It has now been confirmed that Microsoft have acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in cash. Microsoft and Skype are yet to confirm the deal themselves, but a press conference is expected later today.
This is a great result for all investors in Skype who were starting to get a little nervous about their anticipated IPO later this year.
Who were the big winners in this deal:
- If the price is $8.5 billion. eBay received around $2.55 billion for 30%. Great result!
- Founders – Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis made about $1.19 billion for their 14% stake.
- Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) own 56 percent of the company and that stake is worth $4.76 billion.
It will now be very interesting to see what Microsoft can do with Skype. There is already a lot of talk about Skype on Kinect and we will post a little something about that within the next hour.
Why did Microsoft buy Skype:
- Great enterprise tool that uses Skype voice call, video calling and sharing options
- Relationship with carrier who are looking to partner with Skype
- Mainly for Windows Phone 7. Skype will offer Microsoft a competitor to Google Voice and Apple Facetime
Skype has long had a Linux version and this is a quick guide on how to install Skype on Ubuntu 11.04 Linux. Skype is by far the most popular voip client online and there are more and more users starting to install Ubuntu, so it was very important for Skype to have their Ubuntu and Linux client up to date.
The process is not complicated , and we will do everything using a terminal.
- First install the dependencies, with the command
sudo apt-get install libqt4-dbus libqt4-network libqt4-xml libasound2
- Now download our Skype. For operating systems 32- bit by typing
cd / tmp wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-beta-ubuntu-32
- While for 64-bit systems we type
cd / tmp wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-beta-ubuntu-64
- Time (procedure common to both 32-bit and 64 bit) installed Skype with the command
sudo dpkg-i skype-*. deb
- to install and finish the installation of Skype.
sudo apt-get -f install
Its been reported that Skype’s IPO is being pushed back to the second half of 2011. It was thought that the IPO would take place early this year, but apparently the company’s newly appointed CEO Tony Bates is looking for more time to get Skype “in better shape.”
From the Wall Street Journal report: “Tony needs to get his feet underneath him and understand the business and the voice of the company,” another person familiar with the matter said. “The intention is to go when Tony is ready and when the macroeconomic climate allows the company to go.” The additional time may help Mr. Bates to get Skype in better shape and increase its value ahead of an offering. But there is also the risk the IPO market weakens, hurting Skype’s chance to go public or depressing the value of the company.
On Thursday Skype users experienced error messages when attempting to sign into their accounts. For many users it was initially thought that there must be a mishap with their password, and many of us were even double checking our screen names, but it was not long until many us took to Twitter and the Skype forums complaining that Skype was having issues. It’s been reported that users who were already logged in did not experience the problems, but those that attempted to sign on during the 3.5 hours it was down were being rejected.
The problems disrupted communications world wide, though it appears North America was the hardest hit. Users were forced to find alternative means to communicate, which was not so much the issue, but at the time Skype’s Twitter messages and website was offering up little more than what we already knew, that the service was experiencing problems.
If you go to both Skype’s blog and their Twitter page, there is never a definite answer as to what the issue was. There’s a lot of “standby” and “we’ll be up and running soon,” but no tangible explanation as to what happened. Kudos to Skype for keeping us informed and even redirecting people to follow their Twitter account due to the heavy load on their site, specifically in the forums, but what happened with sharing what caused down downtime in the beginning?
Finally, VoIP calling has been given an official place on the iPhone after much confusion and anger when several VoIP apps were rejected or restricted by Apple last year.
iCall is a new service which has just been announced for the iPhone 3G and the iPad SDK. This comes just hours after Apple dropped restrictions on VoIP services (maybe in an attempt to sugar coat the iPad given the lack of phone features?).
Despite the ‘Why?’, this is great news for all iPhone users. Skype should now be able to flourish on the iPhone and Google Voice will undoubtedly be given a place in the app store even though it was previously banned and the two companies are now at war with one another.
I’m looking forward to trying out some 3G video conferencing and testing out the quality of VoIP over a 3G network. The fact that the iPad doesn’t have a camera may hold it back in this regard but I guess it’s better than nothing.It’s about time Apple started paying attention to the needs of the customer instead of bowing to every demand of AT&T.
