What is Microsoft thinking, paying $8.5B for Skype?
The people who paid $2.5 billion for Skype two years ago are starting to look very astute.
A week or two ago that wasn't the case. Skype's IPO had been delayed. Google and Facebook were sniffing around Skype, but a buyout didn't seem likely -- too many samolies for Facebook to muster, and all sorts of potential problems for Google, including an antitrust hurdle of Brobdingnagian proportions.
But this morning comes the announcement that Microsoft will purchase Skype for $8.5 billion. As a defensive move, Microsoft buying Skype has some merit: a Google Voice-and-Skype combination would prove a formidable challenge to Windows Live Messenger and Lync, both in the consumer market and in the enterprise. The Skype international telephone number inventory -- and Skype's long experience with local telcos all over the world -- would provide an instant presence that Google Voice is still struggling to establish. But $8.5 billion?
