Microsoft’s Ballmer reportedly tricked into overbidding for Skype by $4.5 billion

15 years ago

“With Microsoft having confirmed its acquisition of Skype, sources tell TechCrunch Europe that Redmond outbid its closest rival, Google, by almost two-to-one,” Steve O’Hear reports for TechCrunch. “Meanwhile, Facebook is said to have never been in the running.”

O’Hear reports, “According to a source who claims knowledge of talks held between all parties, Google came in second at a price of $4B, while Microsoft will be paying $8.5B.”

MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft. We like their “strategy.” We like it a lot.

O’Hear reports, “Meanwhile, according to our sources, Facebook was never actually in the running to buy Skype and may have simply been inadvertently used to turn up the heat on Microsoft to push through a deal. Facebook was never approached, says one source, but that this didn’t stop rumors that the social networking site was “sniffing around”, a tactic often employed to close a deal.”

Read more in the full article here.

Om Malik writes for GigaOM, “It won’t surprise me if Microsoft comes in for major heat on this decision to buy Skype — and the software company could always botch this purchase, as it often does when it buys a company. The Skype team is also full of hired guns who are likely to move on to the next opportunity rather than dealing with the famed Microsoft bureaucracy. I also don’t believe Facebook and Google were serious buyers. Google, with its Google Voice offering, doesn’t really need Skype. In essence, I feel Microsoft was bidding against itself.”