Microsoft (MSFT) has agreed to buy the voice-over-Internet company Skype for $8.5 billion, including the assumption of debt. Skype will become a new business unit within Microsoft, to be run by current Skype CEO Tony Bates. He will report directly to Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer.
Skype is a powerful consumer brand with more than 170 million connected users, synonymous in many places around the world with voice and video communications. This is a significant acquisition for Microsoft to bolster its communication offerings to compete with Google Voice and Apple Facetime.
Steve Ballmer announced:
By bringing together the best of Microsoft with the best of Skype, we will drive a new era in communications. We see a huge desire to do more with video, to make it easier for people to connect from multiple devices, to move from chat to phone to video and back in a way that is easy, natural, and human. We see with Kinect the power of using the biggest screen in the house – the living room TV screen – as the place where people connect with friends and families. We see with Windows Phone 7 the way communication moves from personal to professional in a blink of the eye. And we know that people want more connection and richer communication, across many devices and around the world. Together, Microsoft and Skype will deliver that kind of communication and connection. In the future, Skype will support Microsoft devices like Xbox and Kinect, Windows Phone and a wide array of Windows devices, and we will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live, Messenger and other communities. I want to call out the success we have had with the introduction of Lync specifically and the value of connecting that to a consumer community of Skype. And we’ll continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms.
The recent partnerships with NOKIA and RIM around mobile strategy, growth of the XBOX/Kinect platform, and now increased capabilities with communication continue to expand Microsoft’s offerings to corporations and consumers.
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