For those that do not know Skype is a program that allows you to create a free on-line account which can send and receive free calls to other Skype users. Skype was started about seven years ago (2003) by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis - a couple of Danes with a penchant for "file sharing". They had previously created Kazaa - a file sharing app which was synonymous with music piracy until LimeWire took over.
Skype runs on a magic internet protocol that does not require any sort of "master servers" (which made it different than things like Napster which kept a big list in one place - easy to do and easy to be sued). Skype sort of digs around on its own to find "routes" for calls through other Skype users computers. This means that its quite robust in terms of call quality and service and it means that Skype always seems to be able to complete the call (this was not always the case in the beginning but its vastly improved at this point).
Over the years it has steadily expanded to include a myriad of features including free video calls and video conference calls.
Today you can purchase "local numbers" in other countries, route calls to or from those numbers to Skype voicemail, call over WiFi from a smartphone or iPad, and so on. Its very flexible and fairly easy to use (though customer service is in Latvia, Lithuania or someplace like that and they have some odd ideas about how web sites should work).
There are also "Skype Phones" which you can buy at Walmart that connect directly to Skype.
Lexigraph uses a Vonage line for the main business number which forwards directly into Skype. Skype then makes the voicemail and/or calls available on my email, phone, and so on. We also use it when employees travel to foreign countries like Thailand, Japan, China or to Europe. WiFi calls are free and most technologically advanced countries have lots of free WiFi spots. Compared to using phone systems in the past this costs virtually nothing (I pay about $11 USD per month for my current setup).
The only thing Skype needs is a way for it take over your main phone number. Once it can do that that will be the end of my Vonage accounts. Right now you can only receive a number they assign you. Hence the Vonage number forwarded to Skype. (Vonage also has online voicemail but its not as flexible.)
eBay purchased Skype from Zennstrom and Friis in 2005 for about $2.6 billion USD. Unfortunately I do not think it was a good fit and it was sold to some private equity people in 2009.
Today the WSJ announced that Microsoft is acquiring Skype for $8.5 billion USD.
This is probably not good news for us Skype users in the long run. If Microsoft doesn't fiddle around with how it works I can see things going well. However, if they start to meddle with the business model things could go down hill quickly.
Microsoft does not have a good reputation on the consumer end (remember the Zune). While they tend to pour lots (perhaps too much) of money into this type of stuff they often do not understand the business model or customer mind set.
The advantage today of Skype is that its Skype - free and independent of any corporate nonsense but their own.
If Microsoft leaves things alone it will be fine - but after spending $8.5 billion USD for a company without substantial profits I doubt that will remain the case.
If Microsoft were smart they could work at spending time and money on making Skype even more ubiquitous - free calls from anywhere to anywhere 24x7.
But that would undermine their Windows Phone OS sales... (oops - maybe they forgot about their phone business).
Then again they could add things like GoToMeeting which would allow better sharing of desktops and things like that for their corporate users.
All in all I don't see that Microsoft will do much good for Skype. Skype is a quirky little deal that, for someone like me who is small, works very well. Its cheap and easy to use and since my business relies on the internet anyway there is no concern if the internet is down - nothing will get done anyway.
(Though I do have Comcast business service and run two independent WiFi's - one on the Comcast consumer side and one on the business side - both over the same wire. What I see is that the consumer side goes down a lot and flakes out while the business side keeps chugging along. Since their are on the same wire its clearly a routing issue for Comcast. In any case Skype over Comcast business works quite well...)
My predictions for this deal are simple:
A) nothing at all will happen for a year.
B) Microsoft will start to meddle at the fringes by trying to increase the reach of Skype until they realize that with Skype you don't really need a very smart phone if you live where WiFi is plentiful. Since Microsoft is in the phone business this will become a problem.
C) They will loose interest and it will languish because no one will want to over pay to buy it back.
If I were Microsoft I would make sure that Skype replaced all the existing GoToMeeting type stuff.
I would go to war with smart/cellphones replacing them with Skype-like services - smartphones that knew when there was WiFi and simply routed the calls away from the cellphone to WiFi.
We'll see what happens...
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