Microsoft near deal to acquire Skype

The whole article can be read here.


This will give new meaning to BSOD: Blue sound of Death.

If this is true, there will be no skype for linux anymore soon.

The deal is done: $8.5 billion. That MS bought Skype makes sense. That they paid $8.5 b doesn't.

For what it is worth, Microsoft promised to keep Skype for other systems alive.

The linux client was a poor imitation of the windows version, but at least it worked. I really hope they don't pull the plug on it - skype is a deal breaker for so many people.

I'm looking for that promise from MS now redman..

This post has been edited by spoovy: May 10 2011, 06:55 PM

Post it when you find it....I heard all this via Ostatic on Twitter....that's a pretty good source for OS news btw.

I guess it doesn't matter what MS says anyway, it's what they do in a year or two that matters.
Lets just hope that MS does something stupid and kills the goose altogether. Can't see it though. Wow this is bad news.

Looks like google chat is the early favorite of the 'fugees. I'll have to give it a go.

Read about the promise from M$ on a Dutch news site.
If you want to catch up on your Dutch, check out this website

But in the end what they say now doesn't make sense.
If they want to kill it, they will. Hopefully there will be an alternative or fork soon.

Don't fancy my chances with Dutch redman!

Surely they'll let the linux client die. Why support it? They'll merge it into their existing thing (messenger?), and they'll get to hurt desktop linux as a bonus.

We can only hope that an alternative reaches critical mass before it kicks the bucket. I'll trial google talk/voice on SL asap.

This post has been edited by spoovy: May 10 2011, 08:24 PM

Cancel that last bit - google voice is USA only.

Blindsided by this one, didn't see it coming. The focus on who would possibly be buying it was all on Google and Facebook and it turned out to be Microsoft.

On the flip side: Skype had a lot of debt and for some reason that I can't understand, they've had trouble making money to cover their costs with it... now they have more time to burn to figure it all out.

If they want to monetize Skype it would be best that they don't screw up the multi platforms. It's still in their interest to reach as many customers as possible. Obviously people like Skype... Microsoft would be fools to screw it up after spending all this money on it.

Hoping for the best, even though I use Windows for my desktop. If they merge it with MSN messenger and get rid of skype as-is, that will be so icky...

Microsoft won't 'let it' die. They're pretty good at keeping something alive. On day one I knew the XBox would make it because I knew they'd spend enough money on it till it did.

The linux version of Skype is another story. That's going to be interesting.

I suppose it depends on smartphones does it? I'm not up on smartphone politics at all but presumably if MS decide it makes business sense to maintain a client for linux phones then we can expect a client for desktops as well?

Nokia had the N900 running om Maemo-5 (Debian based). But after one year and a half the phone was suddenly gone. Officially Nokia didn't call it a smartphone since it was intended for the nerds, geeks and developers. The phone was gone and Nokia announced their deal with Microsoft. What a surprise. All other projects (including MeeGo) have been cancelled as well in favour of Microsofts Windows Phone 7.

And now? The story repeats itself. Microsoft will incorporate Skype in all their systems and mobile phones. And Linux? They do not care, they still want to break it...

"DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run"

Not much changes

Once Microsoft acquires Skype, I switch and donate Ekiga ( http://ekiga.org/ ) regularly to give it force to fight with Skype ;). Now looking for VoIP providers in my area.

Cool you brought up Ekiga...I was thinking about that just this week....

BTW, Welcome gwpl, to the new SL Forum!!

For one, I never cared about Skype!

From day one it was advertised in this way:
Skype, by the makers of... the missing part being "a known malware"

And now Uncle Billy wants it.

Sorry, but now I do not care any more then I did in the past.

First of all, welcome to the forum!

Secondly, good to name Ekiga, any open-source application/project is a good one

I'm still having a hard time with 8.5 billion....! That's an insane amount of money for Skype!

I just got a few emails from [what's left of] Skype telling me I've got to use or lose US$4.56.

The more I think about it, the more the alluring thought of M$ sending me a refund check becomes...

Gmail now offers the same sort of service: link.