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Microsoft Buying Skype for $8.5B
Approximately one trillion readers wrote in to tell us that there is a big rumor that Microsoft is buying Skype. This follows an earlier rumor that the
suitor was Facebook. Unsurprisingly many people are already wondering what it would mean for Linux users of the popular VoIP platform. Many major publications are running versions of the story.
This brings a whole new meaning to the popular phrase "We're going to skype you in the ass!"
Congrats Ballmer and Team Microsoft! You go girl!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
So what's a good alternative to Skype that works cross-platform? I use Skype with Linux and Android connecting to Mac and Windows users. Is Jitsi a reasonable solution?
[Insert pithy quote here]
According to the Beeb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13343600
Gnu phone anyone ?
"wondering what it would mean for Linux users" - It means you're fucked! Sadly.
Jonathanjk.com
that they could loose a piece of closed source software? That must have some comic value.
And here I was thinking I had submitted a great story! Anyways, I use Linux primarily, and skype often with family members. I hope I don't have to re-setup everything as a result of discontinued compatibility. It's doubtful that they would continue to support versions of linux. I can see them supporting apple software as they do for Office, but I'd be willing to bet linux users will be hung out to dry.
Does it uninstall cleanly?
Turning the Living Room into a video conference room is what will get the grandparents to buy an Xbox, similar to the way photo-sharing through e-mail got The Folks online to begin with.
Come for the remote grandkid interaction, stay for the streaming music and video...
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/presskits/corpnews/
Live webcast 8am PDT.
Wow - all the Linux people spreading the FUD this time around. Ever stop to think that maybe, JUST MAYBE, MS is buying it for the tech, looking to expand on what's already there, being able to use their existing infrastructure to better the service, while adding it to the Xbox 360 (and future consoles), all the while, continuing development of all the versions already existing?
Or are all you Linux fanbois just gonna dump Skype because it's owned by MS now, and you're leaving due to "principle" - i.e. being retarded?
Not just linux users either. Mobile users except for those with Windows phones are probably fucked too, the android skype users almost certainly.
Microsoft already has the technology necessary in their own audio/video/text Windows Live Messenger platform. So I don't think it's about that. And yes, I feel sorry for the Skype staff today -- I don't think this move bodes well for them at all. Their competence may not be what Microsoft is looking for here.
And as for other reasons, the paying customer base (compared to the non-paying WLM user base) of Skype could perhaps be attractive to Microsoft. Keep in mind that Skype is running with losses despite all these users, though.
In the end, taking all these thoughts together, I can only imagine that this is a risky move by Microsoft. I think they are hoping for awesome synergy effects from some forthcoming integration with their products. I assume something big, and no minor idea, since it needs to pay these $8.5 billion and more.
My first idea was integrating this with Windows Phone 7 (8? 9?) to get phone calls at data rates, but I have no idea how they'll going to get the providers to accept that. That would be a feat as grand as Steve Jobs getting the music companies to sign on to iTunes back in the days, if not greater.
Otherwise... Hmm, someone mentioned Xbox or Kinect integration to communicate with others with these devices... Well that's a thought but why shouldn't they be able to just implement that feature with their Live network? Write a WLM client for these - done. No $8.5 billion wasted.
Not sure if there are other ideas about where MS may be going with this?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I always found Skype to be an annoying piece of shit. I get far too much spam from Skype. MSFT deserves them.
Sig?! Sig?! We don't need no stinking sig!!
The last thing we need is for facebook to get any bigger. I'd rather see Microsoft at the top than a MS/google/FB split.
A convicted monopolist buys out an effective monopoly in a related market? There is pretty much *no* reason for them to be buying Skype other than to abuse the monopoly they have. Coming so soon after the Nokia fiasco it is clear that Microsoft is still as shady as it has ever been and needs to be reigned in.
Finally, the last company who resisted in opening their encryption protocol falls into US hands.
Skype made many governments around the world very unhappy.
Now, Skype being US based joins gmail. yahoo, facebook and other intelligence gathering tools.
Basically skype seems to have a *whole* lot of traction/brand recognition. MS wants to control that to prop up their struggling mobile phone play (read: screw over iOS/Android/etc users). Torpedoing Linux support will probably be just side-effect.
My hope is that MS has the causative relationship reversed. Skype is ubiquitous because they endeavour to work on all devices. If Skype becomes an Xbox/Windows/Windows Phone play, I expect their subscriber base to evaporate.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
According to the press release itself: "Microsoft will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms." However, this is Microsoft, and we know how they operate. This is unlikely to be anything but a ploy to avoid objections from the authorities to the purchase. Once it is too late to stop it, I predict not a single update will go into the Linux and Android versions, and the Mac and iPhone versions will lag behind in features. So the question is what alternatives there are now.
Another question is what Google, Facebook and Cisco will do now. If I were on the board of any of them, I'd certainly be pushing for pooling resources to create a joint venture to compete with Skype on all fronts. Could set up quite the consortium for the money they intended to spend buying Skype themselves.
Interesting times.
I suspect this is a preemptive strike by MS to stop Facebook snagging Skype, for which it would be an excellent fit. Facebook and its tasty, tasty advertising
------
beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
My experience is that almost everything Microsoft touches is unpleasant for everyone else. My guess is that Skype will become the Zune, the Vista, and the Windows ME of voice communication. Microsoft is run by a CEO with little or no interest in technical things, so even if the company wanted to do something good for users, it wouldn't know what that is.
We need an open-source alternative.
If Skype is longer supported on linux and mac based platforms... then it would create a void which others would gladly fill. Already it has competitors commercially (mostly in the conferencing space). Also it seems that Skype has a proprietary protocol.. so others messengers cannot be used to communicate with Skype users. Of course this means, some Skype users on windows might also make a shift.. if all their buddies are on other platforms and can't get on Skype.. So it would be wise for them to continue to provide Skype for all platform even if not the latest version..
The last person to mod me down is a rotten egg..... there.. that should do it..
But, I just don't see it....
What are they going to do, integrate it with Windows? Use it as a protocol as part of Office Communicator? Office Communicator uses SIP though (Funnily enough for MS an external standard), so unless they are going to gateway it.... At this point, it just makes more sense to buy a license to the protocol, and not the whole company. Flip the coin to the other side of the fence (To the customer side) and do you think they want to have their bandwidth used as part of the P2P network which is Skype?
I could SORTA see Google using it to expand their reach of Google Voice, but still, given the amount of money that they have, why not go for organic growth, just advertise it and and wait?
Unfortunately, I just don't see the point in Skype when talking about alll this. I see them as basically the ICQ or AIM of voice platforms, sure loads of people use / used it, but at the end of the day the protocol for communication is proprietry. Nearly everyone is embracing XMPP in same shape or form, whether using it internally or externally or both. Hell, Cisco BOUGHT Jabber. This allows people to easily create federations, to automatically connect to users from other domains etc etc.
Someone want to tell me where the synergy is here? Why this is a great idea?
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
I characterized this as a choice between the "old evil" and the "new evil" (fully acknowledging my bias against both companies...) Would the /. community be more comfortable with Skype as a Facebook product?
one trillion readers
Did not write in, because slashdot has never had anywhere near that many readers. And considering the current volume here, even one thousand might be stretching it. Sure its big news that Skype is being sold, but why would several orders of magnitude more people than the number who actually read and post here suddenly climb over each other to write this piece of news in to this particular site?
In other words, to quote the slashdot conservative hero who interrupted the state of the union address a couple years ago:
YOU LIE
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This is good news if it means Facebook and Google not buying it. I'd much rather have Microsoft own them than risk my privacy with Facebook and Google.
Maybe it won't be so bad. Hotmail isn't half bad since Microsoft bought them (was a Hotmailer before it was Microsoftized).
My hat is off to them
First they sucker eBay into buying them for a lot of money. Then eBay eventually figures out that it was a mistake and sells it back for chump change.
Now they've sold it M$ for even more money. The folks in Redmond will phase the management team out in a year or so (but they're happy and rich so they won't care.) Then they'll let the product drift for a bit and eventually it will be assimilated into their portfolio of OK-to-mediocre products and become part of the load of crap software that comes pre-installed on PCs. That will insure that they have a lot of users. How they will monetize it remains to be seen.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Has Microsoft's reputation with the public sunk to such a low point where they are now forced to acquire other Internet companies in a desperate attempt to expand Microsoft's internet/Live customer base by proxy?
Oracle buys sun and then slowly shuts down OpenOffice. MS buys Skype and will slowly (probably rapidly more like) shutdown Linux support. What other useful apps are there that offer cross platform support for Linux and can be wiped out by simply buying the company? Dropbox next?
With the Microsoft/Ford collaboration, what if Microsoft built Skype into the next version of their car software?
Could Microsoft be looking for a 'great convergence' of voice between cell phones, computers, cars, TVs/consoles (Xbox), etc? They have the smarts, but do they have the business vision to pull this off? And if they do, how open/closed would the resulting system be?
Patent Portfolio.
This looks like a move to BLOCK Facebook and/or Google expansion into this area. And when either of these companies move in anyhow, out come the lawsuits.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Hey, don't forget that many, if not most of Microsoft's most successful products started out as acquisitions. That includes Office and IE. So buying a product and Microsoftizing it is nothing new for Redmond.
...instead of AT&T buying T-Mo to monopolize the GSM market in the US.
If MS is so bent on being a big player in the smartphone world, it would've made sense for them to own their own wireless carrier network too.
Quick, if all of us put in our 0.01 cents on this we can still outbid Microsoft!
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
But then maybe this will spur the development of better FOSS alternatives.
That said, I still threw up in my mouth a little bit. This is awful news. Mark my words: Skype will be integrated into Internet Explorer 12 and thus rendered unusable by anyone running Mac / Linux / anything other than Windows. And it won't work well on Windows.
The horror.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
"wondering what it would mean for Linux users" - It means you're fucked! Sadly.
MS is probably not very interested in the Linux users as a market. They recently stepped into the phone market with Nokia... phone business might be the thing on their minds, not those few Linux desktop users. Especially on the shorter term, they may actually keep up linux compatibility because of the phone business.
Only if they think they have a chance to sell windows to linux users will they try to deliberately screw them with their other products.
I think that it's far more likely that MS is trying to screw everybody, not just linux users. I think we'll be seeing a lot more paid services on Skype soon.
Microsoft could still drop Linux support and still say they have cross platform support. (just not all platforms). it is likely they they would be praised for doing this by their business peers. The move being seen as making the company more profitable by cutting away some of those less efficient parts of the company. a new Linux VOIP provides will show up eventually. we will just have to wait another few years. :(
I think this is a dagger aimed at the heart of cisco.
With Skype / MS integration MS can now sell business phones to companies for internal / call center use and if I run my own "MSkype" infrastructure I don't need to worry about skype not working well over RFC1918 space. And heck, MS can sell or run their own for-profit MSkype POTS gateways and drive revenue that way too.
Cisco's getting pressure from cheap switch vendors (junky unmanaged switches from newegg), inexpensive switch vendors (HP/3com), the high end network vendors (juniper), and now they've got a strong competitor in the unified communications space.
And this gives MS a foot in the "internet / social / bah" space as well. But the money's in enterprise voice.
This is a much better fit than google / facebook / yahoo / ebay / etc owning skype. I wouldn't trust a box from any of those vendors in my network, while I already have to have MS boxes to run my systems. And AD integration is also a huge win for skype.
So bravo microsoft. Well played.
I heard Microsoft is buying Canonical for $6 billion!
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
IE certainly did but they give that away for free and its still losing marketshare every day.
But Office? I think they wrote most of that themselves, though no doubt they used some libraries and contributions from various places they took over, I think we have to say that Office is "theirs".
From what I see, most of their acquisitions turn out to be dumb ideas, either for MS or the people getting taken over. I made a list on the The Register of some of the software they got via takeovers and most of it was stuff that I abandoned at almost exactly the same time, even if I didn't know it was an MS product by then.
Good god, for people who complain about FUD all the time, you're doing one heck of a job by doing the exact same thing.
Go on, mod me "troll" or whatever.
Microsoft won't shut off Mac and Linux on day 1, of course. They'll simply let those clients go unmaintained, and then one day there will be a message "Your version of the Microsoft(R) Skype(TM) Client is too old; please upgrade to the latest version to enjoy all of our Innovative(TM) new features!" but the new version will only be available for Windows. Bye bye Skype; it's been fun, but you suck now. Google Chat will be my new videoconferencing program.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Wikipedia says:
The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an IETF-defined signaling protocol, widely used for controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol (IP). The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party (unicast) or multiparty (multicast) sessions consisting of one or several media streams. The modification can involve changing addresses or ports, inviting more participants, and adding or deleting media streams. Other feasible application examples include video conferencing, streaming multimedia distribution, instant messaging, presence information, file transfer and online games.
*That's* the alternative.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/04/department-of-justices-long-oversight-of-microsoft-to-end.ars
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word seems they got Charles Simonyi, the primary developer of Bravo, the first GUI word processor which was developed at Xerox PARC. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan seems to be in house
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
is the migration from PostgreSQL to MSSQL! It's gonna be fun to watch with some popcorn!
Microsoft remains on the bleeding edge of innovation with its completely new-from-the-ground-up Windows Bing Voice(tm) Internet phone platform, formerly known as Skype.
Windows Bing Voice(tm) was developed entirely in-house at an acquisition cost of only $8.5 billion. "Our developer teams know the meaning of confidentiality," said Steve Ballmer. "Heck, even they didn't know it was Skype until today. That's how, uh, stealth we are."
The new Windows Bing Voice(tm) client will be included with Windows Phone 7, Office 365, Kin and Zune. "Microsoft will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms! On a case by case time and availability basis, of course. We'll give our Mac Business Unit developer details for Windows Bing Voice(tm) 2011 Ultimate Edition by 2013, for sure."
Service is expected to remain "at 100%" as the server infrastructure is moved from Linux to Windows, though Microsoft has not specified what that will be 100% of. The peer-to-peer functionality of Skype will also be harnessed to distribute Windows Updates(tm) and Windows Genuine Advantage(tm) serial number blacklists.
Google said that the Google Voice servers were "holding up well" under the influx of new users.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Yes. Microsoft has been buying business for a long time. This is also helps with microsoft's patent trolling business.
But Office? I think they wrote most of that themselves, though no doubt they used some libraries and contributions from various places they took over, I think we have to say that Office is "theirs".
I believe a lot of the Office devs were originally IBM devs.
-- Linux user #369862
How many loss-leaders can MS sustain? They must be pretty low in the water by this stage.
Now Microsoft needs to buy Apple (and later Ebay) and that's it, the quest for domination will be complete.
You can't handle the truth.
I doubt that M$ have "a master plan" in this.
I suspect it is simply another reaction to the idea of Google ( and Facebook) eclipsing their dominance.
They are getting pretty desperate.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
I hope this bad idea of a piece of software dies off as a consequence.
Skype is an intentionally obfuscated and actively 3rd party inaccessible (by means of frequent protocol changes) communications software that really wrecked things in a market that just had agreed on standards and interoperability with SIP and co.
They could have made their arguably "superior" software GUI client primarily for the standardized protocol - but did not. If this now dies and someone else does it right instead, that's for the better.
Skype also is one of the few pieces of software that is really annoying to control on a network, worse than a lot of malware is. Too much by-passing and obfuscating trickery. You cannot just block or traffic shape it specifically, no you have to really block / traffic shape almost everything. This isn't right.
And then the constant history of software bugs. Be it in the client itself or in browser toolbars - it was a mess, so far. And it also doesn't help that updates to its own protocol as well as changes that happened in the Linux ecosystem specifically were horribly slow.
1. I'm reading a lot of people saying that the Skype client for other platforms is doomed. I think this depends on how MS plans to monetize Skype, if they go for ads, they will need audience, so neglecting Android would be a bad idea (The Linux client is crap anyway)
2. Am I the only one here who thinks that Skype is grossly overpriced? EBay must be banging his head against the wall by now.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
There are dozens of decent VoIP apps out there
It is long possible to clone skype using p2p and open source. In fact even the financial incentives of several voip providers are there. Maybe this is the catalyst for them to do it. Yes there are similar apps already, but clearly something is missing, or skype wouldn't be what it is.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Is it just me or is Microsoft wildly overpaying for Skype? Seems like another in a long line of decisions by Microsoft to destroy shareholder value. If they took half of the money they spent to grow their business and just doled it out to shareholders, everyone would have been better off.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I live in a country with pronouns
Here is the problem with Ekiga: it is completely unreliable on Windows, and still very much "Beta" on GNU/Linux. When it works, it works...but more often than not, I feel like I fighting against the tide to keep Ekiga operational. Now, for a bunch of neckbeards like myself, that is OK -- perhaps when I have time, I will even submit a patch -- but when my mother sees Ekiga exploding like that, she just says, "Why aren't we using Skype?"
Palm trees and 8
..goes the neighborhood.
My prediction: M$ will slip and fall in the greasy vomit of its bastard offspring, and by 2017 will only exist as a genre of humor. Right on schedule*.
* In 1997, I gave them 20 years to live.
So, what are currently the best SIP free (as in beer) SIP clients for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X? It's been a long time since I looked into this. On Linux, these projects look promising: http://icanblink.com/ http://sflphone.org/
Is it a coincidence that federal antitrust oversight of Microsoft expires May 12, 2011?
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2011/04/28/doj-will-let-microsoft-antitrust-oversight-expire-in-may/
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/04/department-of-justices-long-oversight-of-microsoft-to-end.ars
yet another piece of great software that will get the seal of death placed on it that some call the windows logo.
within 6 months it'll be called "Windows Live Chat" and no one will use it because Microsoft will have managed to break it somehow not to mention I'm sure your call will be interrupted every 30 seconds to play an advertisement ...
QUIT RUINING THINGS MICROSOFT! ... just go away
SIP can integrate to a PABX, run a whole PABX server, it's set into hardware phones grandma can use, make voice and video calls, get better calling rates than Skype, even get free calls to more numbers than Skype. enum, inum, peering, etc, are moving towards integrating all the voip networks into a single numbering system. Poof, both skype and the phone system will become obsolete, phone calls will cost no more than email.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
No one seems to comment on the fact that Microsoft could finally do what Android and iOS have so far been unable to: provide a large, widely adopted VOIP platform on mobile phones. Microsoft has enough clout to strike deals with carriers to finally allow this to happen, so it may not be all bad, this deal..
It makes no sense for MS to not support Skype on Linux and Mac moving forward. This is not MS Office where they can leverage it to force people onto their OS. As much as it may pain some people to hear, Skype & consumer VOIP is a VERY small revenue stream. The real money is in the enterprise side of the fence. CAL's and Server licenses. the best example is the MS AV offering. They give the consumer part away for free and charge for Business CAL's and servers.
What makes more sense is to bundle Skpye access and federation into their LYNC offerings, similar to how they federate their IM client to MSN. Millions of people already use Skype. By putting an enterprise level Skype connectivity ability onto the LYNC servers, they give medium to large sized companies the ability to do customer service and sales over Microsoft's VOIP system, and gives them an install base of consumers to feed the need and justify the cost on the Enterprise side.
Frankly I think it is a brilliant move on their part. If they combione Lync and Skype and keep all platforms up to dat eon the client side, it will get them good will from the governments of the EU and US, and give them something to point at when they say they are multiplatform. The beautiful part (from a business standpoint I mean) is they can then force companies to have to have CAL's to integrate with their internal VOIP systems for users who want to use mobile skype at the enterprise level (versus using skype for business like they have to do today), aand sell the federation to public and peer to peer skype as a server offering with the license cost to boot.
Now let's watch Microsoft drive it into oblivion.
Any ideas what this means for Skype's future involvement in the development of the Opus codec? I think the SILK patents are already irrevocably taken care of, but will Skype still be developing and promoting an open-source codec under its new overlords?
That is all
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Through informal social networks, inside of and outside of the cloud, the crowd has taken a proactive idea shower and are migrating away from 'Game Changer'. The crowed is opting to drill down to the actual meaning they want to express, and conveying it with standard corpus. :)
MS Kinect can expand the market for the Xbox
"A lot of the open-source stuff ... simply doesn't work correctly, unless you're doing simple stuff ... Hence the need to have MS Office on your machine."
And ... this is why twenty years later we can't wholesale ditch Windows. There are a hundred thousand little cases of this one act play in existence. It's so bad you can make a grid of it.
A. Proprietary Windows copy of something is very good. People do work on it.
B. Desire to use something other than Windows arises, aka a flavor of Linux.
C. Try to switch out all the proprietary programs for their OSS alternatives.
D. Encounter enough that are half baked because OSS Devs have a fatal weakness in the Fit & Finish department.
E. Declare "Not Ready" and return to Windows.
So yes, I WILL use a Half Baked copy of something if that is the last link in the chain preventing me from ditching Windows.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I can imagine some people at Google have a smile on their face. As Microsoft tries to get people to move to MS platforms by making Skype MS only, the competitors in that arena will be able to move in and grab the market. I think Google is well positioned to take on that business.
I'm wondering how much of that $8.5 billion price is simply the customer base and not the technology? Does Skype even have any technology (or patents maybe) that couldn't be quickly replicated? Customers can be lost practically overnight, and Microsoft is notorious for dropping support to 'focus' on the Microsoft only components.
Perhaps the long game by MS is to bring down the revenue of the major phone companies with calls routed over the internet rather than their networks. In that way they could no longer afford to subsidize iPhones and so they could not compete with 'value' phones from MS/Nokia.
Facebook and it's tasty lack of privacy.
And yes, there is Ekiga for Windows. I'm really shocked this isn't brought up more. Even if there turn out to be issues, slashdot seems to be overlooking this obvious alternative to skype.
While it goes against the whole anti-Microsoft bent here, better them than Facebook. Microsoft buying Skype means I have to watch for changing terms of service, functionality and quality. Facebook buying Skype, on the other hand, would mean I have to clear my contact lists, replace my personal information with gibberish, uninstall Skype, burn my computer, and conduct ritual cleansing over the ashes.
So this means we say goodbye to the Linux and OS X version.
...it's the only real alternative.
Just find some provider who has the combo or roll your own.
Until we get a client that can pierce almost any firewall (like Skype does), we are not going anywhere. Any VoIP implementation that requires you to configure router/firewall/access point will fail. I do hate Skype sometimes for using every dirty trick to get around firewall restrictions, but it gets the job done. I'm not certain but I think Skype will run even if only port 80 is open and tunnel everything via HTTP if that's what needed. It will even work if DNS is broken.
--Coder
It might sound like an obvious alternative it isn't really very useful. For example at my university network all UDP traffic to internet is blocked and so are incoming TCP connections. If people want to use ekiga here they need to get some party to proxy all their traffic over TCP.
Balmer needs to prove he's at last as inferior of a CEO as Meg Whitman
It makes sense, if they want to bolster Windows OS sales. Integrate Skype into the OS, then drop the other platforms. Business folk will whine because everything else is incompatible with the easy to use integrated Skype, more OS sales.
Well at least that's MS logic there.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Well it was a good program.... Guess apple will have to make facetime for windows and linux now. it's better video quality anyway. Just cant call landlines, which is a bummer... Damn microsoft. Always messing up a good thing.
http://www.voipbuster.com/
It has been working perfectly for me for quite some years. You don't have to use their voip client either, they provide all the details for use with your favorite voip client.
One thing voip always sucked was at NAT transversal, but with I had success at some random wifi networks by just using STUN and the voipbuster provided proxy.
Google Voice/Talk/Gmail Chat/ works excellently and is built on open protocols. XMPP, ulaw, etc. There are some proprietary extensions but they are documented or at least have been reverse-engineered. It works with Asterisk. It could be made to work with other Open Source clients easily enough. I have it set up to ring normal phones here.
Bruce Perens.
The likely response from Apple will be to shut it out of their iOS devices right? Anyone tried Messenger on iOS? It stinks. It's buggy. I'm not looking forward to Skype getting raped by MS.
microsoft hopes that integrating a popular voip plugin with office will add more users to the group that say things like, "we need to have an exchange server?".
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I'll take "Not Getting It" for 8.5 billion dollars.
Alex: This company recently decided to buy a competing product that is superior to theirs simply because they don't own it.
Who is Microsoft?
Alex: I would have also accepted "Who is Retarded?" What will be your next play?
Um.... I'll take "Heaping Money into a Shredder" for 8.5 billion dollars.
In all seriousness, the services Skype offers are not difficult to offer as well. And, Windows Messenger-esque programs have been around far longer than Skype. They had plenty of time to do what Skype does before Skype existed. They didn't. Why? They're Microsoft. Buying a successful product won't bring you success if you've demonstrated a total failure to understand your own potential before you lost to the competition. To this day Windows Live Messenger still can't compete with Skype in any way, so they STILL don't get it. Oh, I know it's Microsoft bashing, and I know if it were some other company, I wouldn't care. But that's because Microsoft is the anti-innovator, and they're buying an innovative product. It just won't last. The successor to Skype will come along shortly. Even if it's identical to Skype in every way, and even if Skype stays Skype and doesn't become Windows Live Skype-Messenger, I know half of all Skype users will jump to it just because hating Microsoft is cool.
I'll be waiting, ready to click/tap uninstall. Internet, do your thing.
Not that I liked Skype a whole lot, with its bugs, and intermittent audio problems,
but it was available for Linux. Now that the product has changed hands,
and as others have pointed out... probably for the worse...
I want a refund on my unused money that they have on account for me.
Heck... for all we know, Microsoft bought them for the pre-paid 'cash on account'
rather than the technology!
Skype + .NET = Skynet?
When are we going to abandon the antique legacy structure known as a decimal addressed circuit switched telephone network and just start doing all voice communication purely over IP with IP addresses at each end point? We would not need Skype or anything else to communicate if we have this. Of course, for now, we won't have easy mobility (have to find an open wifi somewhere). But if we make this work on IP, and have enough people using it, it will get the attention of greedy people. And then, without them realizing what it all means, they will build services to provide mobile access to support it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Here's my wild-ass conspiracy theory. I'm gonna link back to this post if/when it's proven true.
Skype discovered that Apple's Facetime violates their patent(s), and MS bought Skype so that they can sue Appple and cripple the iPhone. This improves Windows Phone's position in the marketplace (which, BTW, finally gets a skype client thanks to this deal).
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
"My first idea was integrating this with Windows Phone 7 (8? 9?) to get phone calls at data rates, but I have no idea how they'll going to get the providers to accept that."
They accepted the Skype app for iPhone, the FaceTime app for iPhone, and Skype-based phones like the ZTE F102.
FFS, I just installed it last week! *facepalm*
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Skype just locked in its place as the next Internet Explorer: Microsoft's attempt at locking-in users. Time to find a real standard for this sort of thing.
If enough people dislike monopolies and act together, there would be none. We should be organized enough. We have tools for debate, forming opinions, and implementing alternatives. What we dont have, is the actual serious debate.
I propose we all switch to standards, SIP, and extend it where necessary. XMPP perhaps.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I don't see why putting 8.5 billion out there was required for that... I'm sure that Skype or Facebook would've gladly written XBL and WinPhone support for much much less.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Scrutiny...without a doubt.
Skype already is a closed standard with almost no interopability. Alternatives are already needed.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Uggh am gonna be siiick... why can't their 3rd buyer be a company with good karma?
Or, if you prefer daleks, EXTERMINATE!!!!
I'm going to start tracking GNU Free Call. Open AND decentralized. The world needs something like this.
Further abuse of their illegally gained monopoly to subvert the free market.
So long Linux support.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-buys-skype-for-85-billion-creates-new-business-division/9406?tag=nl.e539
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException at Sig.setCleverSig(Sig.java:42)
they're buying the brand and subscriber base....
I think alot of this has to do with building up a positive brand image of MSFT...making it less boring and better known to the upcoming generation...
they're already on that path with XBOX, Kinect, Ford Sync, Bing...and now Skype.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
On the video press conference - here at 1 hour 18 mins, Ballmer's asked about multi-platform. He mentions Office on Apple, and mentions Apple a couple of times - but didn't mention Linux or Android. He said it was important, but I'm not sure I'm sold. "I said it, and I mean it, we'll continue to support non-Microsoft"... followed by "Two, we're one of the few companies with a track record of actually doing this". So he kinda shot himself down a bit.
Jitsi is by far the best alternative - open source / video / win / linux / mac
Lets all be tech about it.
Microsoft could jist be flaunting the world's largest privately corporate cash deposit and doing this to play chess with fb. So for atarters, they might not really care about the future of skype: therefore why delete your old client?
Because the resulting netwprk might end up being ms-style insecure as in who wants crabs and or blackmail insecure.
What should we do? We still want skype. Wahh
Omg for real? It's suddenly impossible to get together and code it how it should've been from the beginning? Namely: open source, community coded, dynamically distributable voice and video conferencing?
The only thing not distributable in the scheme is identity. Help me out why you identify through skype in the first Place. It doesn't eeven help, its just a convenience. Nobody should know your videoconferencing id who's not a friend in a distributed model. It'd be like having the credit card number to your face.
The rest is easy. What am i talking about, what's to distribute? Get online, find your current ip, set up other programs to send the client an ip argument from whatever, clicking an email, clicking a nude, who cares. Interface TO the client ( don't embed it ) and demand more flexibility from your apps. For the long haul translate ips into little character strigs since no average user seems able to tell their pal that morning's assigned IP but can tell all their pals and enemies their tinyurl.
Then voila you securely replace the proprietary model wee whoopty doo. It would take less thought or work than:
Open source community coded astronomy sim
Open source " " racing sim
" " " " golf sim
" " " " any other also by-the-book program that actually includes physics
Get real
I dont even use skype
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Catch what he followed it with, though. I believe him.
"We love Windows and we love Windows Phone and the Xbox, and we are going to do all of the work together to optimize these ... but fundamental to the value proposition of communications is to reach everybody whether they are on your device or not. In fact it will be one of our competitive advantages," he said.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Its recommended by the Guardian 'secure Android' project: https://guardianproject.info/apps/
I know this thread is dead meat by now.. but just a suggestion.
Maybe it's time to donate cash or skills to one of these projects.
Heck, I'm up for a challenge and technically literate, if not elite.
The biggest challenge is getting past the "brand". If M$ changes the
name, it'll be easy to create and fund an alternative that could give
them a run for their money.. I had a paid subscription to Skype
for years. The Linux client, although pretty hackish, worked
and was my primary means of long distance voice coms. I'd be
willing to pay someone other than M$ for that again.
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
Dont understand why, It's common knowledge that enterprise license agreements are MS's bread and butter. The amount the get from OEM's is pocket money, that's why MS charge Asus less for a Win 7 pro OEM then they do for 1 years Win 7 Pro OL (Open License) in most cases.
This is probably a ideological decision rather then a business one.
:mac products MS produce. MS hate Linux so support will be dropped as soon as the regulatory agencies aren't looking. Skype on IOS and Android, forget about it. Unlike OSX v Windows, IOS and Android are real competitors to Windows Phone x and have significant market share. I expect Skype for Android to be depreciated immediately as it's not very far along in development and Skype for IOS to be gimped and then depreciated over time.
Skype on Mac, maybe. With about half as much support as other
Android will be fine, Google just needs to open up Google Voice to the rest of the world but IOS, facetime doesn't cut it as it's IOS to IOS only effectively cutting off access to 90% of the userbase (PC and Phone)
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Well, they thought up The Ribbon themselves.
You mention SIP or Ekiga to anyone, you get blank stares, but everyone knows Skype. They were first and are biggest, and better alternatives like ....oh, what's its name, started with an S, got bought out by Logitech....well, anyway, you get everyone crowding to a big "thing" and all the rest shrivel to a distant fanbase. Like Facebook vs. all the rest of the social sites. Like Windows vs. Linux. Google vs. Bing.
People need to be taught the meaning of open source and standardization.
Sky + .net = SKYNET!
http://img.imgur.com/yvtdc.png
But your note regarding the living room seems to me to be a pureplay to keep games alive. .002
M$ interests, reflected in Nokia/WinMo/GPS/Skype
all points to their continuing push to entrench themselves in the automotive market
my
resist propaganda
Great, just when I thought all was ok, with skype being my main comm app....now M$ buys them out, and will start chargin for us to use it.
Just great....here comes ventrilo!
...possible future plans to make skype for business avail just to OCS?
I've just received this from Digium:
(..omissis..)
Skype for Asterisk will not be available for sale or activation after July 26, 2011.
Skype for Asterisk was developed by Digium in cooperation with Skype. It includes proprietary software from Skype that allows Asterisk to join the Skype network as a native client. Skype has decided not to renew the agreement that permits us to package this proprietary software. Therefore Skype for Asterisk sales and activations will cease on July 26, 2011.
This change should not affect any existing users of Skype for Asterisk. Representatives of Skype have assured us that they will continue to support and maintain the Skype for Asterisk software for a period of two years thereafter, as specified in the agreement with Digium. We expect that users of Skype for Asterisk will be able to continue using their Asterisk systems on the Skype network until at least July 26, 2013. Skype may extend this at their discretion.
(..omissis..)