1. Skype offers the best product in its market (and is the market leader) 2. Skype has 110m+ active users, and 660m+ overall users. $8.5b is too much, in my o

1. Skype offers the best product in its market (and is the market leader) 2. Skype has 110m+ active users, and 660m+ overall users. $8.5b is too much, in my opinion, but Microsoft obviously believe that it's a fair price to pay for the reasons above (among others, of course). The value gained is tremendous. What Microsoft does with that value remains to be seen.