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Doesn't seem to make sense.
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They're also in bed with Nokia now. Might make more sense in light of that.
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BIG players look at the opposition with a view to buying technology or their image. MS has probably bought Skype for it's image as much as technology - sometimes it works / sometimes it does not.
20+ yrs ago IBM made telephone exchanges for businesses (1750/3750) - the opposition was a thought to be technically ahead - software driven rather than hardware - so they bought it for megabucks only to find the company's reputation was bigger thn its achievements. Closed them down and IBM withdrew from the market within a few years.
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>> Doesn't seem to make sense.
>>
It is to get in to the iPhone "facetime" game.
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Iphone Facetime Game hasnt taken off. And it wont while it still needs to be wifi attached to facetime.
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>> Iphone Facetime Game hasnt taken off. And it wont while it still needs to be
>> wifi attached to facetime.
>>
... but "skypetime" for iPhone works without wifi.
www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-mobile/download/iphone-for-skype/
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"Doesn't seem to make sense."
I expect it does to the owners, who are now $8bn richer! But you'd think that MS would have noticed that even eBay lost money with it...
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Very difficult to value these things, but as the side bar commentary mentions, they are getting 600 million users with that, which is only about $15 a user.
Facebook has about the same number of users and their valuation on the secondary market, is currently about $75 billion, I believe.
Of course, comparing Skype and Facebook, is a little like comparing apples and oranges, although they are both communication mediums.
Microsoft are not making great headway in the mobile market, which has massive growth of course, and so this could be part of a strategy there.
The 2009 valuation is probably a bit of red herring, given that it was near the bottom of the equity markets.
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Tue 10 May 11 at 13:43
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Skype calls are such rubbish quality I never use it.
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"Skype calls are such rubbish quality..."
I'm surprised you say that. Though I'm not a big user myself, SWMBO skypes Australia and Poland and the quality of sound and vision seems perfectly acceptable, if variable. Surely a lot depends on the quality of the hardware.
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TBH as I have free international calls as part of my overall telecoms package, SKYPE has no practical value here.
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>> TBH as I have free international calls as part of my overall telecoms package, SKYPE
>> has no practical value here.
>>
Same here.
With so many phone and broadband packages offering free calls who wants the fag of turning on the PC every time you want to call someone?
And as for video calls, half dressed and unshaved with a cigarette in my mouth, no thanks.
Last edited by: Robin Regal on Tue 10 May 11 at 18:50
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I don't want video calls either. One of the few pleasures left in most business calls is flicking Churchill salutes at the phone while remaining polite to a customer who lost the right to courtesy the third time he bounced a cheque this year...
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Humoh - and of course one can take calls wearing only flip-flops...
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You like doing that too? Must be a "retired" thing. I at least have to put shorts and a polo shirt on.
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I don't own any flip flops !
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Surely you keep your watch on though?
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Flip Flops are very bohemian, perfect for warm days like these.
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Whilst Skype not quite as good as phone I find voice quality i usually acceptable and the video calling is invaluable for keeping in touch with the family in Canada. The fact that you can make free unlimited video calls to anywhere in the world is surely remarkable and I wouldn't dismiss it as rubbish. It was not so long ago that making an overseas call for a few minutes was a hugely expensive business. I'm still impressed every time I use it. Skype is surely one of the best free things on the web.
Apple ichat was in fact a superior system as far as image quality was concerned but suffers from the severe limitation that you can d only use it on apple machines and seems to have been left to wither on the vine.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 10 May 11 at 14:55
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One of the main problems for iChat is that I believe it uses UDP and not TCP. (i.e. not error checking and resending etc. because of course with video the real-time delivery is more important.) So in theory iChat should have the better quality because they are using a more efficient transmission protocol.
However, there are many routers that just don't do UDP whereas all will at least do TCP, and it is that which has made Skype more usable even for people with iChat.
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I stopped using ichat in favour of Skype when I acquired my current router for that reason.
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I've been using Skype since it was launched - when I had dial-up - and the quality has always been surprisingly good.
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...I've been using Skype since it was launched - when I had dial-up - and the quality has always been surprisingly good...
Mmm, a few votes in favour of Skype.
It's been a while since I used it, so maybe it's time to give it another audition.
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>> Skype calls are such rubbish quality I never use it.
Really? I use it regularly on the iPhone - even with video. Works really well, phone to phone or Mac to or from phone.
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Skype is a massive P2P network as it relies to quite an extent in using your Skype-running PC as node server.
Not for me - I use VOIP cheap which is very flexible, but lacks video facilities, IIRC.
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Not on the iphone it doesent
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Once they have integrated Skype into Windows, they plan to call it Microsoft Skype Network, or 'Skynet' for short.
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Big corporations are not immune to misjudging the markets when it comes to technology. ITV paid £120 million for Friends Reunited in 2005 and sold it four years later for only 25 million after it had been made to look like something out of the stone age by the emergence of Facebook.
I honestly can't see Skype ever becoming mainstream (unless I'm misjudging the market).
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Ignorant question again, but where is the money in Skype?
I use it occasionally but its free?
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Put it like this, its never made a profit.
The money is in corporate international telecomms, and yes Skype charges corporates, and this is where MS want to be.
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Never got the point of skype, for the past 6 years I have been using Sipgate, you get a free landline number and dosn't cost a penny, you can top up to make calls and it is cheaper than Skype (at least it was last time I checked for UK calls).
I use a Grandstream VIOP phone connected to my router, so I can receive internet phone calls via my 0161 number even with my computer switched off.
Not spent a penny on it in the past four years, yet I still get the free 0161 number.
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Microsoft to Buy Skype. - Stuartli
