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Perspective - Microsoft buying Skype


So the big news was that Microsoft is buying Skype for 8.5 billion$. Now, everyone has it's reason to debate on the price. I personally feel that the price was too high.

Microsoft buying skype makes perfect sense - In fact -- I would go ahead and say that Microsoft desperately needed a play in that market to be relevant and thwart competition from every end - Cisco, Google and Apple.

But wouldn't it be more fun to put things in perspective on the amount of money Microsoft spent on Skype?

1. HP bought Palm OS for 1.2 billion$ last year. Yes - A bargain considering the intellectual property Palm had in it's Kitty over the last 25 years! Microsoft should have bought Palm. 

2. But wasn't Microsoft about to buy Skype in 2005 for 2.5 billion$? But wait a second, there was no iPhone then for Microsoft to truly realize the need for it.

3. Microsoft should have spent less than a 1% of Skype deal in hiring few people to get Microsoft update in a much timely fashion.

The best way to think about this. Microsoft could have bought "APPLE" -- Yes APPLE for $8.5 billion in 2004. Or maybe way less than that in 1997-1998.


Wow -- Things have taken a complete different turn -- Haven't they?

On a serious note - I can see why Microsoft is buying Skype. 

1. Compete against Cisco on business and enterprise front. This is a big market.

2. Compete against Google Talk on Voice front.

3. Compete against Apple and it's facetime, by integration Skype and it's already ever-growing consumers on Windows 7 platform.

4. Integrate it with Kinect and X-Box live services.




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