FTC Approves Microsoft's Takeover of Skype

BigCorona writes "The US Federal Trade Commission said that it has approved Microsoft's $8.5 billion cash takeover of voice and video-over-IP provider Skype. Microsoft officially announced its intent to acquire Skype back on May 10 and since then users have been taking to Twitter to blame Microsoft for Skype's intermittent service. Now, with Reuters reporting that there has been antitrust approval of the deal, users will be able to turn to Microsoft when asking questions of Skype's sometimes-spotty service."

Comments

Skype's lifespan?

[Nynaeve70]

I wouldn't be surprised if people aren't forced to use Windows Live to access Skype and go through the msn messenger. I fully expect Skype to be dead very, very shortly.

Re:Skype's lifespan?

[jawtheshark]

Microsoft may be greedy and all, but that's very unlikely. Skype has been a consumer-oriented technology trying to upsell to companies (a bit like the anti virus companies of the day yonder). Expect this to be available to all Windows versions, except perhaps "Starter". However, expect it only to be available for Windows 7. Linux support will be lackluster (it wasn't already stellar in the first place) and be abandoned because of "lack of interest". The OS X version will be maintained but will always be feature wise behind and Apple will simply start a competing technology.

What I could see, is that it gets bundled with Microsoft Office or so... Under the guise of "collaboration" tool.

Re:Will Skype soon have problems like Hotmail?

[Dracos]

Will Skype become the Zune of VOIP?

No, because Skype is popular.