Skype Officially Belongs to Microsoft Now

By Jane McEntegart
published

All t's have been crossed and all i's are dotted.

Microsoft announced that its acquisition of Skype, which was first announced five months ago, has been finalized. Microsoft revealed plans to purchase Skype way back in May of this year. At the time, the two companies said they hoped to obtain all the required regulatory clearances before the end of this calendar year, and it looks like they got their wish.

In a press release sent out Friday morning, Microsoft confirmed that it had closed the deal, and revealed that Skype CEO Tony Bates will now report directly to Steve Ballmer in his new role as president of the new Skype Division of Microsoft. Skype employees will continue to be located around the world in offices including Estonia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.

"Skype is a phenomenal product and brand that is loved by hundreds of millions of people around the world," said Steve Ballmer. "We look forward to working with the Skype team to create new ways for people to stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues — anytime, anywhere."

Speaking via a post on the Official Microsoft Blog, Tony Bates said:

"Joining forces with Microsoft is the best way to accelerate this mission and capitalize on our position at the intersection of social, mobile and video communications. Simply put, we want to transform communications. We will do this by building the best products in the world that allow all of us to do things together whenever we’re apart and by creating teams who work faster and smarter across the globe building those world-class products."

He also appeared in a special video uploaded to Microsoft's YouTube channel. Check it out below.

Jane McEntegart
35 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Yrahcaz91
    Video link broken...
    "The URL contained a malformed video ID"
    Reply
  • DjEaZy
    ... they gonna hear you now... boo...
    Reply
  • Shin-san
    Hopefully Skype won't die a slow death from this.
    Reply
  • de5_Roy
    darn... microsoft will now spyke on users and skypnet will take over the world!!! :P
    Reply
  • makaveli316
    they should implement Skype in the next windows
    Reply
  • synd
    It would be super cool if they somehow magically combine Windows Live Messenger and Skype without losing tons of people in the process.
    Many people like me need both programs to communicate with most people which is quite some trouble :/
    Reply
  • SirGCal
    As if Skype wasn't bad enough before... Now it's just going to get worse and worse... and yet it was the best option we had...
    Reply
  • Hold on, didn't Facebook acquire part of Skype? Does this mean Microsoft owns part of Facebook? Or even Facebook owns a part of Microsoft?
    Reply
  • jn77
    Time to stop using skype and Microapple prodcucts
    Reply
  • anon_wa
    Another dumb move by the billionaires at Microsoft. You can always expect the team at microsoft to spend billions on a technology that makes no sense, when they have lync. Has anyone even thought about this, or relaying propaganda. Lync already does all of this the skype does. Has anyone even thought about why they paid for this? This is the worst and final bad decision Ballmer is going to make. The fact is they just thew away billions on a company that was having trouble paying the books. They bought a company that was in debt. How are they going to make anything and get the billions back? They never will, its will be put on the taxpayers. The lose will be written off like no big deal, cause they can always pay off the local politicians and run ads promoting their kindness around all the homeless people that surrounds their buildings. If you ever been to Washignton and see the amount of people living outside, I doubt the carnival would last much longer. They figure its best to take on as much debt as possible so they can make the poor people pay for their losses. Why do you think they are still headquartered in Washington state. Cause they get kickbacks and the taxpayers pay for loss. Its the biggest racket yet. The world will know when its all over how they still had so much cash, when they have been in debt and LOSING for ten years and NOT selling os'. They have been writing off losses and coooking the books by office moves.

    They are the biggest problem for the internet community and other internet companies as they are representing the wroung way to do business. Rape from the poor, overcharge for a product that takes them 100k to create and they make billions in profit while the poor people still can not afford to buy anything.

    I worked at Microsoft TEN times. 10 time Microsoft worker and I never could afford to buy their own PC! Did I tell you that I have stood in line at the foodbank while working at Microsoft! Did I =tell you I could never afford gasoline to make it to work. I starved when working at microsoft, I could never afford to use the the products I helped create! I have worked on the biggest products released the past ten years. I could never afford to buy their products. They even give workers a discount for their stuff, but this was a discount I could get looking online for the same stuff. Again they provided me with a discount, touted around and promoted that employees get this wonderful discount at their shop on campus. NOT. This discount can be found just doing a simple search online. They are the biggest PROFITEERS and have HURT the evolution of the computer age. They represent the wrong way of life for everyone. People living just a few miles from their offices CAN NOT afford XP. Yet they would rather put XP intot he trashcan and let more people starve. There are people holding signs up on corners surrounding their offices. THese are people who have worked for them, after they are done, its back to the street. They do not care, only PROFIT is their main concern. Money is all they want. They have no purpose in the new world. They should be eradicated when the banks go. All the profiteers should be brought to real justice. The CRIMES they commit are silent and they pay others to keep quiet. They use lawyers and sideshow companies to do their dirty work. They worst company in the land that breeds business practices for the indu=stry for other to follow. They are evil and their profits display the need for reform and imprisonment. Greed kills, its just that never makes the news....
    Reply