Skype is due to aquired by Microsoft soon

May 13, 2011, Silicon Valley, California- By now you’ve probably heard that Microsoft is buying Skype (pending regulatory approval). This is Microsoft’s biggest acquisition to date at $8.5 billion, and Skype’s second acquisition (it’s already been bought and sold by eBay). Since Skype’s release from eBay, it has been quite busy adding features and functionality, and even making some acquisitions of its own, such as that of live streaming video service Qik.
Some analyst says it is just to beat Google the giant web search engine with thousands of free features, by adding multiple services to its platform which Microsoft had tried for several times in the past as well.

Skype has a reported 663 million registered users and 145 million average connected users. The company recently announced a record of 30 million users online at the same time.
The deal has enormous implications, not only for Microsoft’s own offerings, but for the industry at large. There are also plenty of concerns. Let’s get to those first.

Concerns

Clearly, Skype has a big user base, and users have the right to be worried about what is going to become of their beloved service in the hands of a giant like Microsoft. Especially considering Microsoft’s track record of acquisitions (laid out its graphic nature here).
Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read Write Web brings up some reasonable fears, such as product neglect and malware issues. “Will Skype in 14 years look like Hotmail does today?” he asks. “Malware is already an issue for Skype and of course it’s a well known part of the Microsoft landscape,” he also notes.
How will it affect use across various platforms? Microsoft says it will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms. Still, this is a little vague, and considering how much head butting goes on between Microsoft and Google, it wouldn’t be an enormous shock to see some issues raised in this area in the future.
On reassuring the continued support of other platforms, Steve Ballmer said at the press conference, “I said it and I mean it. We will continue to support non-Microsoft platforms.”