MS Skype - The answer to Google Voice?

What is Microsoft's rationale?

a) new business venture for MS. It has been riding high on its sharepoint offering and the impending cloud implementation of it.

b) it means no skype for google or cisco.

there's your rationale.

Impedimenta wrote:a) new business venture for MS. It has been riding
high on its sharepoint offering and the impending cloud implementation
of it.

Microsoft has not being doing so well with their big acquisitions lately. So why overpay for this one?

Impedimenta wrote:

b) it means no skype for google or cisco.

there's your rationale.

Why would Google want to acquire Skype? Especially when they are developing their own offering. Is Cisco even in the picture here?

Didn't eBay pay a bundle for Skype many years ago? It's not often that one company gets two large public companies pay a fortune for it! My own hunch is that MS will do just as badly with Skype as eBay did.

Hellsangel wrote:Is Cisco even in the picture here?

Cisco has webEx.

charvaka wrote:Didn't eBay pay a bundle for Skype many years ago? It's not often that one company gets two large public companies pay a fortune for it! My own hunch is that MS will do just as badly with Skype as eBay did.

I read this morning that eBay might have made 40% profit due to this MS deal.

I think MS has opportunities for better integration with their existing products than eBay ever did. So, they should definitely do better. I don't fully understand the rationale for eBay to buy Skype, but it was supposed to augment the buyer-seller communications on their auction/retail site. They just had a lot of money during those days and simply bought the coolest technology toy on the market without fully thinking it through.

these tech stalwarts of the 90s - namely cisco, dell, hwp, msft, intc, nok etc are now largely run by tired old management whos' time has passed by like 5 years ago. for the next 5 to 6 yrs they'll stumble along, getting weaker and weaker with every desperation acquisition they over pay for. this process has already happened in the telecom industry like 10 yrs ago and bankrupted a bunch of companies. even google is in it's second innings - you can see where they're finding it harder and harder to replicate their successes of the past 8 yrs.

i think MSFT should buy out sulekha for queen's ransom and that will put an end to its misery, one way or the other.

rediff was once close to buying out sulekha. that was back in 2001. then the dotcom bubble happened (or had just happened). it's remarkable that sulekha has weathered all the busts and booms of the IT industry -- it is one of the oldest. i'm also a bit surprised why it hasn't been bought out yet.

mr kapasi, you can buy it out with all that surplus cash your business has. imagine the advantages - you won't be kicked out. ever. to name one.

what will maria, QB, kripa, seva and sandilya do if i buy out sulekha and change the site's name to kapasi forums? of course, they will move here.

It is to let down google's voice. Every corp uses MS outlook and having a voice with outlook is a sweet deal for MS to let down google voice. Xbox live could fetch them advertisement dollars as well.

Good deal for MS.

Who uses google voice in corporates?

Who uses google voice in corporates?

They don't have to login to google or use the google voice app in their windows phone or any phone to use outlook. Already outlook has bing internet search. It means that they consider android as a threat and want to be competative with google. They are getting ready!

Btw...are they gonna rename skype as -bingv (Bing it is not google voice)

Bingv is not google voice...

I thought we can edit posts here...no?

Sasthi wrote:
They don't have to login to google or use the google voice app in their windows phone or any phone to use outlook. Already outlook has bing internet search. It means that they consider android as a threat and want to be competative with google. They are getting ready!

Btw...are they gonna rename skype as -bingv (Bing it is not google voice)

I do not understand how skype will help them with android. They can integrate it for better corporate sharing applications (like webex) or with their Xbox offering.

BTW you been ageing very fast

Ppl keep downloading all those google voice app and they want their share of money in that area - just copying g...that is what they do and throw in some extra stuff.

Anyways, yes...can you believe it! I am already 61. It's bad it did not allow >99....age discrimination...i tell ya.

gn.

Sasthi wrote:Ppl keep downloading all those google voice app and they want their share of money in that area - just copying g...that is what they do and throw in some extra stuff.

Anyways, yes...can you believe it! I am already 61. It's bad it did not allow >99....age discrimination...i tell ya.

gn.

.Wonder if Goog makes anything out of google voice. Hope MS knows what they are doing.

Age >99 is reserved for Upps. He has been demanding reservation for long.

here's a long winded yet accurate reading of the history of mr softie why this purchase of skype is largely irrelevant. PS: the latest victoria secret swimsuit edition is terrific. especially the back cover...

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Since the mid-nineties, I have nurtured a thesis about the dotcom bubble, tech bust, and the role Microsoft played in it. The opportunity to discuss it has never came up.

That is, until Microsoft’s purchase of Skype yesterday.

I have long argued that while Microsoft might have begun life as a software firm, it long ago morphed into something that was more a very clever IP/marketing firm with a huge tactical legal advantage that gave rise to a monopoly, rather than a true technology company.

Microsoft remains hugely profitable today, but increasingly irrelevant. Their purchase of Skype is an attempt to buy back some relevance. They are the rich, uncool fat kid at school, trying desperately to buy their way into some popularity. On a spectrum of relevance, where would you place MSFT: Are they closer to Google or Apple or Facebook or Twitter, or are they more comparable to the Maytag repairman of the tech world?

Let’s back up a bit, and look at Microsoft’s history, including the impact they had on other technology in the 1990s.

The first PC was given to the world in 1980 by IBM. The mainframe giant looked down upon the idea of a personal computer for home or even business use. The PC was insignificant, never to replace the big iron they made. In 1981, they happily outsourced the operating system to Gates’ geeks, who themselves outsourced the OS code writing. By 1982, MS-DOS was released.

Embedded within that original IBM deal was the seed of Microsoft’s vast fortunes. Microsoft’s true genius was in their license agreements of MS-DOS (and Windows) to computer manufacturers. They offered a variety of different licenses, but the version that charged the least per copy included a clever kicker: Microsoft had to be paid for every machine sold, regardless of whether MS-DOS was the operating system.

Of course, the PC makers gravitated to the cheapest option. Hence, that clever licensing trick led to both a monopoly in Operating Systems and an eventual FTC and Justice department Anti-Trust lawsuit.

Thus, Microsoft had their deal with the devil: Their lightning in a bottle was not some awesome technology or brilliant breakthrough – it was a legal clause that led to enormous monopoly power. That was the prime basis of their success. They pre-installed Office in Windows, creating a second near monopoly and billions more in profits. They also had all sorts of dirty tricks, like undisclosed APIs that other software developers did not know of and could not use. They bullied competitors and friends alike. But that is another discussion entirely.

The monopoly profits they accrued were ginormous, but it made Mister Softee fat and fuzzy headed. True innovation was not to be their strength; they may have been competitive, but they were not hungry. Theirs was a one shot, never-to- be-repeated, decade-long “moment” of glory.

Throughout the 1980s and even more so in the early ‘90s, all manner of potentially competitive software products were conceived elsewhere. yet many of these were stillborn. Why? They had a very difficult time getting funding or venture investments. One question — “The Question” — was a perennial problem. In Silicon Valley, in Venture Capital conference rooms, in garages, in the offices of potential start ups, “The Question” resonated again and again:

“What about Microsoft?”


Or asked in greater detail: “What is there to stop Microsoft from putting out their own version of this idea, integrating it into DOS or Windows, or giving it away for free?”

The answer was usually, “Nothing.” There was nothing that prevented the Redmond behemoth from copying the basic concept, making it part of Windows. If that happened, how you could you possibly sell something MSFT was giving away free with every PC?

Handshakes all around, thanks for coming by, sorry, wish we could do something, but we just cannot help you.

Countless ideas, apps, utilities, programs, businesses, start ups were thwarted . . . That was, until the rise of the internet. Freed from the oppressive Microsoft monopoly, it became a viable competitor to the desktop. Microsoft had neither strategic nor tactical advantages there. As soon as an opportunity arose to get out from under Bill Gates’ thumb, tech companies leaped at it.

A million flowers bloomed.

Entrepreneurs, geeks, VCs, coders, two guys in a garage – suddenly, it was possible to develop a web-based product or site without the beast from Redmond breathing down your neck.

Early stage investors, angels, VCs threw billions of dollars at tens of thousands of companies. A Cambrian explosion of life took place once firms could develop without the threat of Microsoft hovering over them. The enormity of the potential, the vast amounts of start up money was no longer oppressed by the shadow of Gates & Co.

Freed from the tyranny of their OS overlord, a massive outpouring of technological innovation and creativity occurred. More than a growth spurt, this was the modern equivalent of the Industrial Revolution: Mobile Telecom, Gaming, Storage, Web Sites, Broadband, e-commerce, Microprocessor Development, and all manners of related technologies flourished once “The Question” was no longer an impediment.

At the same time, Microsoft had grown fat and wealthy and complacent: They became a Wall Street darling and founder Bill Gates became the wealthiest man in the world. But, the company lost its drive and whatever creativity it had. The history of Microsoft is not one of innovation – most of its major products were purchased, copied or stolen – but it quickly became a utility, with Windows and subsequent replacements a necessary evil to maker computers operate.

And what of their Innovation today? Microsoft has missed just about every major trend in computing over the past decade. They missed Search, they missed MP3 players, had to buy webmail, missed user generated content, maps,blogging, online video, cloud computing, location sensitive apps, smart phones, Apps, texting, social networking, tablets, micro-blogging (ie, Twitter). On and on goes the list of latest and greatest technologies, with MSFT nowhere to be seen.

The list of recent Microsoft innovations is astonishingly short. They were always better copiers than they were innovators; even now, they seem to have forgotten how to steal effectively. They may have bought their way into gaming, dropping several billion dollars to become competitive, develop the X-Box and buying Bungie — but all in, it is hardly a winner for them.

And now their latest ill-advised, wildly over-priced, $8.6 billion purchase of Skype. It is their attempt to buy their way into the Smart Phones, yet another innovation they missed. It is their attempt once again to purchase relevancy.

The rich fat kid just wants to be cool . . .

another compelling piece from the other side of the equation: why google passed on skype. makes a lot of sense....not buying older technology based on p2p which is a thing of the past.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/why-google-does-not-own-skype/


So Microsoft is buying Skype for $8.5 billion, its biggest deal ever. It’s too soon to make a pronouncement on whether the purchase is an idiot move, a brilliant one or just something in between. All the geniuses who ripped the investors who bought Skype from eBay in 2009 don’t look so smart now.

But I will recount a bit of history that readers of In the Plex already know: It was almost Google who owned Skype.

Here’s more detail on the story:

In 2009 a brilliant product manager named Wesley Chan was in charge of Google Voice, which was still in development. It was Google’s revamp of Grand Central, which Chan had snared in an acquisition the year before. When some Google executives heard that eBay was selling Skype, they jumped on the opportunity and began negotiating.

As Chan helped with due diligence, even going to Europe to see Skype firsthand, he became convinced that the purchase was a bad idea for Google. He concluded that one of Skype’s key assets — its peer-to-peer technology — was a mismatch for Google, which worked on the newer paradigm of cloud computing.

“The worst thing about peer-to-peer is that it doesn’t work well with Google,” Chan told me during an amazing interview for In the Plex in February 2010. “Peer-to-peer just eats up your bandwidth, right, it’s like the old technology.” So if Google bought Skype, Chan concluded, it would have to rewrite the entire Skype platform. Worse, buying Skype would have involved an extensive review process by the government, involving the Department of Justice or the FCC or both. Chan figured that it would take 18-24 months to get through that process, during which Google would be at a standstill in the space. “It would’ve been disastrous,” he said.

But Google was well along on its hunt. “Everybody wanted to do it,” Chan said, “Eric [Schmidt] was bullish on it. And I said, ‘Uh-uh.’”

It was then that Wesley Chan began his plan to derail the deal. Chan happened to be close to a number of people who are unheralded powers at Google, mainly early Googlers close to Larry Page and Sergey Brin whose opinions are highly regarded. One of those was Salar Kamangar, one of Google’s first 10 employees and the co-creator of AdWords. (He is now the CEO of YouTube.) After Chan explained his objections, Kamanger was on board to scuttle the deal.

“Salar and I laid the grenades,” Chan told me. According to Chan, the pair went to Brin and convinced him it was a terrible deal. Then, Chan said, they brainstormed a plan to sabotage the deal in a key meeting of top executives, a gathering that presumably was likely to wind up blessing the purchase otherwise.

The idea was to bait-and-switch: The executives in favor of the deal would assume that everything was on track, and Chan and his allies would use shock and awe to turn things around. Chan said that he began the meeting by praising the deal. “I even had a [PowerPoint] deck that was super supportive of it,” he said.

But, according to Chan, halfway through the deck, Brin seized the floor “and started getting really negative.” “He asked a series of questions that he knew would get unsatisfactory answers. Is this purchase data-driven? Who is going to spend all those months commuting to Europe? (No one stepped up.) How long is the government review expected to take? As Chan had figured, the advocates of the deal were unprepared to respond to these last-minute objections.

Chan then described the climatic moment. “[Sergey] looks at me and says, ‘Why would I want this risk? We have a team capable of building the carrier, we have the users, we have hundreds of millions of Gmail users, why do we need to have Skype?’ And at that point, Sergey gets up and says, ‘This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen.’ And Eric gets up and walks out of the room, and I’m like, okay, the deal’s off.” And it was.

After he described this to me, I asked Chan what Larry Page was doing in all this.

“Larry was kind of, oh, whatever,” Chan said. “He was checking his laptop. I don’t think he was the one that really cared about this as much [as Eric].”

Now of course, Larry is in charge of Google and fully engaged. I wonder what he’s thinking about Microsoft’s Skype deal, which is grabbing headlines just as Google’s I/O conference gets underway.

At least it wasn’t Facebook making the buy.

MS is not buying to Skype to look cool. There is nothing cool in Skype. Xbox Kinect is cool. MS acted as abully when it could but any suggestions that they did not do anything is preposterous. Office is one of the best software out there. Windows 7 is pretty good and at the cost of sounding like a fanboi, Windows 7 mobile is good as well. Xbox did well and Kinect is a real thing. Yes they bought technology for Kinect but so have Apple/Google etc.

dont read that too literally. the author's saying that MS is like a fat rich boy that tries to buy the coolness of an apple by overpaying for skype whose time has passed. next they're gonna try to overpay for another has been (research in motion) and team up with a near dead (nokia) to come up with the world's most expensive dud.

Cool is all about perception. Apple will always be cool and MS will never be. Microsoft's products were geeky, Apple were artistic. MS makes a big chunk of their money from Enterprise and my guess is that they will try to do the same with Skype. They will try to integrate Skype with Outlook/MS communicator, windows 7 mobile or even Xbox. Kinect and Skype can make for good game time and even become a good mean of video communication. At teh end of the day it may be yet another dud but it is probably going to find an auxillary to their other businesses.

That's a nice article. The inner workings of google are interesting

I was actually disappointed by the story of Google. It just seemed like any other company with tonnes of internal strikfe. Was hoping (wishing?) that they worked more objectively. This seemed like a trick of catching people unprepared. Expected a better culture there.

why? coz of larry & sergey's marketing tagline "dont be evil"? they still take a dump in the morning and dream abt banging each other's girlfriends, dont they?

Not about being evil but about being cool. They have a more open culture in daya to day life compared to other companies.

You are right about all the things about tech stalwarts. When they grow big, this type of agenda driven decision making takes over and the CEO becomes powerless to implement his vision/plans.

artood2 wrote:I was actually disappointed by the story of Google. It just seemed like any other company with tonnes of internal strikfe. Was hoping (wishing?) that they worked more objectively. This seemed like a trick of catching people unprepared. Expected a better culture there.

That's what I found interesting... so much like other small-to-medium sized companies. If they ever make a company without internal politics, it will have only robots for employees.

charvaka wrote:That's what I found interesting... so much like other small-to-medium sized companies. If they ever make a company without internal politics, it will have only robots for employees.

That article quoted a lot fo employee names directly. Wonder how that impacts them.

of the ppl quoted, that iranian guy is now the CEO of youtube, wesley chan is an internal VC of sorts, sergey and larry run the company and the only likely dissenter eric schmidt is out of the company.

Looks like people got duly rewarded for their efforts.