. They want to run your phone system too, but Cisco is the leader in that space at the Enterprise, and a bunch of telco/cable companies in the SMB space. So how is Microsoft competing? In the enterprise, they embed the phone (Lync) technology pervasively and throughout their platform. So, without doing anything, I can click to call from SharePoint, email or SMS from an Office app, videochat from PowerPoint. They're exposing the communications mechanisms everywhere. IMO, this Skype thing is intended to do the same thing, but on the consumer and SMB side. Unified communications for the millions of people using Hotmail/Live and Skype -- and for the millions of business people who DO NOT have UC today. Skype gives them consumers in Europe and small business everywhere. One of the holes in Office 365 is a voice offering for smaller companies -- the pricepoint for the full Exchange/Lync suite is really high unless you have 10,000+ seats. So you can give small companies with little money access to unified communications, buy accessories like handsets and speakerphones from the same partner (Polycom) and eventually graduate into the enterprise offerings.

brudgers 15y ago

>"Google has enormous data centers, and capable teams, lots of loyal Gmail users, there's nothing that would benefit Google by buying Skype. Those reasons also hold for Microsoft." Data centers and capable employees are not reasons one way or the other (unless the company suffers from NIH syndrome); they are simply facts. Loyal users are, on the other hand, a consideration - but there are fundamental differences between Google's customers and Microsoft's particularly in regards to Microsoft's B2B orientation versus Google's ad revenue based model. While peer to peer is problematic for Google's core revenue stream which requires consumers to frequently access Google's servers, peer to peer is perfectly consistent with Microsoft's core business wherein customers' contact with Microsoft's data centers is relatively infrequent and intermittent - e.g. Microsoft's revenue model works if a customer only contact with Microsoft servers is once a month on patch Tuesday. In the long run, Microsoft can certainly screw the pooch on the deal. However, the purchase leaves no doubt that Microsoft sees telephony as far more than mobile. One could argue that they have made Google Voice a distant second in the space, e.g. very limited geographic availability for user accounts.