“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today promised that the company would continue to develop and support Skype on rival platforms,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld
“‘We will continue to invest in Skype on non-Microsoft client platforms,’ said Ballmer during a news conference announcing the company’s plan to buy chat and Internet phone software maker Skype for $8.5 billion,” Keizer reports. “Ballmer was adamant that the new Microsoft Skype division would not ditch the owners of iPhones, Android smartphones, Macs and other technologies.”
“‘A, I said it and I meant it,’ Ballmer said when a reporter asked for assurances that Skype would continue to be available for operating systems and devices not sold by Microsoft. ‘B, we’re one of the few companies with a track record of doing this,’ he added, citing Microsoft’s work on Mac OS X, for which it develops and sells a Mac-specific version of its Office suite,” Keizer reports.
MacDailyNews Take: For years Microsoft shat out Office for Mac versions with features intentionally removed in order to impede enterprise acceptance of Macs. They won’t stop offering Skype for Mac and iOS, they’ll just dumb those versions down in a vain attempt to get people to buy Windows Phone ’07 and Windows PCs, as if Mac and iOS users haven’t been using FaceTime and/or iChat for years. The good news for the remaining, dwindling Skype user base: Even Microsoft can’t fsck up the UI any worse than it is now.
Keizer reports, “Aapo Markkanen, a senior analyst at ABI Research, saw an opportunity for Microsoft to make good on its promise to support Skype on rival platforms while still emphasizing its own software. ‘I can see them doing a basic version for other platforms, with instant messaging and a calling feature on all handsets, but limit video and conferencing to Windows and Windows Phone,’ Markkanen said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Skype? What is this “Skype” of which they speak?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Microsoft’s Ballmer reportedly tricked into overbidding for Skype by $4.5 billion – May 10, 2011
Skype releases patch for zero-day vulnerability in Skype 5 for Mac – May 10, 2011
Microsoft + Skype = $8.5 billion thrown into a bonfire – May 10, 2011
Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion; company’s largest-ever acquisition – May 10, 2011
IMHO, Skype employees should really start to send their resumes to their network before it’s too late. MSFT will destroy Skype, iCal’ed that!!
Microsoft- Collecting has beens to comiserate
I have been a Mac user and unashamed Apple fan since 1984, but I will continue to use Skype until Apple (or somebody else) offers an alternative that allows me to chat (voice or video) with my father on his PC on a low bandwidth connection in Mogadishu and my 94 year-old grandmother on the iPad 2 (with AT&T 3G) that we got for her to help her stay in touch with family.
I already use FaceTime and iChat whenever possible, but the sad truth is that it isn’t possible as often with those today as it is with Skype. I’m looking forward to Apple opening up FaceTime to 3G and showing us that it can replace Skype for PC users as well.
The absolute necessity for Skype that you just described is exactly why everyone is up in arms about this. Join the club.
I just don’t get it. There’s nothing about Skype that is particularly special. It’s user base isn’t any more valuable than anything else because they don’t make any money. The technology isn’t particularly great, or any greater than anything else. It just seems like a stupid amount to pay.
Don’t forget iView Multimedia Pro. When they bought it, MS promised major improvements and cross-platform development. AFAIK, all they ever did was slap a different name on it (Expression Media), introduce a bug that made the Mac version unreliable, and let it languish in the back of their closet. After years of bungling and neglect, they finally sold it, undoubtedly at a loss, to Phase One.
We are forced to use Office 2008. The Macro’s set up by another company on a PC, do not work in it.
Now it is time to release the Windows version of FaceTime and iChat. It will turn the $8.5 billion investment into $0 billion. Done!
Ballmer, got another $8.5 billion to dump in the trash and accelerate the end of a really bad Microsoft ear!
That simply won’t make any difference. Skype is technologically far superior to all others because it can successfully penetrate practically ALL firewalls and make connections where no other protocol can. And in the hands of Microsoft, it is more than likely that it will lose all of its advangate in that regard. Peter Bright wrote on Ars Technica:
Although Skype is in many ways a better instant messaging and voice/video calling client than Live Messenger, it’s hard to believe that it’s $7 billion better. The Skype client itself is written almost as if it were a piece of malware, using complex obfuscation and anti-reverse engineering techniques, and it would be disquieting for Microsoft to release something that behaved in such a shady way; at the very least, the client would surely have to be rewritten to avoid the obfuscation and outright hostility to managed networks that Skype currently has.
In other words, if Microsoft is to take full ownership of Skype, it will HAVE to re-write it so that it plays nice with firewalls (i.e. it would be embarrassing for MS to officially offer and support such a rogue application). The moment MS does that is the moment Skype loses ALL of its advantage against AIM/iChat, or WLM (Windows Live Messenger), or Yahoo Messenger, or ooVoo, or any other video conferencing software tool.
drop it , we have facetime
“‘We will continue to invest in Skype on non-Microsoft client platforms,’ said Ballmer”
But they are making Mac users “pay” already by putting free downloads up on a dialup type connection which does 12-14 KB/sec.
Skype already doesn’t care about “FREE” accounts.
You are forewarned.
ballmer’s trying to keep all his balls-up in the Air
“Ballmer was adamant that the new Microsoft Skype division would not ditch…”
Yeah, but I ditched Microsoft years ago. Such is the fate of Skype. Bye-bye! 😉
Here’s an unpleasant thought – you know how Skype has, up to this point, been refusing to install “secret” government backdoors to allow eavesdropping and wiretapping?
…yeah, pretty sure the new ownership will bring that refusal to an end pretty quickly.
Still, on the plus side, think of all the “presidential alerts” Skype will soon be able to deliver!