The title says it all, including the theory - after all, why not.

MS has learned from the past that if it wants to get aghead it needs to do so correctly, swiftly and do so with a good product; remember the "Browser Wars" and the late arrival of a working version of IE and all the (rightly) bad press and huge fines that followed.

With verbal worldwide communications of the VOIP variety, what better way to do that than with the current market leader that MS is buying - Skype.

MS have easily enough time to fully integrate Skype or at least the technology and everything behind the scenes into its next OS even if it has another name, of course MS would have to make it either optional during installation or have it un-installable as per EU regulations and to avoid gigantic fines.

What would MS gain from this though.? (we are talking money and market dominance, it is MS after all) I cant say for certain myself, mostly because I have no real need to use skype and have not used it a lot myself and I have no idea if Skype even makes money, however MS have just teamed up with Nokia and future Nokia products will be mostly (all.?) Windows, G3 communications are rife in the developed world and G4 is not too far off, and both are exploding worldwide, tablets are all the rage and mobile comminications are a domininant force across much of the globe.

Well that about said it really. MS are looking to the future with Skype, not just their usual tactic of market dominance, but market dominance in a field that is still growing, and has a guge amount of further potential to be released with the help of Nokia, Tablets and G4 mobile broadband. Add to that the possible integration into Windows 8 and the fact that for a few years now laptops have been outselling desktops and you have a recipie that looks good for MS.

I think this is a smart move from MS and only time will tell if my prediction(s) are correct.


Andy

It has potential to permit them (or their partners) to circumvent and/or compete against traditional cellular carriers. Remember when Google freed up the bandwidth at the last auction to make it available to all devices?

All that is missing is the bandwidth. And that appears to be on the way. The only thing standing between them and mobile market dominance is Google and Apple.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes Microsoft to find out that installing or upgrading Skype includes an offer to install the Google toolbar. As to the future, what I think is more likely is that free Skype for all will not last. Skype reportedly lost 70 million USD last year and I don't see Microsoft tolerating that. While it does have 500+ million users I would suspect that the vast majority only make the free Skype to Skype calls, and very few regular cellular or land line calls. Given this scenario I would expect to see something like a free Skype basic, and a paid for Skype Premium or some such arrangement in future. After all, the alternative to Skype is what?

I failed to expand on this in my first post, I should have compared it to the late arrival of "Internet Explorer" into the market - (now updated).

I think that this is MS attempting to play catch-up in a big way, and much earlier than with IE and the "browser wars", so they must have learned something from the past - this is certainly not a short-term battle, this is a long term war and MS has (will) make a very big dent with Windows 8 and the deal with Nokia. Also note that MS has already said that they will make a version of Windows 8 that runs on ARM chips (very common in smart phones), it all adds up now - a very clever and broad-ranging strategy from MS.



That would be hilarious to see but as we all know from using free software, their "free included software" changes quite often depending on internal deals and hard ca$h I only have to mention included "web browsers" and "antivirus software"



I cant see MS "selling" the software, or even "selling" the currently free service that they offer, rather MS would loose that tiny sum of money to hurt their competitors - it wouldnt be the first time they have run a "loss-leader".



I think that is likely, but slightly more discretely done as they will soon be covering Mobiles, Tablets, Laptops and Desktops, I think that it is likeley that they will make "custom versions" rather than "cut down versions", after all it doesnt just sound better is actually makes some sense on small low-resolution screens without any spare pixels.



Which is why I think that this is a strategy by MS and not just a bungling effort of some kind, and they are strating with a form of attack, which as some say is better than defence.


Andy

The biggest threat to Microsoft is Google, and in particular Google's Android smart phone and tablet operating system. Apart from providing some serious competition to Apple, Android has more or less brought Nokia to its knees. This was caused by Nokia holding onto the Symbian operating system for too long. As of now, Nokia is tied to Microsoft and the Windows 7 for phones mobile OS in an attempt to compete with Android. Time will tell if this strategy will work - I suspect not, purely because there is too much intertia behind Android now, despite some issues with it. I see the smartphone/tablet market as a straight fight between Apple and Android.

Windows 8 on ARM is I think a separate issue. At present there is only one ARM based "desktop" PC which is the Trim-Slice which has Tegra 2 hardware. It has a remarkably low power consumption, reportedly between 2 and 6W but so far has only run early versions of specially modified Ubuntu and Google Chrome. As ARM die-shrinks its CPUs I would expect their processing power and the number of cores to grow to the stage where ARM equipped machines would become a viable alternative to conventional PCs. This also relies on similar developments by the graphics vendors such as nVidia. ARM is on .40 technology now, but I would expect to see .28 next year and maybe .22 the year after. I would not expect there to be any significant increase in the power requirements. So while ARM today is not a threat to the conventional PC, I would expect that maybe in 2012 and certainly in 2013 an ARM netbook and/or laptop would be feasible hardware wise. And as Microsoft showed with the first generation of netbooks which in many cases launched with Linux, the average user is still more at home with Windows and for that reason Windows 8 on ARM will almost certainly appear.

Skype is already used by Android smart phone users, particularly on wi-fi links, as there is an official Skype for Android. There is no Skype on Windows 7 phones, but before the sale it had been pre-announced for Q3 of this year. Apple has Face View, which is their alternative to Skype. So I don't see Skype fitting into any grand strategic plan by Microsoft, I think that they need to work out first of all how to make it profitable without alienating its current user base. Moving to a subscription of some sort is one possibility, using it as a vehicle for advertising is another, or maybe it could be both.

That is all valid. But Apple and Google are just as big and apparently more agile. Not the same as the browser wars.

At least whoever looses, we will win... at least as long as the struggle goes on until there is a winner. That winner will then stick us with the tab for the struggle.

See:
Intel's new Ivy Bridge Transistors Challenge ARM - Analysts
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=62240

Intel announcement on 22nm node and Ivy Bridge implications
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=62200

Intel Haswell CPU - a Quantum Jump in CPU Performance?
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=62186

I both agree and disagree, both Apple and Google are serious forces, both have their followers and both have killed off Nokia albeit with the help of Nokia not keeping up with the pace of the market. MS has so far not done very well in the phone market, but as you say that you dont expect that Googles Android can be caught up with - you may be wrong, I am keeping an open mind on the subject - also dont forget RIM, I use a Blackberry and I am very happy with it - here is a big "what if" for you, "what if" RIM and MS/Nokia came up with some kind of deal regarding Skype that would help both of them combat Apple and Google - who will never make a pact.


Andy

semiaccurate.com Article titled: "Microsoft Death Watch* – Microsoft Buys Skype"
http://semiaccurate.com/2011/05/11/micr ... uys-skype/

Perhaps they have something to contribute to the dialog

To be honest, I don't get Microsoft a lot of the time.

I never understood the Browser Wars. Internet Explorer is free. Why care if people use Netscape (or today: Firefox, Chrome, Opera) ?

Now Skype. It's basically the admission that the Windows Live Messenger was a failure. And what did they make that for in the first place? Everybody was using ICQ or AOL. Why did Microsoft try to push another service that was free.

The only way to make money off Skype is by painting it with Ads, which is what I heard Microsoft is planning. This is also the best way to quickly ruin the service. You could also start charging for it, but then a lot of people would wonder why they should use it, with mobile plans and flatrates becoming cheaper and cheaper.

I really don't see how they'll ever get any kind of ROI for those 8.5 billion dollars. That is so frickin' much money.

I never understood why Google bought Youtube for 1.5 billion either. Don't think they've seen a penny of that yet. But they're trying something with movie rentals now that has potential. Though tagging rentals onto Google Video would have had the same effect.
Can't see Microsoft finding a similar moneymaker for Skype.

Then again, Google and Facebook wanted to pour a sh*tload of money out for Skype too. What am I missing?

Unlike a lot of rumours this could make some sense.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/dis ... umour.html


Andy

Look like I was right just read any news story about Windows 8 and you will find your answer, Windows 8 (mobile version at least) will come with Skype.

And on a side note, I was half right about MS buying Nokia, instead of direct control over a phone maker, they are using that phone maker as a major launch pad for Windows phone OS's including Windows 8 mobile.


Andy

Deleted my error, so sorry.

What are you talking about?

Windows 8 Release Preview is free.
Windows 8 upgrade (from XP/Vista/7) will cost $40.

Yes I blew it.

Any feel another anti-competition investigation into MS by the EU anytime soon? They got in trouble for making Internet Explorer compulsory so then had to offer a choice of web browsers, this is pretty similar. The world would be better off with SIP based VOIP software but this will push Skype to a level of dominance that could be abused.

I suspect that the fear of another £500 million fine will make sure that they comply with the wishes of the courts RE: monopoly's.

If they were to be sensible what the would do is to include the "installer" for it in the OS, but leave the option open to the end user if they wanted to play safe. Although as we have already seen with IE in W7, it seems to be OK to include IE already installed - the difference here is that unlike XP it can be uninstalled - so again this seems to be an option.

Either way, its operation should be pretty seamless if they have done it right and that must be a benefit to the average user - after all no-one complained about MS Messenger which basically did what Skype does in the PC to PC way, but Skype adds the ability to call phone numbers and not MSN users.

I don't use Skype or any other VOIP software as I simply don't need to, if MS do this right, I might just start using it if/when I upgrade to W8.


Andy